Talkin’ MMA With Mikey Burnett
Published by Cory Brady on March 24th, 2009 in Interviews

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One of the original members of the Lion’s Den and UFC veteran, Mikey Burnett, could have very easily been referred to as a former UFC champion if it wasn’t for an extremely controversial decision loss to Pat Militech at UFC Ultimate Brazil. The bout, held back in 1998, was the very first UFC welterweight championship, and it was a bout that many believed Burnett had done enough to win.

In an exclusive interview with MMAMemories.com, the thirty four year old Tulsa, Oklahoma native made it clear that he tries not to sweat the small stuff in life. In The Eastside Assassin’s own words, “it is what it is”.

Many of the games newer fans will most likely remember Mikey as the guy that ran head first into, or should I say, through the wall on the fourth season of the Ultimate Fighter, but long before that, Burnett was laying beatdowns on guys in UFC 16 and 18. Some eighty UFC’s later, Burnett remains one of the most beloved and charismatic fighters to have ever stepped into the octagon.

We had the chance to catch up with Mikey recently to speak with him about his new gym in Oklahoma, having to overcome epilepsy as a child, living in the legendary Lion’s Den house and much more.

MMAMemories.com: What type of obstacles did you have to overcome in your life before your jump into MMA?

Mikey Burnett: When I was about eight years old, I got hit by a car, and this is what drove me into MMA. I started having epileptic seizures about six months after I was hit. I had epilepsy for about five or six years. My parents took me out of wrestling. They wouldn’t let me wrestle or play football or anything, and after a year, I was just miserable. My dad was like, ‘You know what, this is bull****. Let him be a kid. As long as he lives, it’s great. If it’s six weeks, he’ll be happy, or if it’s six years, he’ll be happy, but let him be a kid’. It was that attitude that he took with me that made me realize that I had choices. I ended up overcoming epilepsy as a teenager. I just outgrew it, and I ended up living a good life. I ended up getting involved with fighting and doing all of the things that I wanted to do. Never let anyone tell you that you can’t do something, because all of those people that said I couldn’t do it, if I would have listened to them, I never would have done anything. The epileptic thing, you’re the first person in the business that I’ve ever told that to. I think Pete Williams knows it, but I don’t even think that Ken Shamrock knows it. I have to go back, and my job now is motivating and training people. There are tons of people that are trying to do things the easy way, but they can’t do it that way. My whole thing is, ‘Let’s do it today, because you may not be here tomorrow’. Do what you can today, because you could get in a car crash on your way home and you’re dead. There’s no guarantees in life, so do what you can right now.

MMAMemories.com: So what can you tell me about Oklahoma Fight Club?

Mikey Burnett: Well, when I got out of The Ultimate Fighter, my father had passed away and I was injured, so this guy at this other club wanted me to teach. It was alright but I didn’t have enough decision making. I had a friend of mine that owned a big plumbing business and he was looking into getting into martial arts as well, so that’s how it came about. I have a really good group of guys down here right now.

MMAMemories.com: Is your brother, Scott, still training there with you?

Mikey Burnett: My brother comes in sometimes to help me with the MMA program. He still trains fighters as well. He was bitten by the bug also. He’s doing a lot of personal training, diet and nutrition type stuff. I think after you train fighters for a bit it can get tough on you because fighters are hard to deal with a lot of times.

MMAMemories.com: Do you guys have a fight team?

Mikey Burnett: We do. I have five or six guys that are very talented guys, and then of course about 90-95% of my students are doing it for recreation. They follow the UFC and they think it’s a great work out, but I have about five or six guys that are extremely talented. I have a bunch of guys that are really in there banging it out every day.

MMAMemories.com: How is the local fight scene in Oklahoma, pretty active?

Mikey Burnett: It is, there are quite a few shows around the local area. There’s a lot of politics that go on behind the scenes in the fight world. I try not to get involved with them, but a lot of my guys have traveled to fight and grapple quite a bit. We try to get out there and stay active but sometimes it’s hard to get fights. MMA is just so big right now that there doesn’t seem to be enough shows. It will balance out eventually.

MMAMemories.com: Your first fight was actually three fights. How did you end up getting involved in the Oklahoma Free Fight tournament back in 1996?

