Guymon grateful for life's opportunities
On the surface, the story that King of the Cage welterweight champion Mike "The Joker" Guymon was offered a four-fight deal last week by the Ultimate Fighting Championship would hardly seem like something major in the big picture.
But for Guymon, who made two suicide attempts on Aug. 11 that made local news in Orange County, where he lives and owns a training center, the news couldn't have been any bigger.
"I cried for about three hours straight," Guymon said after his agent, Chris Palmquist, convinced him he wasn’t playing a joke on him and that his 10-year dream of fighting on the big stage had been fulfilled.
"Usually when somebody new gets an offer, it’s to fill in a slot on three weeks notice with a specific opponent in mind. I was offered a good deal, and without a first fight in mind. I called my wife, but couldn’t get a hold of her. I called (UFC fighter and training partner) Mark Munoz."
Munoz, hearing his friend cry on the phone, feared the worst, because the memories of two months ago were so vivid, and rushed over to Guymon’s house, not fully realizing the news this time was good.
Guymon (11-2-1), 35, was a huge fan of the sport and spent years working and traveling with the Tapout crew to shows while also fighting once or twice a year on smaller shows. He finally committed to being a full-time fighter last year, and has won his last five fights, all by stoppages.
Going to UFC was a dream of Guymon thought would never happen since he’d been fighting for 10 years, and everyone in UFC already knew him since he was backstage at so many shows during his days working for Tapout from 2001-07. It became a running joke where people would talk to UFC matchmaker Joe Silva, and give him the line, "Joker’s 170," noting he’s available for welterweight competition.
He noted he had a nice home, was running his MMA gym business, and that he knew people from the outside thought he had what looked to be a great life. But the pressures of the business and frustrations of suffering a torn MCL earlier this year led to his being depressed with no outlet to vent
. Those pressures came to a head when he signed divorce papers, separating him from his wife of six years and girlfriend of 11 years, Nicole.
"On the outside, everything looked great," said Guymon, who runs the Joker's Wild Fighting Academy in Lake Forest. "I was always smiling, but I was hiding behind my smile. We had tons of business but I had all the stress of the business. I was dealing with everybody else’s problems on a daily basis and had no outlet for my own problems. There was the stress of paying bills. My wife was out of work. The night before, we were filling out divorce papers."
But he credits his wife, with whom he has reunited, along with Jim Amormino of the Orange County sheriff’s department, who he credits with keeping him alive through a harrowing situation.
The morning after divorce papers were signed, the couple engaged in an argument and Guymon grabbed a gun. Nicole Guymon was able to get the gun from him and he left the house. Guymon got in his SUV, and planned on shooting himself with another gun.
His wife called Amormino, who alerted the department of the potential situation.
"I was trying to find a cop to finish me," he said.
Officers arrived on the scene and took three hours to talk Guymon out of the situation. Amormino was on the phone with Guymon as deputies surrounded the car with tasers. He told Amormino that he wasn’t coming out and was going to force them to shoot him, but Amormino went up to the car and diffused the situation. Guymon was taken in for 72 hours of psychiatric care, but was not charged with a crime.
Guymon noted that drugs played no part in what happened to him. Unlike other cases of depression in mixed martial arts, it did not involve a recent, high-profileloss. Guymon was fighting the best he had in his career, but it was in his non-fighting life where he hit rock bottom.
The fighter, who started his career doing underground and Indian reservation shows in California in the darkest days of the sport, has only lost once in the past six-and-a-half years, a split decision loss to Pat Healy on an IFL show in 2007. His only other career loss was in 2003 to Diego Sanchez.
"When I started, I had to pay $25 for my first fight," he said. "I started out doing unregulated fights in California. It’s amazing to see where it is now. People now around town know I’m a fighter. Even soccer moms know about the sport."
Once Guymon finished with his psychiatric evaluation, he refocused on his training. He stopped Quinn Mulhern, who was 8-0 and had finished seven opponents, to retain his KOTC title on Oct. 1 at the San Manuel Casino in Highland, Fla. He noted that a lot of people thought after what he had gone through that it was too soon to be defending his title. Silva, who had called him and gave him a pep talk right after his attempt on his life, and noted at the time that they were aware he had finished Kyacey Uscola in his prior fight on June 11, said he was on their radar.
Still, when Guymon got the official call from the UFC, he thought it was a friend playing a joke on him even though he knew Tim Katz and Dan Caldwell of the Tapout crew had put in good words for him. He had left Tapout after a falling out with the late Charles Lewis Jr.
"I left for personal and financial reasons," he said. "I didn’t really see eye-to-eye with Charles."
Lewis' death led to Guymon renewing his friendship with the other two, since the problems that broke them apart suddenly seemed trivial.
Guymon is grateful because, win or lose in UFC, he has become proof that desperate times pass and things can turn around. "I wanted to prove to people that it's possible to get in the ring after trying to commit suicide," said Guymon. "I sometimes need 16 hours a week of therapy to deal with this thing. But this is living proof not to give up and that good things will happen."
