Ed Herman can share a hundred stories about his early MMA career. There was the time a delayed flight forced a mad scramble and a fight with Nick Thompson just a few hours after his plane touched down in Ohio. There were the countless roadside motels that, according to Herman, would make even the most hardscrabble traveler think, “Man, that place looks sketchy.” There was the meager $200 paycheck for his first MMA fight, though it nearly matched his weekly construction-job paycheck, so it seemed like a windfall at the time. And there’s the time his trainer’s flight got mixed up and forced him to rent a car and drive across Texas to make Herman’s fight just in time. Back then, in the early 2000s (and well before MMA’s current boom), that was the life of an up-and-coming fighter. But now, more than seven years into a UFC career that has seen plenty of highs and some hefty paychecks, Herman is thankful for his current veteran status.