Issue 081
November 2011
Team Tompkins lightweight Sam Stout aims to use next foe Dennis Siver for title contention.
To call Sam Stout’s first meeting with his future coach, best friend and brother-in-law Shawn Tompkins “a fateful encounter” would be a major understatement. It was the beginning of the new millennium and Sam’s sister, Emilie, who had recently begun dating Tompkins, had brought the polite and well-spoken kickboxer and MMA fighter to the Stout family home to meet her parents and younger brother.
Sam, 16 at the time, was searching for something to bring some focus to his life and Tompkins, who owned a small gym where he also trained up-and-coming fighters, had indicated to Emilie prior to the family dinner that he felt the discipline and respect associated with his brand of training methodologies would do the London, Ontario, teen some good.
“I was kind of hanging out with a rough crowd. Let’s just say that none of them were honor roll students,” Stout recalls, with a sly smile. “I wasn’t really doing anything too bad. I was being a kid, causing a little bit of trouble and not always making the best decisions.”
Tompkins remembers the dinner conversation well. “He was young and his parents were worried he might be heading down the wrong path,” Shawn recounts. “I remember Sam’s dad telling him to ask me whatever he wanted to know about kickboxing. I could tell he was interested in it, so I invited him down to a show we were having at my gym a week later.”
That first event is still etched in Stout’s mind as being the place and moment in time where his love of fighting was born. He says that even though it was just an exhibition, or what’s known today as ‘a smoker,’ the atmosphere and competition, even at such a small amateur show, drew him in completely and immediately and made him a combat sports fan for life.
“Shawn had me running gloves down to the guys and made me a part of the show. Even though my job was on the floor, not in the ring, I remember watching the fights and it was just awesome to be a part of it,” Stout says. “I started training with him the following week and I’ve been with him ever since.”
As their relationships as fighter and coach and as friends flourished, so too did Sam’s prowess in the ring. Training alongside fellow up-and-comers and future MMA standouts Mark Hominick and Chris Horodecki, Stout honed his skills enough to begin competing less than a year after he first set foot on the mats. Compiling an impressive 17-4 kickboxing record that included numerous Muay Thai and kickboxing titles, Stout eventually made the progression to competing in mixed martial arts.
His MMA debut, on June 7th 2003, didn’t quite go as planned, but in spite of losing in the first round of the Total Martial Arts Challenge bout to Jay Estrada, Stout walked away from the fight determined to keep going.
That determination propelled him to rack up an impressive 10-fight undefeated streak that spanned more than three years and was capped with a career-changing win over Spencer Fisher at UFC 58. A K-1 Max victory earlier that year helped raise Stout’s stock as a legit stand-up competitor. But it was his impressive performance in the vaunted UFC Octagon that made fans outside of The Great ‘Fight’ North, who hadn’t yet heard of the 22-year-old TKO Championship Fighting lightweight king, sit up and take notice.
Hesitant to call the performance by his protégé a “career-defining” one, pointing out that it’s a term usually reserved for fighters at the tail ends of their careers, Tompkins says it was definitely a “game-changer” for Stout.
“I truly see that fight as being Sam’s breakout performance. We all knew what he was capable of and that fight just cemented that he belonged in there,” Tompkins says.
In the midst of his tear through the competition in Canada, Stout, who was attending college in London and studying to become a paramedic at the time, made the difficult, yet necessary decision to put his schooling on hold so he could focus on his budding fighting career; at least for the time being. His parents battled him on the decision at first, but as he did in his fights, Sam stood up for himself and calmly and coolly presented his case to the judges to see if he could weather the resistance of the opposition to earn the nod.
Eventually, his family agreed that if he were to continue with his current workload (which included 25 hours of class time and 12 hours of clinical ‘ride-alongs’ in an ambulance per week on top of training), he would have to eliminate sleep from his schedule.
If the fight with Fisher, Stout had demonstrated he possessed ring maturity and patience beyond the years of most fighters his age. But in his next fight, with The Ultimate Fighter finalist Kenny Florian, he showed he still had some work to do. Stopped for only the second time in his career – again by rear naked choke in the opening stanza – Stout returned to the Canadian circuit to add some seasoning. In spite of the negative connotations of being relegated to the minors, Tompkins saw the experience as a positive character-building exercise for the team and for Sam.
“One thing that people always seemed to forget about was how young my boys were, so for Sam to get a UFC loss at 22 years of age was just a small bump in the road and we always had the bigger picture in perspective,” Tompkins says. “Careers aren’t over at that age. They’re just beginning. Something I’m proud of is that we’ve never given up on each other. It’s never been about me, or Chris, or Mark or Sam; it’s always been about us – the team – and the team would never give up on each other.”
