Clay Guida: The Greatest Experience of His Life Leading Into UFC 117

“Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.”—Paulo Coelho

Clay “The Carpenter” Guida is a true warrior in the world of Mixed Martial Arts.

Without a doubt, Guida is one of the most exciting and entertaining Lightweight fighters in the UFC today. He is very well-known for his persistent and unrelenting style of fighting, and always brings a superior level of intensity into his fights, which keeps all of the fans on the edge of their seats.

Over the span of Guida’s career, he has won three “Fight of the Night” awards, one “Submission of the Night” award (which was won after his most recent fight against Shannon Gugerty at UFC Live: Vera vs. Jones), and “Fight of the Year” (2009) honours by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (vs. Diego Sanchez), which is a fight that also happens to rank as #13 on the UFC’s all-time “100 Greatest UFC Fights” list.

Not bad.

Plus, Guida was the very first Lightweight Champion for the Strikeforce organization, which is something that a lot of UFC fans might not even realize.

For all of these reasons and more, it is easy to understand why Guida is considered by many to be a definite fan favourite.

This is my interview.

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James Ryan: Hi Clay, how have you been?

Clay Guida: Great James, how about yourself?

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James Ryan: Very good. I’m really glad that you were able to make the time for this. I can appreciate how busy you must be these days.

Clay Guida: My pleasure, James. I’m just hanging out at the pool right now anyway. We just got finished running the sand dunes this morning, so I’m doing a little relaxing at the moment.

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James Ryan: That’s cool. Well again, I really appreciate it.

You are currently scheduled to fight Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 117 on August 7th. What do you know about your opponent?

Clay Guida: Rafael dos Anjos is a very dangerous submission fighter. He’s a really good jiu-jitsu practitioner and he trains with some really good guys over at Blackhouse, like Anderson Silva, so I anticipate that he is going to be very dangerous. He’s going to be threatening the take-downs.

He has five fights in the UFC against some pretty tough opponents. Not to mention, he’s coming off of a very big win against Terry Etim. He’s won his last three fights in the UFC, so he has some momentum rolling into this one. I’m really excited about that.

I think that it’s going to be a really good fight for both of us, but I just plan on fighting my fight like I always do, You’re going to see the Clay Guida come back that everyone loves to see—just going out there scrappy. It’s kinda ugly but it’s definitely in your face and dos Anjos is going to regret that he ever signed the contract to fight me.

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James Ryan: [Laughs] Well you seem like you’ve really done your homework on him and you certainly seem prepared.

Are you still training out of Jackson’s, or are you at Midwest Training Centre right now?

Clay Guida: Right now, I’m out here living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I go back and fourth for my fights. I come out here and train and when I’m back in Illinois, I train at Midwest Training Centre.

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James Ryan: So you’re back and fourth throughout the year depending on your fight schedule?

Clay Guida: Ya, when I’m not fighting, I’m back at the Midwest. If I’m not travelling or out somewhere for fun, on vacation or whatever, and if I’m back living in the Chicago area, I’ll train at the Midwest Training Centre.

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James Ryan: Jackson’s gets a lot of credit for being the top training facility in all of MMA right now. What has been the greatest benefit to you personally from training at Jackson’s?

Clay Guida: Just the great dedication and instruction. They’re very structured at Jackson’s. It’s not the typical training facility. We’re always doing something. We’re always staying busy, whether it’s watching film or training late at night, or in the morning—doing different things—bouncing around.

While most fighters are taking the day off on a Sunday for example, we’ll be out running the sand dunes like we were today.

It’s just a great group of instructors with a great family atmosphere.

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James Ryan: How did you get started in Mixed Martial Arts? I know that you trained in wrestling back in high school, but how did it evolve from there?

Clay Guida: Ya, I wrestled ever since I was about six-years-old and I also wrestled all through high school and college, and I’m still wrestling today—still working on my takedowns. I still work on taking guys down and getting them into bad positions.

It’s just one of those things—my brother, my sister, and I were always competitive. We always played sports throughout our whole life—just looking for that next challenge. Fighting is a lot of fun, and it’s just one of those things where I really started fighting by accident. As a matter of fact, I started fighting before I even trained in MMA.

My brother, Jason, was fighting professionally and at one event, there was an open spot on the lightweight card. It was an exhibition bout—a very amateur fight—but I jumped at the chance. I just went out there and had fun. I ended up losing my first fight though.

The second fight that I had kinda started the exact same way. The promoters called me in the morning, and they were like ‘hey, someone fell out, do you wanna go out and fight again?’ and I was like ‘alright,’ and I went out there and choked the guy.

I never looked back. That was back in 2004, I believe.

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James Ryan: [Laughs] Wow, that’s awesome!

Just looking a bit into your background, I was surprised to learn that aside from working as an actual carpenter, you had also worked on an Alaskan crab fishing vessel. Is that right?

Clay Guida: That is correct!

