Mayhem Miller Interview; long but hilarious

[Brutus]

Jason Miller: Mayhem on the Rise 02/01/08

Exclusive: Jason Miller: Mayhem on the Rise
By Justin Bolduc



In the middle of the day I received a phone call from “Miller, Jason”. Obviously I knew it was “Mayhem” calling me back.

Upon answering the phone I was greeted by the liveliest fighter in MMA mispronouncing my last name, and telling me he would “kick my ass in Call of Duty 4.” After the initial wave of “Mayhem” I was able to get my recorder rolling.......

PDG: What have you been up to lately?
Mayhem: I don’t know. I just fought Tim Kennedy in HDNet and now I’ve been up to some video gaming and lifting weights so I can get stronger and crush peoples’ heads easier.

PDG: Yeah?
Mayhem: Yeah.

PDG: Do you have any nagging injuries from the fight?
Mayhem: Yeah I’m a little banged up from the fight but that is part of my business. My job is to go out there and hurt myself and hurt the other guy in the process and they pay me for that, so I’m excited.

PDG: How do you feel about HDNet? Is it something you’d like to stick with or would you like to get back into the UFC?
Mayhem: You know, the UFC is awesome but why am I going to tell HDNet to go to hell when they pay me top quality dollars. It’s one of those weird things where you have to explain to people that just because I’m not in the UFC doesn’t mean that I can’t kick all these guys’ asses. It’s just that they have their fighters and they kind of have them all to themselves. HDNet will of course let me fight in the UFC against any of those guys if [the UFC] wants to put those fights together.

PDG: Are you still doing anything with the WEC, or was the fight with Hiromitsu Miura a one-time thing?
Mayhem: I love the WEC; they were like the coolest, nicest people. The whole organization was awesome, but I felt there was a ceiling for me. I’ve already paid my dues and made a name for myself with the Mayhem Monkeys so I don’t feel I could give the Monkeys 110% in the WEC.

PDG: You’re very active with your Myspace and obviously love your fans – you seem to do a lot of stuff that gets them riled up and excited. Is that something you enjoy doing for the attention, or something that you use to add to your career as a fighter?
Mayhem: C’mon, dude I’m not an attention whore for the sake of being an attention whore. Don’t get me wrong, I like attention, but at the end of the day if you don’t care about me then you don’t want to see me fight – and that’s what puts money in my pocket. With that being said, I don’t give a damn if you hate me or if you love me. It makes no difference to me. As long as you buy a ticket – even if you want to watch me get my ass beat, that’s fine. I have a polarizing effect on people and I understand what it is to be hated and I understand what it is to be loved because I have both things from the fans. It’s great.

PDG: What made you decide to take the “Mayhem” persona the direction you have?

Before I could re-word my question to actually make sense Miller cuts in.......

Mayhem: What do you mean what made me decide to.......I didn’t wake up and go I think I will put a red stripe in my hair and act bananas. I mean I did wake up one day and decided I wanted a red stripe, but I’ve been bananas since day one. Ask any of my Myspace friends, ask any of my high school friends...... people who hadn’t seen me in years and came back and found out I was the ultimate fighter guy were like “oh yeah, that makes perfect sense.” I’ve always been nutty like this. They’ve known it for years, everyone’s known it. My dad’s known it. [Laughs] This isn’t a weekend retreat. This isn’t a seminar. This is me. This is me and this is who I have been forged into by my bad parenting and too much TV.

By the time I stop laughing I decide to get his opinion on ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder)....

Mayhem: Oh man, fuck ADHD. It is a misnomer. I think people blame everything on ADHD. How about I’m just hyperactive? That’s what I am.

PDG: Do you have any plans on fighting in the near future?
Mayhem: I don’t know yet. HDNet has a massive card they are putting together in early summer or late spring. And I’ve been fielding offers from secret organizations, so we’ll see what happens. I’m pretty much just going to high-five myself if nothing else.

