WEST CHESTER, Ohio -- If I'm about to die, the last thing I will see is former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin as he smiles at me.

A choke-out from Jorge Gurgel will bring sunny dreams about beaches. (Provided to SportsLine)

If I'm about to die, the last thing I will feel is UFC lightweight contender Jorge Gurgel as he tightens his arms around my neck and squeezes, squeezes, squeezes.

If I'm about to die, the last thing I will hear is Franklin asking Gurgel if anyone brought a camera to document this whole thing, because people in my position have been known to urinate all over themselves.

If I'm about to die, this was the dumbest idea of my life.

But if I'm about to die at least it won't take long. After four seconds, Gurgel squeezes one last time and the blood can no longer reach my brain and the well-lit gym starts to fade ...

• • •

"Hello? Hi. Hi! Hiiiiiii."

No. Shut up. Don't wake me yet, please? Someone turn off that alarm clock. I'm dreaming about an island and an ocean and --

"Hi!"

Oh. Right. Him. It's Gurgel. For the last five or 10 seconds he has been saying "hi" or "hello" as he waited for me to regain consciousness. At least, that's what he says he has been doing for the last five or 10 seconds. In reality he could have been doing anything he wanted to me, from drawing a moustache on my face to dressing me in a thong to whatever prank his mind could conjure. But I came here to get choked out by UFC fighter Jorge Gurgel because I trusted him -- trusted him with the biggest detail of all, not to kill me, and with any smaller detail that followed.

I wake up, and Gurgel and Franklin are smiling at me. Congratulations, Franklin tells me, you didn't wet yourself. He's a funny guy, Rich Franklin.

I don't feel like laughing. Getting choked out hurts. That's no revelation, right? What just happened is the closest thing I've ever had to a near-death experience, and let me tell you something: If my dream was any indication, the afterlife is somewhere on a beach. Don't believe me? Fine. Get choked out yourself. Have your own near-death vision or dream or whatever my brain was doing as I lay there, asleep, being summoned back to consciousness by Jorge Gurgel.

Why did I do it? Why did I leave my house on Saturday morning, drive 30 miles to Gurgel's JG Mixed Martial Arts Academy in West Chester and beg him to choke me out? The same reason my 9-year-old picks up snakes with his bare hands: stupid curiosity.

Since getting hooked on the sport after covering UFC 68 in person from Columbus, Ohio, in March, I've been in awe of the idea that two men walk into the octagon knowing full well that one of them could be carried out on a stretcher. There are multiple ways to lose, including judges' decision or knockout from punches or tapping out from pain. But fighters also can lose by being choked to unconsciousness, and if that happens they will leave the ring alive only if the referee quickly realizes the losing fighter is asleep, and if the winning fighter relaxes his death grip in time for blood to begin flowing to the brain.

To date no UFC fighter has died in the octagon. As far as I know, no UFC fighter has died in training, either. Gurgel is a submission master, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt whose 10-2 record includes five wins by choke. He's also a trainer, with a client base that includes Franklin. He's an expert. For me to die, something will have to go very wrong.

Right away, there's a change of plans. Gurgel thinks he's merely going to show me the rear-naked choke -- get behind me, slip a forearm under my chin and squeeze until I'm out -- but I tell him I want to feel it.

"OK," he says, "but when you feel yourself passing out, tap me on the arm."

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"I'm not tapping," I say.

"Rich!" Gurgel calls out to Franklin. "Come over here and meet this guy."

OK, so I'm an idiot. But I'm an idiot in good hands. Gurgel is going to choke me out. Franklin is going watch, and tell Gurgel when the deed is done. Who's going to give me mouth-to-mouth if it comes to that? I don't want to know. Ever.

It's over in a few seconds. Gurgel tells me to take off my glasses, sit on the mat -- no shoes allowed, he tells me, so leave my feet off the mat -- and relax. The heavily muscled, 160-pound Gurgel sits behind me, wraps what feels like a python under my chin, wraps another python around my head and starts to squeeze.

One instant I'm looking at Franklin and listening to the comment about the camera and the urination. The next I'm being awakened from my Caribbean dream. It was over so fast, I now understand why submitted UFC fighters awake and ask, "What happened?"

Thirty minutes later, I'm still at Gurgel's gym, sitting on a bench, watching him spar with Franklin. In a week Gurgel will fight Diego Saraiva at "UFC 73: Stacked" in Sacramento, Calif. Gurgel is fine-tuning his game, and it's fascinating to sit here behind the scenes and watch him and Franklin go at it. Also, though, I'm not sure I can drive home. Not yet.

What does it feel like after getting choked out? Your neck and Adam's apple hurt, of course. It's a brutal sore throat, and it lasts a few days. But that pain comes later. In the first few hours, it feels like you woke up too soon after taking a sleeping pill. You know you're going to be OK, but for now everything is cloudy. Your brain isn't quite where it ought to be. Twice in the ensuing two hours I lost a credit card, and no, I'm not joking.

As I sit there watching Gurgel and Franklin spar, I notice the four steps a person must climb to enter the octagon. I notice the sign on the fourth step, the last thing anyone reads before entering the chain-link fenced cage:

Fighters only.

Damn right.