Phan is first Vietnamese-American fighter in UFC

NAM PHAN should be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer. According to him, it's just what Asians are bred to do.

He shouldn't be a fighter. But he is, and he's never felt more alive.

When Phan, 28, takes on fellow featherweight Mike Brown in a UFC 133 undercard bout Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center, he will already be a success story. As the first Vietnamese-American athlete in the UFC, Phan is out to become a fighter whom a new genre of young Asian fight fans will want to emulate.

"Look, man, it's a fact that people look at Asians in this country and they know we can excel as a lawyer or a doctor - but physically we aren't that gifted," Phan said in a phone interview Monday. "There are very few top Asian athletes, singers and actors, but mainly because there is so much pressure from family to be engineers and doctors."

"My parents come from the old country. I'm talking pre-Vietnam War Vietnam. Opportunities and resources were very scarce, and the formula was always go to school, get a degree and get a good job. Well, I hated school. I consider myself street smart, and turns out I was right."

Phan tried but could never follow the guidelines that were mapped out for him well before he was born. His parents fled South Vietnam in 1975. Phan told the story of how, in his parents' efforts to seek refuge in Malaysia, their getaway boat was fired upon by Vietnamese soldiers. He said both his mother and father were shot but survived. Not long after that they left Malaysia and came to the United States, settling in the northern part of Orange County, in California.

"I want to specify the northern part of Orange County, not the cushy one you see with all the surfers and girls in bikinis on MTV," Phan said. "They got [to America] and thought they were going to be safe and then my dad gets shot standing outside of a jewelry store and both of my brothers, Tan [34] and Khanh [32] have been victims of drive-by shootings . . . I've always thought that if there were more role models, there would be less crime."

In fact, Phan is the only member of his immediate family who isn't riddled with bullet holes. Mainly because he kept himself incognito and stuck to his favorite pastime: martial arts.

"You have to understand that where I grew up, living like a tough guy was attractive at the time," he said. "Girls like bad boys, right? But I guess that's why I never got girls because I was the nerdy one. My brothers were much older than me and while they were going clubbing, I was always home alone. They never knew that while they were out, they stressed my parents out. I said right then, 'I am not going to do that, I am just going to do martial arts.' "

Phan, who runs his own MMA training academy in Garden Grove, Calif., first saw a UFC fight when he was 19. It captivated him. So much so that while he was attending school full-time at Cal State-Fullerton, he was training and competing in amateur fights. With 40 credits left, he bailed on college to become a pro. To date, he has stacked up a 16-9 overall record, but is still looking for his first win in UFC. Against a fighter of Brown's pedigree, a win could give Phan more of what he truly desires: recognition.

"I hope that beating Mike Brown puts me somewhere on the map in the featherweight division," he said. "I don't know where on the map it'll put me, but I hope it moves me up a bit in the world. Mike has very few holes in his game; he's a former champ for a reason. But I am going out there to do my best.

"Basically, I see my career like this: In 10 years I'll be old, but I hope I made enough of an impact that I can be successful and help my academy, get more clientele and live off doing what I love to do . . . if I didn't do this, yeah, I'd probably be a lawyer or an engineer; and yes, I'd be rich, but I'd absolutely hate my life."