Issue 026

June 2007

By Jim Page

Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller is one of the most colourful and controversial fighters in the world today. Thanks to his bizarre manner, his ever-growing online following and his serious fighting ability, Mayhem has managed to capture the hearts of fans worldwide. That’s no mean feat considering he has appeared in the UFC only once, and appeared on the undercard of Rampage vs. Matt Lindland in the now-defunct WFA. 

Spending most of his time fighting in Hawaii, the Haole boy (Islander-speak for an non-Hawaiian) has managed to turn around the fiercely loyal home crowds into accepting him as one of their own, and consistently entertains them with his crazy antics and Genki Sudo-like entrances. 

Beyond the jokes and laughter, he has earned a reputation as a ferocious competitor, bouncing back from a tough loss to Georges St-Pierre at UFC 52 to stop six of his last seven opponents, including a submission victory over the 360lb giant, Stefan Gamlin. Robbie Lawler, Falaniko Vitale and Lodune Sincaid are among those who have fallen to the 185lber, who nowadays trains with Team Quest. 

Recounting his first foray into the world of MMA, Jason laughed at the story of how a good friend of his choked him out, sparking his passion for learning the fight game. “We had a mini-UFC in the yard, first he kicked me in the stomach pretty hard and that almost dropped me… So I picked him up and slammed him into the ground and within a couple of seconds he had me in some kind of chokehold. All of a sudden I was waking up in my back yard with my dad laughing at me and my friend saying ‘That’s Gracie jiu jitsu’. I just said, ‘Man, I gotta learn this, there’s no way around it, if that guy who’s smaller and nerdier than me can beat me, I gotta learn it!’”

It was something of a turning point for Jason, who had a rough childhood and a vigorous routine of getting into trouble. “Street fights? I had a tonne! I was a little scumbag. That was pretty much all I did. My old man was in the army and I think a huge part of my life was ‘How tough are you?’ That was pretty much a constant: ‘How tough are you?’ I ended up fighting with everybody to prove how tough I was.”

Armed with limitless enthusiasm and an absolute passion for getting into a scrap, Jason made his way down to the local judo school to begin training. It wasn’t long before it became clear to everyone there that his competitive fire burned a whole lot brighter than that of his fellow judokas. “I was so hyper-active, I had such a problem with the structured nature of the class – same thing every time and whenever the instructor asked what we wanted to do, I’d be like 'Randori! Randori!' [sparring] because all I wanted to do was fight.

“Finally, even though I was paying him $100 a month to be in his judo class, he took me aside and said [perfectly simulating the air of resignation in his former instructor’s voice] ‘I know you want to be an ultimate fighter and all you want to do is spar – there’s a guy who has a gym just down the street, they do kickboxing and ultimate fighting, just go there… just go there.’” 

From that point Jason went into full MMA mode, training all around the country as he looked to grasp all aspects of the fight game. He found Marc Laimon’s Cobra Kai gym in Las Vegas and discovered a flare for jiu-jitsu. “I took to it very quickly and I’m good at choking people, that’s what I excel at! I’ve been doing jiu-jitsu longer than anything else and I definitely have a propensity for choking people out. I think it’s my skinny forearms!” 

Adding a heart-felt compliment to Laimon, Miller continued: “I leant a big chunk of my current jiu-jitsu from him. He definitely brought me to the next level. I’ve got a sequence I do – I call it the ‘Cobra Kai’ sequence because that’s the name of Laimon’s gym, that’s where I picked it up. Guys know I’m going to do it to them, but they can’t stop it because it’s so effective. Laimon made me drill it ad nauseam, so I’m good at it, you know?” 

All fighters must put themselves through the rigours of constant training, the strict diet and the sometimes-Spartan way of life, but for Mayhem, as usual, his outlook on it is slightly different to the norm. “I know for a lot of guys it’s a big sacrifice, but for me, I don’t even look at it that way. Yeah, if you compare it to living a normal life, but I don’t think I ever really wanted that – to me it’s not even a sacrifice. OK, so I’m going to get punched in the face. OK, so the guy is kicking me in the head. Alright I can’t really eat this week – you know, that’s fine. I don’t work in an office job in a cubicle. I don’t have to take shit from too many people. I live my life pretty much the way I want to live it.

