Roger Huerta's life: His toughest fight

Toward the end of an intense sparring session in the Augsburg wrestling room, Roger Huerta pushed harder, as beads of sweat poured down his scruffy face and two fighters took shots at him. The doggedness displayed by Huerta, an Ultimate Fighting Championship combatant, helped him survive homelessness, abandonment and abuse as a kid who knew more ZIP codes than a traveling salesman.

"I guess I'm good at what I'm doing because I've been doing it my whole life," Huerta said.

Huerta, a former Augsburg wrestler who needs three credits to graduate with a business management degree, has spent months preparing for his fight tonight against Kenny Florian as part of UFC 87 at Target Center. The card also will feature former Gophers wrestler Brock Lesnar.

Mixed martial arts -- which employs wrestling, boxing and various martial arts -- has helped Huerta become a budding star in the UFC. He will set himself up for a title shot if he wins tonight.

But as a child, survival, not stardom, was the only thing on Huerta's mind.

A tumultuous life

As Huerta tells his tale, he has to pause several times. He's doing everything in his power to move past the past, but he knows that his continuous success warrants more of these tell-all requests. Here's the 60-second version of Huerta's life story:

When he was 6, Huerta's parents split up after his father had an affair. His mother's mental state crumbled and he went to live with his father, Rogelio. But soon after, his mother, Lydia, took him from his father's home in Texas and brought him to El Salvador, a war-ravaged country at the time, where she eventually left him with his maternal grandparents.

His mother came back for him but couldn't take care of him, so she dropped him off at his father's home in Texas.

He was abused by his stepmother, and after a brief stay with his paternal grandparents in Mexico, his father, a drug addict by then, took him back, but he ultimately wound up on the streets at age 11. Then, Huerta joined a gang and "saw a lot of crazy things I shouldn't have seen."

"I'm not suicidal or anything, but if I were to die tomorrow, I'd be OK with it," he said. "Just because I think I've seen and lived on all avenues of the world. I've experienced about everything, from being to the lowest to being to the highest."

From there, Huerta bounced around various foster homes and friends' apartments. And he eventually found an English teacher at Crockett High School in Austin, Texas, where he wrestled. Jo Ramirez took a liking to him and was shocked when she learned Huerta's story.

"I didn't have a clue, and I still get mad and horrified every time I think about it," said Ramirez, who officially adopted Huerta, 25, six years ago. "You just feel really proud of him for having the grit."

She helped Huerta find Augsburg, where he wrestled for a year. But it didn't take Huerta long to figure out that his skills would be put to better use in the cage.

Finding MMA

Huerta took up Ultimate Fighting after his freshman year at Augsburg when he attended one of his teammates' amateur MMA fights. He then began training with former UFC middleweight champion Dave Menne.

Huerta has a 22-1-1 MMA record and, by all accounts, has every ingredient to dominate the sport and use his bilingual appeal to become a household name. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated last year.

If he wins his bout tonight, he'll earn a chance to fight current champion B.J. Penn for the 155-pound title and an opportunity to become a bona fide UFC superstar.

"I mean, this kid has it all," UFC announcer Mike Goldberg said during one of Huerta's recent fights. "The story. The childhood. The looks. The personality. He could own this UFC world if he continues to win fights."

If he stays.

Huerta has not kept quiet about his concerns over the way the UFC pays its fighters. Although top fighters get six-figure payouts per fight, Huerta said numerous potential headliners don't get the same treatment. That worries Huerta, who wants to finance Ramirez's retirement one day and continue to build up his charity for disadvantaged kids -- My Fight 4 Kids.

Although Huerta made about $40,000 for his last fight, he points to leagues, such as the NFL, that offer six-figure minimum annual salaries.

"It's not a lack of gratitude in Roger's mind," said Craig Cohen, Huerta's friend. "When he sees an injustice in the world, he feels like fighting that injustice."

Said Huerta: "I'm not in a suit and tie outside watching what's going on inside. My neck is really on the line."