PDG: Nice.
Mayhem: Yeah.

PDG: Would secret organizations be M-1 Global or Victory Road?
Mayhem: Maybe, maybe not.

PDG: Maybe, maybe not?
Mayhem: Maybe, maybe not.

After trying to pry a bit of information from Miller, the off-the-record the conversation bounces a bit to Bas Rutten and somehow ends up on Mirko “Cro Cop” without any real context. He did, however, preface the following line with “fresh bisquits.”

Mayhem: I love Mirko “Cro Cop”. He’s one of my favorite fighters of all-time, especially with checker board tighties – which I would love to wear, but I’m not Croatian.

PDG: You could still wear some anyway. If you love Mirko maybe you’d even pick up some Croatian fans.
Mayhem: You know what maybe I will. Maybe I’ll get some but make them green – green checker board, because I can’t really wear Croatian because I’m not Croatian. I don’t even know what I am. What am I?

PDG: I don’t know.
Mayhem: Hold on a second, let me ask my girl.

In the background I can actually hear him asking his girlfriend about his nationality.

Mayhem: What am I, Russian? And what else?

I can hear her in the background rattling off a few races.

Mayhem: Scottish, and English? And Polish too?

Mayhem: I’m a Pollack, yo.

PDG: A Pollack?
Mayhem: Yup. You heard it here first, I’m Polish. My grandfather was Polish and Russian.

PDG: And your girl knows but you don’t?
Mayhem: My girl pays attention to that shit – I don’t even care. I know that I’m white and I’ve been living for twenty-seven years and I don’t really care about my ancestry.

PDG: Yeah?
Mayhem: Yeah! Why? Why does it matter? I’m here today trying to live in this life, not in my ancestors’. It doesn’t matter if my great-great-great-grandpa was a Russian boxer. A bare-knuckle boxer who dipped his hands in glue and glass and fought in Siberia.

PDG: Was he dipping his hands in glue and glass?
Mayhem: Yeah, he dipped his hands in glue and glass. In Siberia. And they were fighting while there were German Shepherds dancing around them.

PDG: Alright........

“Mayhem” begins talking to his girlfriend in the background – while I wait.

Mayhem: Alright, sorry dude, I had to put out some fires.
PDG: Yeah, it’s cool.

He then probes my nationality.......I thought he didn’t care about that stuff?

PDG: I live in Florida, I’m some American kid.
Mayhem: Where are you in Florida?

PDG: In the Tampa area.
Mayhem: Oh, that’s fresh. So wait… how old are you?

PDG: 25.
Mayhem: You’re 45!?!

PDG: No, no, no! I’m 25.
Mayhem: Oh, cool, we’re in the same age range. So you get some references. Well alright, what was your next question? I forgot.

PDG: I don’t know. You made me forget too.

You know, with random talk to both myself and his girlfriend.

Mayhem: Cool, that’s what I do. So “Cro Cop”, yeah, and the Croatian fans, you write for the website, word is born… What is your normal day job?

PDG: Well besides writing for a website, you’ll probably laugh at my other job.
Mayhem: C’mon tell me.

PDG: I work in a gas station.
Mayhem: Fuck yeah! A gas station, that’s bad ass. Who cares?

PDG: No, it’s most definitely not bad ass. I hate it.
Mayhem: You hate it?

PDG: I hate it.
Mayhem: Why don’t you quit? You have babies?

PDG: No, I don’t have babies.
Mayhem: Well you don’t have any kids so why don’t you quit?

PDG: Benefits.
Mayhem: Fuck benefits. You know what I did when I was seventeen years old?

PDG: What?
Mayhem: I bought a piece of shit Honda Civic and I moved about 300 miles from where my parents lived and I lived in the car and trained everyday.

PDG: True.
Mayhem: Dude, c’mon. After that I thought I was done living in a car. Nope. I moved to California where I thought I had a house living with Ricco Rodriguez. He put me out in the street and I just lived inside a van.