I worked on a 200-foot trawler. That was before I started fighting. It made the transition into Mixed Martial Arts rather easy.

We would work 18-20 hours a day, seven days a week. There were no breaks. There were no days off. Just grinding it out tooth and nail.

Sometimes you would even end up fighting with one of your buddies on the boat. Ya know? You get along and then you hate each other the next day. [Laughs]

I was living in a room that was about half the size of a College dorm room with three other Samoan guys that were almost 300-lbs each. [Laughs]

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James Ryan: Wow. [Laughs] That must have been a crazy experience.

Clay Guida: It was great though. The greatest experience of my life and I owe a lot of my hard work ethic and dedication to working on that boat.

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James Ryan: So what’s more dangerous; being a Mixed Martial Arts fighter or working on one of those boats as an Alaskan crab fisherman?

Clay Guida: [Without hesitation] Working on one of those boats.

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James Ryan: [Laughs]

Clay Guida: Hands down.

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James Ryan: For sure, I can just imagine how dangerous it must have been. Amazing!

Human nature dictates that we tend to learn more from overcoming adversity. I’m curious—what did you learn from your last fight against Diego Sanchez?

That was an amazing fight, by the way.

Clay Guida: Just to never say die. That’s the attitude that I always take into the cage. I always just try to fight my fight.

Diego came at me and he put me up against the cage, which I know from when we train, is not a place where I would like to be. I had my back up against the fence and that’s not a very lucrative offensive tactic. I needed to take the centre of the cage and just remember to fight my fight.

Obviously with the Kenny Florian fight, I came out very strong for the first couple of minutes, but then I sorta got caught up in his game plan.

I think Fedor said it best after he lost—‘the one who doesn’t fall, never stands up.’ I think that speaks volumes of his character. He is a true champion, and that type of attitude goes a long way in life. Ya know?

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James Ryan: Definitely, that’s great.

You had previously fought Mac Danzig. What did you think about his last fight against Matt Wiman and how that fight ended?

Clay Guida: It was too bad. I was right there too, cheering for both of the guys. They’re both my buddies and it’s really unfortunate when things like that go on in the cage.

Mac’s had a rough go in the UFC so far. I think he’s only won a couple of fights. It’s been a tough road for him, but also, it’s tough being a referee in there. It’s tough being a judge, and it’s tough being a fighter—so i’m sure that the UFC will either give him a rematch and another fight in the UFC.

We’ll see how he does.

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James Ryan: It’s easy to be a critic though, right? [Laughs]

Clay Guida: [Laughs] Something like that.

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James Ryan: I read somewhere—is it true that Dana White offered you $10,000 dollars to cut your hair off so that you could appear in a video game? [Laughs]

Clay Guida: It wasn’t really for the video game though. It was just $10,000 to see if I’d cut my hair. Had nothing to do with the video game.

Some of the reports kinda misconstrued what had happened, because I ended up being left out of the video game after we had met all of the requirements for it, so they kinda tried to tie Dana White into it.

He just did that as a joke to see if I would. We had a good laugh about it and that was that.

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James Ryan: [Laughs] Was he serious?

Clay Guida: Oh ya! [Laughs]

This was a couple years ago. At first, when he called me during the Arnold Classic in Columbus, he was like ‘hey, I’ll give you $5000 to cut your hair,’ and I was like ‘ya right!’ Then he called me back about like an hour or two later and said ‘how about $10,000?’ and I was like ‘nice try, throw a couple more zeros on the end and we’ll talk.’

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James Ryan: [Laughs] That’s way too funny.

Before we wrap up, are there any special thanks that you would like to mention?

Clay Guida: I would really like to thank MMA Stop, my management team VF Elite, and Muscle Pharm.

I’d also love to thank Silver Star—be sure to check out the new ‘Clay Guida’ Silver Star shirt, which should be coming out in a few weeks before the fight. I would like to thank my family and wish my little niece, Taylor, a very happy birthday.

I want to thank everyone back home and all of the fans for their support.

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James Ryan: That’s terrific!

Well Clay, I had better let you get back to relaxing by the pool. Thank you once again for your time and I really do appreciate you giving me this interview.

Clay Guida: My pleasure James, take care and all the best with the football, buddy.

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This is my interview. If you don’t like it…I have others. Check them out at www.mrjamesryan.com

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Message from my buddy Kevin Gillespie, the greatest UFC fan ever!!!

“Great read, James!

“I met Clay Guida in Vegas back in 2007. He was in the stands drinking a beer after his fight.

“Guida’s fight was the first of the night, so not a lot of people were there in Mandalay Bay. One lady was screaming not far from us. My wife said ‘that must be that guy’s mom!’

“I went to get a couple of beers and who was standing in line?? Guida!!!

“Two beers in hand and hair still wet. He had a few scruffs on his face too. I talked with him for a bit and it turned out that the loud screaming lady was actually his mom! LOL

“Here’s a picture of the two of us.”—Kevin