“I don’t know man, it’s like, what do you want out of life? What are you willing to put up with? I’m definitely not willing to put up with a boss telling me to change the tyres on that car quicker. I’d rather get punched in the face, literally. That’s what I do, you know?”

The longer you talk to Jason Miller, the more you understand the nickname of Mayhem. Firing off words a mile a minute, there was more to come. “That came as a knock on my personality, how sporadic I am – how at this time I’ll be talking about mixed martial arts training, and the next moment I’ll be talking about the great debate on religion and why the Christian Right is attempting to take over the planet for the oils sources. I don’t even know why I do that, my brains starts ticking this way and that and it won’t turn off. The only way to slow it down is to use it as a punching bag sometimes.’

It genuinely seems that no part of his life could be seen as anything but unusual. “My musical taste has often been described as, exactly as my nickname, ‘Mayhem’. I’ve got everything from super-gay techno to some classical music to some underground hip-hop; I’ve got the entire range of music on my ipod. I have such weird and different styles that I’m interested in, people are often confused. ‘Why the hell would he have Justin Timberlake and then Metallica straight after it?’ It makes no sense. Whatever.” 

Ever the joker, he pretended not to know what MySpace was (Mayhem is famous for spending time online, whether blogging or playing Xbox Live, gamertag Video MayheM) but then fell about laughing before revealing his enthusiasm for the internet revolution. “Just kidding dude, I’ve got like 60,000 friends. I love MySpace, man, I like the blog. I like to get my brain out there and talk about things on MySpace. I’ve met people from all over the planet, I’ve talked to guys in Italy, over there in jolly old England, you know, I love the internet. It’s changing the world into a giant hive-mind, where we transfer information back and forth and go all over the planet in two clicks. It’s awesome; I really am a big fan of MySpace. It’s another way for Big Brother to control your brain, I love it.” 

Moving on to his fight career, the topic moved on to his impressive but unsuccessful performance against Georges St-Pierre (which saw him absorb some significant abuse but shake it off and see his way through to the decision). “I was ready to go out there and give it everything and I came up short. That’s not that it’s such a terrible thing. Dealing with that loss was difficult for me, I hate losing. I had to revamp my career as a result of that loss, so it’s a good thing. It’s not always about winning; it’s about how you come back from losses which defines you as a fighter.” 

Come back he did, winning his next five fights by submission (“I was really happy to win those fights,” he said) before most recently smashing Hector Urbina in Icon Sport in Hawaii last March. With a possible return to the big stage in view, he offered his opinion on UFC co-owners the Fertitta brothers, and their recent purchase of the PRIDE Fighting Championships. “You mean the Microsoft merger? I don’t know, businessmen are going to do smart things. We’ll see where that puts me and the rest of the fighters involved. I’ve got a wait-and-see attitude. We’ll see what’s going to happen. Zuffa owns my contract because when they bought out the WEC, they bought out my contract, same as Rampage, same as [Lyoto] Machida, same as a bunch of guys. Zuffa owns my ass-cheeks at this point.” 

As a parting shot, Jason cracked up as he jokingly laid out his plans to mastermind a twisted future for his army of fans, the appropriately-named Mayhem Monkeys: ‘I could jabber on like a monkey on a stick all day if I think about it, but here’s my thing, if this magazine is going to be read by a lot of people in England, that’s great! I’m starting a new faction of the Mayhem Monkeys, which is my cult. All my cult-members across the globe are starting to form independent cells, independent of one another, but we’re all working together. So to have an English Hooligan section, some Monkey Hooligans, that would make me tremendously happy! On top of that, if I see some YouTube footage of Mayhem Hooligans rioting at an MMA show, that would make me laugh like a wild madman. I’m looking forward to that, I’m looking forward to visiting over there so I can witness that first hand!”