PDG: Did you do anything to get kicked out?
Mayhem: No, he just had some ho staying at his house so I couldn’t live there.

PDG: I don’t think my girlfriend would necessarily appreciate if I quit [my job].
Mayhem: What the fuck do you have a girlfriend for?

PDG: She was like a sugar-momma for a few years. She won’t put up with that anymore though.
Mayhem: Fresh. Now if you strike out on your own you can be her sugar-daddy. My chick did the same thing. Now I kind of be her sugar-daddy and support her career because before she supported mine while I was a broke piece of shit.

PDG: True.
Mayhem: Yeah, right. So now I am reciprocating. But she had to stand by me through a bunch of bullshit because I had to punch through a lot of hardships. Now if she can stand by you through some hardship, that’s bad ass.

PDG: Yeah.
Mayhem: Yeah, anyway I got off the subject. You want to talk about fights? Alright.

PDG: If you want to talk about fights…
Mayhem: I don’t even care dude. I just drank two cups of coffee and was like look at this guy, he’s got a website, I’m going to call him.

While I’m laughing he decides to lead the interview – once again.

Mayhem: Did you ever see the Mormon interview I did with the kid?
PDG: Yes, I did.

Mayhem: [Laughs] That was glorious.

PDG: [Laughs] Yeah, I’ve seen tons of your interviews and they have always been entertaining.
Mayhem: Did you think interviewing me was going to be like this right now?

PDG: Yeah, I knew it would be.
Mayhem: Okay.





PDG: I figured it would be pretty difficult as well.
Mayhem: What do you mean? What’s difficult? Here is the thing, I’m an open book, all you have to do is ask me questions. The only reason I ripped into that Mormon kid was because he told me “fuck you” and I just got off the scale (from weighing-in).

PDG: It’s because I have ADHD and you’re very hyper, so I figured I’d get confused and lose my place a bit – I don’t write down questions, I just wing it.
Mayhem: You should write down some questions dummy [laughs maniacally].

PDG: I’ve been doing interviews enough, I can wing it.
Mayhem: Yeah, you’re doing well right now. The problem is though when you have someone like me who talks a mile-a-minute and gets amped and off the subject like I am right now. Then you can’t.

PDG: Yeah, but the interview isn’t about me, it’s about you. People want to know what you have to say, they could care less what I say. I highly doubt in any interview I’ve done if people actually realize that I did it, you know?
Mayhem: Yeah, I feel you.

PDG: What are you gonna do, you know?
Mayhem: Riiiiiiight.

PDG: So you’re visible at UFC events all the time and end up behind whoever they are showing on camera......
Mayhem: That was one time. That is a misnomer. The thing is the one time I was behind people at a UFC event – like I was sitting in the section where they stick the camera; I didn’t even realize I was sitting there. Then my manager was like “get in the shot, it’ll be hilarious.” He was right [laughs]. Everyone started text-messaging me and calling me at that moment like “hey asshole, you’re on the broadcast.” I thought I was just on the screen at the event. But I was on the broadcast, it was pretty funny.

PDG: That one specific time you definitely stole the camera from whoever they were showing.
Mayhem: Yeah, it was Wanderlei [Silva]. I know, you can’t even remember that it was Wanderlei. I just thought it was awesome that I was sitting behind Wanderlei. They showed him, and I had my giant four-fingered ring, so I tend to stick out in a crowd.

PDG: What does that do for you – like I said nobody is going to know I did this interview, but in this case I didn’t remember it was Wanderlei.....?
Mayhem: What do you mean, that I have a spotlight-steal ability?

PDG: Well you’re obviously a well-known fighter, but Wanderlei is at the top of the food-chain as far as popularity.
Mayhem: Yeah dude, he’s mega, I know. Bro, here is my thing. I have a cult following. They will back me no matter what. If I fight in Tuscaloosa, Alabama they are going to try their best to watch. I give love to them so they give love to me. That is why the shit is so crazy when I am behind Wanderlei or I’m writing Myspace blogs. I love them, they love me. It’s a simple equation.

