Issue 124

January 2015

Rising UFC 155lb star Myles Jury on being at the forefront of an MMA evolution.

I’m happy and delighted to be acknowledged as one of the next generation or new breed of mixed martial artists. I kind of always knew it would happen like this. You can see the rise of different athletes and different fighters to new levels over the years. 

You could certainly see it with Georges St Pierre when he broke through. He was so well-rounded. I felt like he was the first athlete that really took the three disciplines and took them to the top of the game. 

I want to take that one step further. I want to be able to blend them together like nobody has been able to and have my own style as well. I feel like I represent the sport, the UFC and myself very well. 

But being successful in MMA is much more than just being able to fight. You have to have your mind right also. If you are weak minded you are going to be weak in the body too. There is so much to learn. A lot of things interest me and I am just a curious person by nature. I feel like your brain is your number-one asset and one of your most under-used assets most of the time.

GSP was a big inspiration for me. I’ve always been a huge fan of him. I always liked watching him fight to see what type of gameplan he would implement after all the training he put in leading up to the fight. He beat so many great challengers throughout his career. It was amazing. 

I’m a fan of a lot of the champions. I keep my eye on all the champions and study their performances. After all, there’s a reason why they have the championship belts. Any championship fights, whether it be Jon Jones, José Aldo or whoever, I’m always interested in watching those fights.

It’s a given that I always enjoy watching my friends and training partners compete too. I enjoy following the evolution of my training partners – both in training and in competition – and their success inspires me to continue to push forward also.

I would say God is my biggest inspiration to fight, first. But besides him I’d say my training partners and my teams at Alliance and beyond are those who motivate me all the time. Guys like Michael Chandler, Jeremy Stephens, Dominick Cruz – my overall team. They motivate me to strive to get better.

Jeremy Stephens, by the way, has got the heaviest hands of them all. He’s a smaller guy, but he hits really, really hard. He hits like a 170lb’er. In a fight though, I fought my very first fight at 175lb, but the guy couldn’t make weight so I actually fought him at 185lb.  

I remember during that fight he hit me with an uppercut and I remember thinking, ‘Damn, this guy is huge!’ He rocked me from just a little tap. He was probably over 200lb by the time of the fight though!

The basis of my fighting style is Jury Jiu-Jitsu, which is my own individual technique. I’ve been doing kickboxing, wrestling, striking, jiu-jitsu and all that stuff for many years and Jury Jiu-Jitsu is just a collection of all my favorite styles of martial arts and my favorite techniques melded together.

Although, when I first started training as a teenager I never expected to pursue a professional fighting career. When I was younger I thought about being a physical therapist, but I also like adventure, so I always thought about being involved in anything that involves a good adrenaline rush. 

I wanted to be a detective for a time – that would be cool to carry a gun around legally and hunt people down. That or even own my own business and be my own boss, but I guess fighting is just what my destiny chose for me and I’m grateful for my career path every day.

My goals for 2015 are the same as 2014: to just keep getting better as a fighter, work my way up towards a title shot and just enjoy what I’m doing. A lot of older people are telling me this will be the most exciting time of my life, so I’m just trying to enjoy every minute of it. I just go to the gym daily and continue to live the MMA life.