The world of Mixed Martial Arts is one of the greatest—if not the greatest—things I have ever stumbled upon. From the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, MMA spans the entire spectrum of the emotional sphere of humanity. I’ve been here at Jeremy Horn’s gym in Salt Lake City, UT for almost four years now—a move I made specifically to train with Gumby himself.
My journey starts at the ripe age of one or two. My family was a large wrestling family in a very small town in rural Idaho. I actually don’t remember my first time stepping on a wrestling mat because I was so young; as far back as I can recall, I’ve always been a wrestler. I had an up-and-down career as a child (as most people do). I won a few state tournaments and also lost a few matches at local levels. Around my sophomore year of high school, I discovered the sport of Mixed Martial Arts.
It was the sixth season of the reality TV show The Ultimate Fighter: Team Hughes vs. Team Serra. They were terrible—all of the fighters on that season were terrible. I remember being a 16-year-old kid and thinking I was better than anyone on that show, despite having never even heard the words Jiu-Jitsu or Muay Thai before. (I was obviously very, very wrong about being better than them, but I was an arrogant teenager who thought any martial art outside of wrestling was a waste of time.) Ugh, The Ultimate Fighter—if you watch it today, you know that show is on its 23rd season and they just keep dragging it on and on. It’s brutal.
After TUF 6, I decided to start training MMA after my high school wrestling practices. I found a local karate studio, Shito-Ryu, that had an after-hours MMA fight team. That’s where my MMA journey really began at age 16.
Fast forward to 18-year-old Mitch. For my 18th birthday, I went to visit a good friend in Boise, and while I was there, we started grappling—as young kids do. I caught an elbow and came home with a nasty black eye. My parents knew that because I was now 18, I was going to start fighting (they were strongly against it at the time). They assumed I had gone up to Boise to have my first sanctioned MMA fight. They were pissed—and not just a little pissed. I’m sure, in my very argumentative and confrontational ways (like most 18-year-olds), I said some disrespectful things back to them, and we were at each other’s throats for about a week. Eventually, enough was enough for all of us, and we mutually decided it was time for me to move out.
March 2009—with three months left of high school—I was out of my parents’ house and on my own. One month later, I had my actual first fight on April 25, 2009. I won via first-round KO over a man named Chris Schmid (I remember his name because I thought his name was Christmas).
It was at this point I realized how much I loved fighting. In the last two years, I had become an extremely hardcore fan and knew the entire history of the sport dating back to UFC 1 in 1993. The karate studio where I’d been training decided MMA wasn’t a profitable venture and ended its fight program.
It was now the summer of 2009. I had graduated high school and was working a minimum-wage full-time job at a cabinetry shop. Since I had to pay rent on a $7-an-hour wage, I didn’t have any money to start training at one of the bigger gyms. So, I got together with my then-girlfriend’s dad (who was a youth wrestling coach himself), and we set up a tiny gym in his garage. We named our fight team Team Good Team. It consisted of me—and yep, just me.
Fact: Team Good Team never lost a fight. Not one. I think I won three fights under that banner, training only with my girlfriend’s dad and a former high school wrestling teammate from time to time. Eventually, I realized I needed to move on and start training with a bigger group of guys, so I made my way over to Team Apocalypse in Idaho Falls. To this day, because of coaches Ken and Kenny Hensley, Jiu-Jitsu is by far my favorite martial art. I trained there until 2011.
In 2011, I put my MMA career on hold. Through an old friend, I received a scholarship to wrestle in college for Concordia University in Nebraska. I wrestled for one year and realized how much I missed Jiu-Jitsu and fighting. We had a coaching change at the college, and I was honestly just over Nebraska—it wasn’t where I wanted to be anymore. That’s when I decided to move to Utah to train with Jeremy Horn.
July Fourth weekend, 2012—I moved to Utah to train with Jeremy Horn at Elite Performance and chase my dream of being a professional fighter. It was all I really cared about at that point. I chose to train with Horn because of my love for Jiu-Jitsu, which I had developed during my time with Team Apocalypse. For those who don’t know, Matt Hughes, Pat Miletich, Tim Sylvia, Robbie Lawler, Jens Pulver, and Rich Franklin are all UFC champions who learned their Jiu-Jitsu from Jeremy Horn himself. Because of just a few years under Jeremy, my Jiu-Jitsu is actually better than my wrestling—and I’ve been wrestling my entire life. Half guard FTW.
My journey is far from over. I made the transition from amateur fighter to professional in 2013. I have a loyal fan base and love my day-to-day life as a fighter. It’s not all easy, though. While being here at Horn’s, I’ve tried to start my own cabinetry business—and failed. I lived in a trailer in the mountains for nearly a year. I almost never do anything non-fight-related in my personal life. My life is fighting.
Being a fighter is the greatest thing I could have ever hoped my life to be.