PDG: Someone similar to you in terms of showmanship is Akihiro Gono......
Mayhem: Yeah, Gono kicks ass. We were in the locker room with Gono when [Ryo] Chonan fought Karo Parisyan – because I cornered Chonan for that fight. We were in the locker room with those guys and I was stocked – Gono is a showman, just like I am. He understands the showmanship part of the game. Here in America though, I think the problem is no organization has really let the showmanship part of the game do the talking. The UFC took away the ramp a long time ago, which saves them a lot of production values – but if I was running the UFC that is probably what I would do too because you keep more money in your pocket, it’s simple business. But, then again, if I had a giant budget to do something with I would make a new version of PRIDE here in America. There would be awesome, bad ass entrances. When you went to the event you’d feel like you went to a rock concert. Sometimes in the UFC you don’t even realize the fights are starting because it’s just some music and guys walking out. There is no mystique. It seems like there is no showmanship in most events these days. I’m like Gono and Genki Sudo. The first round of my fight might be kicking the head off a piñata or throwing money on the ground. That to me is a big part of the total show. I’m a performance-artist.

PDG: Are you going to start fighting like Genki and run at them with your back towards them?
Mayhem: I’ve done that before. My coach says “hey asshole, stop doing that.” I don’t do it too often.

PDG: Yeah, fighting is a bit more serious.....well in your case I don’t know....
Mayhem: The fighting part is more serious, yeah, duh......The entrance part – yeah I’m going to do some crazy shit, but the fighting part is all business. As soon as I’m done kicking the head off a piñata then I just act normal.

PDG: Over in Japan when Gono fought he’d bring out big Japanese rock stars during his entrances. When are you going to start bringing out some big American stars here in America?
Mayhem: I live in Hollywood bro, so it is only a matter of time until I run into one of these crazy guys that are rap or rock or something… it’s just a matter of time until I get some dudes that are well known outside of the MMA world to come over.

PDG: You started challenging me, telling me you are going to kick my ass in video games. What video games do you like to play?
Mayhem: Dude, video games are pretty bad ass. I’m up on the Call of Duty 4 right now, I’m addicted. I’ve played through the single-player which is awesome, and then the multiplayer is awesome in its own way. I’m stoked to be playing that game so I will just maul anyone who wants to get on my Xbox friend’s list, which is videomayhem.

PDG: Are you actually good at it or do you just talk a big game?
Mayhem: I’M GOOD AT IT! But I haven’t logged enough hours on the online portion; I just might go play right now, because you get rank increases and better weapons. I don’t have all the weapons on the multiplayer. I’m pretty bummed because these kids have these awesome guns and I have to go kill them to take them from them.

PDG: But if you’re really good shouldn’t you be able to kill them no problem?
Mayhem: I do kill them pretty damn good for having a pea-shooter. But having that said, it’s a whole lot easier when you have the mega-gun.

PDG: Well hey; I gave you an out so if people play you now and you suck you have no one to blame but yourself.
Mayhem: Yeah, that’s true, that’s true.

PDG: I think you should play Counter-Strike – that’s the way to go if you want to play shooters.
Mayhem: Counter-Strike, you mean it’s on PC only?

PDG: I think they have one on Xbox, who knows? I play it on PC.
Mayhem: I like PC gaming with the mouse and what-not, but it’s so much easier to turn your Xbox on, it always works, you never have to buy a new video card – you know what I’m saying, it’s just so simple.

PDG: I just prefer the keyboard and mouse set-up.
Mayhem: Yeah, what is it, W, A, S, D, X…

PDG: W, A, S, D – but you can make the keyboard whatever you want.
Mayhem: Yeah, that’s it, W, A, S, D…

For those unfamiliar with gaming, to move in first person shooters you generally use the W key to move forward, S to move backward, and A and D to strafe left and right.