Picking up where he left off before leaving briefly for the UFC, Stout finished each of his three next TKO opponents inside of two rounds including Jay Estrada, who he submitted in the rematch of the loss that haunted him since his debut three years earlier. His ability to finish fights wasn’t ignored by the powers that be at the UFC, who soon issued an invite for Stout to return to compete under their banner. Since then he has put together a respectable 5-3 record in the Octagon, but even in defeat, the durable Canadian has become a perennial fan favorite.
He can barely leave his home in London, or Emilie and Shawn’s house in Las Vegas without being asked for an autograph or to pose for a photo, yet Sam hasn’t changed much since his days of running gloves for his future teammates in the first Team Tompkins gym. Thankful for his success inside and outside the cage and for his family and the trio of friends who helped him to get where and to become who he is today, Stout says staying grounded and keeping life in perspective has been as important a part of his career as hitting the mitts and sparring.
“How I act in the ring or the cage is the same way I act out of it. That’s just how I want people to see me – as a professional,” he explains. “I think a lot of it goes back to how I was raised. My parents always taught me to be polite and honest and that’s how I‘ve always tried to carry myself.”
Having friends who call you on it when your head starts to swell doesn’t hurt either. “When you get a group of guys together who have been together for 12-plus years, you can’t help but keep each other in check. Sometimes feelings get hurt, but when it’s basically your brother telling you what needs to be done for your own good, you tend to listen,” says Tompkins. “We’ve always been that way with each other. We’ve always done things that way.”
Tompkins admits they’ve muted the increasing whispers of Stout being in-line for a title shot that have begun to swirl thanks in part to back-to-back wins: a ‘Knockout of the Night’ garnering stoppage over Yves Edwards in his last bout and the five ‘Fight of the Night’ bonus checks he’s cashed in 11 UFC fights. He says that, while they are cognizant the talk is still there, he’s always taught his fighters the virtue of patience.
“Sam is still a very young fighter and he’s continually improving. I’m very confident that one day not only will he get a title shot; he’ll become a champion. That’s just the way it’s going to work and I won’t accept anything less,” Tompkins says matter-of-factly. “That being said, when it comes, it will come at the right time. Our focus isn’t – and has never been – on winning titles or making piles of money. The whole idea behind Team Tompkins that started with the original four of us, was that it wasn’t just about the competition and it wasn’t about being the best; it was about good friendships and good relationships between us throughout everything we went through as a team. We knew that if we could stick together and support each other, all the other stuff would fall in to place eventually. We all want to be champions, but really it’s always about taking one fight at a time and going out and performing.”
Sam’s next performance comes against fellow slugger Dennis Siver at UFC 137 on October 29th in Las Vegas – Stout’s home away from home, where he has his own room at the Tompkins house. Getting increasingly tougher opponents and climbing the rankings ladder has been as much about the journey as the destination for Stout and he’s looking forward to going out and putting on fireworks against Siver, who he considers a fighter with some very dangerous weapons in his bag.
“It feels really good to start to get some recognition. Siver is a highly-ranked guy who has been on a tear. I know there are no real official rankings in MMA, but someone was telling me that they read that I broke the top 15 on one of the lists. That’s a pretty big honor in itself when you look at the level of talent of some of the 155lb guys in the world. It’s humbling,” he admits. “I’m really looking forward to this fight. I think he’s a great fighter, but I definitely think he’s beatable. This is actually a fight that we’ve wanted for a while. We’ve actually asked for it a few times. It finally came to a point where the fight makes sense for both of us, so the UFC gave it to us.”
Good things come to those who wait.
In memory of Shawn Tompkins – 1974-2011
On August 14th 2011 – a week and a half after Shawn Tompkins was interviewed for this story – he passed away tragically in his sleep from complications due to a heart attack while visiting home in London, Ontario. The quotes you are about to read from him are his last on record and are as prophetic after his untimely passing as they were before it. As such, we have chosen to run the article unaltered.
The entire Fighters Only family would like to extend our sincerest condolences to Emilie, Sam, Mark and Chris as well as the rest of the Stout and Tompkins families. Shawn’s contributions to the sport of mixed martial arts are immeasurable and the void his passing has left in the MMA community will never be filled.
He was one of the good guys in the sport and he will be dearly missed. I was fortunate enough to call him a friend and was privileged to have even known. ‘The Coach.’ Mike Russell