Mikey Burnett: What’s weird is that I had a lot of other fights before that tournament. I fought about ten times before I went to California, but I lost one in Oklahoma so they wanted to make sure they got that on the record. I think my real record is 14-2. I was always into boxing and wrestling, so when MMA came out, I thought it was awesome. I would have never thought I could fight for the UFC because I was just a smaller guy, but Kimo Leopoldo came into my brother’s gym for about four or five weeks because he was filming a movie here in Tulsa. We got to talking and he said that I should think about doing it. I remember I said to him, ‘You’re insane!’. Some people around here started promoting shows and they said they were doing lighter weight classes, so I was like, ‘Hell yeah, I want to do it’. I entered a couple local shows and did really good. At that time the UFC had started a 200 and under division. I knew that I was only about 170, but I didn’t care. I went to California, looked Ken up and the rest is history.

MMAMemories.com: So that’s how you ended up hooking up with Ken. What caused you to seek him out? Did you know of him from the UFC’s?

Mikey Burnett: Yeah, I had seen some of the UFC’s back in 1994 or 1995. I had always been a really good wrestler and boxer, but I wanted to try to make a living at it. I was trying to figure out where I could go to get more serious. Since I already knew how to box and how to wrestle, I really wanted to learn submissions. Back then my favorite fighter was Royce Gracie, and I checked into training there but they said that they wouldn’t train me how to fight, but they would train me how to be a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt. I wanted to fight. I didn’t want to learn how to just do one thing. They couldn’t guarantee me fights, so I rolled up to Ken’s and he was like, ‘Hey, you want to fight. I’ll get you fights’.

MMAMemories.com: Did you live at the Lion’s Den house with Ken for a while?

Mikey Burnett: I did. I think I went out there in 1995, and I was living out there for three years. When I first went out there, I was assuming that they would let me train and go home, but that didn’t end up happening. I went up there and Jerry Bohlander choked me out, and Frank Shamrock choked me out, and I was there to stay. I stayed out there until one of the times that I came home to Oklahoma, I ended up getting a girl pregnant. I came back to the house for about six weeks, but she ended up calling me and breaking the news, and that’s when I ended up leaving the house for good.

MMAMemories.com: Who else was staying at the house while you were there?

Mikey Burnett: We had a bunch of guys always coming through there. Pete Williams was there, Jerry Bohlander, and Frank Shamrock were there. We always had a lot of different guys coming through, but after a week or so of being there they would say, “I’m not doing this!’. It was pretty brutal training. We had a bunch of other guys that would come down and stay there while they trained for a fight. We had Maurice Smith, Guy Mezger and Oleg Taktarov all coming through there. It was a really busy place.

MMAMemories.com: Do you still speak with any of the guys from the Lion’s Den?

Mikey Burnett: I do. It’s on and off. Sometimes I think that everyone is trying to get past that part of life. I think you always remember the bad times over the good times. There was a while where we didn’t talk very much. I talk to Ken pretty often, every couple of months. The same thing with Jerry and Pete. I don’t talk to Frank as much but I still try to get ahold of him when I can.

MMAMemories.com: How did the neck surgery you had done after the taping of The Ultimate Fighter Season 4 go, are you able spar and grapple like normal at this point?

Mikey Burnett: No. I’ll be honest with you, there’s two ways to handle a situation in life. You can either look at the negative things in life and say that life cheated you, or you can say, ‘It is what it is’, and deal with it. I choose to do the latter. I had a lot of hopes and aspirations going into The Ultimate Fighter and I ended up hurting my neck. I’m a much more technical grappler now, because I have to be. I can’t use my strength and athletic ability the way I used to.

MMAMemories.com: So I have to ask, can we expect Mikey Burnett to return to MMA anytime soon?

Mikey Burnett: I don’t know. If I could get healthy enough to where I could be in a livable training condition. Psychologically it’s difficult for me because the training regimen that I’m used to, I can’t do that anymore. The type of training that I learned from my time with Ken Shamrock, I could never do that again. I never say never. I still wrestle six days a week and train with a bunch of fighters, so I’m still in love with the game. Realistically, should I fight again? No, but as a fighter you always wonder how you would do. You always want to do more.

MMAMemories.com: If you never end up fighting again, would you be content with just being a coach and helping the younger fighters get better?

Mikey Burnett: Oh yeah. Obviously I love my job, so for sure I would. I guess it just comes down to staying in shape. I think you become addicted to staying in shape. If I had the choice of whether two of my guys could fight in the UFC, or I could fight in the UFC, I would choose for two of my guys to fight in the UFC.