PDG: It’s nice also being able to turn around without taking five minutes using a stupid controller.
Mayhem: Yeah, that is one thing that pisses me off is that you can’t do a quick-turn… I just turn my sensitivity really high. It sucks because your headshots aren’t as good, but at least you can look around faster. On Call of Duty you just have to spray guys with the M4 and it doesn’t even matter.

PDG: What else do you like to play; do you have any guilty-pleasure games?
Mayhem: Yeah, dude I’m constantly playing Puzzle Fighter with my girl. That’s my thing, Puzzle Fighter non-stop. Unfortunately she just figured it out and beat the fuck out of me the other night. I was really pissed. She beat me eight games, then finally I won won game......

In the background I can hear his girlfriend correcting him.....

Mayhem: It was nine? Fuck. It was nine games to one. I finally won one game, threw the controller down and went “VICTORY!” and went to bed – so she couldn’t get her revenge.

While laughing my ass off I can hear his girlfriend in the background, unfortunately I can’t make out what she’s saying. On the other hand, fortune is upon us as “Mayhem” relays the information.....

Mayhem: [Laughing] She said she doesn’t need to beat me, she doesn’t need revenge, because she beat me nine times. She said she felt bad. So then I asked her if she let me win and she said “HELL NO! I would have beaten you twelve times if I could have.”

PDG: Are you the type of person where you will beat her and rub it in her face?
Mayhem: Fuck yeah I am! Bro, all we do is talk shit in that game. Last time I didn’t talk shit at all though, I just kept saying “OK, this time is it.”

PDG: Well of course if you are losing that many times you can’t really talk shit. That would just make you look silly.
Mayhem: Dude, you are going to make me play this right now. [To his girlfriend]: Turn on the TV.

As I continue laughing my ass off, “Mayhem” continues to his girl....

Mayhem: We’re playing right now, this guy is pissing me off.

Mayhem’s Girlfriend: Did he say that he’s good at Puzzle Fighter?

Mayhem: No, he’s not good at Puzzle Fighter – I don’t know if he plays Puzzle Fighter......

PDG: You can’t tell her that I’m not good at Puzzle Fighter. I might be better than you and you don’t know it.
Mayhem: I don’t even know dude. I invited my friend over; Ryan Loco who is always on YouTube videos with me and shit......he also kicked my ass at that game a couple times. I was bummed because I realized my girl’s not really good, I just really suck. Nah, she’s really good – so she says.

PDG: So you’re gonna play right now?
Mayhem: Yeah, I’m playing right now so I’ll holla at you man.

PDG: True.
Mayhem: Do you think you have enough for a good interview? I think you do.

PDG: Maybe. I don’t know.
Mayhem: C’mon dude, we just sat here for thirty minutes, so don’t start with that shit.

PDG: It wasn’t thirty minutes. It was twenty-five minutes.
Mayhem: Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dude, you’re eating up my anytime minutes.

“Mayhem” then hangs up.

I actually laughed so hard my stomach is now killing me. Mayhem, love him or hate him, is always an entertaining read.

[Gurry]

LOL he just took the interviewer rite outta his elemtns, i seen like 3 mma related questions, mayhem is a freaking stud

[warrior06]

Mayhem is great.

One of my favorite fights was him vs GSP.

Complete fighter with good character

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by Gurry

LOL he just took the interviewer rite outta his elemtns, i seen like 3 mma related questions, mayhem is a freaking stud

lol, yeah. its great when the interviewer becomes the interviewee. i loved the comments on ADHD too.

[southsider]

Mayhem's the greatest hahah
We need a Mayhem-GSP rematch. He's facial expressions are priceless

[Kimuras"R"Us]

Has anyone seen that interview with the Morman guy that he references? It is unbelieveable how much he fucks with this guy and the guy has no idea. The guy is also an enormous tool bag.