Issue 136

December 2015

From sofa-surfing with no place to call home to bonus-hungry UFC prospect, Ray Borg has come a long way in less than two years

Ray Borg

UFC flyweight

UFC flyweight Ray Borg stumbled across MMA as a 13-year-old who wanted to impress the girls at high school. But the sport soon took a hold on him and he decided he would go to any lengths to make sure he could do it for a living – even if that meant he had to rely on friends to put a roof over his head.

Borg threw himself into training, leaving and breathing mixed martial arts full-time. But competing on regional shows pays a meager wage, and the Albuquerque, New Mexico native soon had to call on favors to see him through to his sixth fight.

 “I was nearly homeless while trying to pursue this career because my parents couldn’t help me. They were already having a hard time doing things for themselves. I was homeless for about two months before I fought for Legacy FC,” he says.

“I was living from couch to couch with my teammate and I almost broke down plenty of times because I didn’t know if I was going to make it. Most people think because I’m so young I have plenty of options but I don’t. It was make or break for me. The call from the UFC came about 15 minutes after I beat Nick Urso. I started crying in the back because I knew I this was my chance.

‘The Tazmexican Devil’ made his Octagon debut just 15 days later in April 2014, and although he lost the back-and-forth battle against Dustin Ortiz by split-decision, he believes his performance caught the eye of the UFC’s top brass. He showed he could hang with an experienced flyweight and justified the sacrifices he’d made to make it to the big show.

“Even though I lost, the Dustin Ortiz fight did a lot for me,” he says. “I believe I won the fight but I won’t sit here and complain about it because it was probably the best thing that could’ve happened to me in my career at the time. I was having a lot of mental setbacks. I was super young and fighting one of the top-ranked guys in the world. I didn’t know if I was ready for the fight.

“It was hard but it helped me out because I competed against one of the best flyweights in the world when I was just entering the sport and I wasn’t nearly as good as I am now. It gave me a really big boost of confidence.”

Now nine wins into his career, Borg has is one of the most highly-touted prospects to come out of the Duke City in some time. However, unlike most top talents from his hometown, he doesn’t train at the world-famous Jackson Wink MMA Academy. The 22-year-old’s fighting base is just a few blocks away at the Fit NHB gym. And he believes the talent at his camp is just as talented as its more acclaimed local rivals. 

“We’ve shown time and time again that we’re just as good as them. The guy that I beat to get into the UFC (Urso) was supposed to be the next big thing at flyweight from Jackson’s and I beat him. There is a rivalry there but I don’t really pay too much attention to it as I’m more focused on me and my teammates.

“The guys at Fit NHB are all homegrown fighters. We’ve all come from a tough background. We’re from New Mexico and we’re trying to make it in this sport. The majority of Jackson’s fighters are grown somewhere else and then go there.”

Borg has now won three straight fights, including two ‘Performance of the Night’ submissions. And despite his tender age, his streak in the burgeoning flyweight division has already generated buzz about a future clash with weight-class king, Demetrious Johnson. ‘Mighty Mouse’ has ruled 125lb with an iron fist for three years, but Borg has no fear about facing one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world.

He adds: “Going through all that s**t when I was younger means that the stuff ahead of me is nothing. It lets me know that I can overcome any obstacles in my way because of what I had to go through.

“I would class DJ as by far the best fighter on the roster because he’s very, very smart, but I feel like he can be beaten and I do see some flaws in his game. He doesn’t have many but he has a couple tiny ones and I can exploit them. 

“I don’t want to be like the other guys he’s fought. I don’t want people to applaud me because it was a close fight. I want to beat Johnson soundly. The title shot might come quicker than I expect, but if it happens, it happens. I want to go in there and beat Demetrious. When my time comes; I will do exactly that.”

Teenage prodigy

Good enough – old enough

Borg began his pro career just days after his 19th birthday and became one of the UFC’s youngest ever fighters aged 20. By the time he was old enough to buy a beer, he’d won his first Octagon fight and the first of two $50,000 ‘Performance of the Night’ bonus checks.