Have you ever wished that a bully would just pick on somebody his own size? Well, that’s exactly what happens in MTV’s Bully Beatdown. Each episode, mixed martial artist Jason “Mayhem” Miller confronts a new meathead who just can’t get enough of picking on the little guy. Said meathead is then presented with a challenge: Spend two three-minute rounds in the ring with a pro-fighter. If you survive, you win 10,000 dollars; if you lose, your victim takes all. While there’s enough satisfaction in seeing your arch-nemesis get beaten to a bloody-pulp, the thought of 10k isn’t so bad either.
Mayhem took a break from training for his big title fight in Japan with DREAM to go ringside with myMag about Bully Beatdown’s pulverizing ways…
Why don’t we start things off by finding out about your first fight?
When I was a kid, I got bullied. Then I started standing up to the bullies and fighting them. I had fought a ton by the time I was 16. I was so experienced at fighting that when my friend Pierre, a short, chubby guy, showed me tapes of fighting in Brazil and the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the early 90’s, I was like, ‘Yeah I can do this. I can beat all these guys up; I don’t care if they know karate.’
Then he said, ‘Do you want to spar?’ And I said, ‘Youuu? I’ll kill you!’ So, we went in my backyard and put on hockey chest protectors and small gloves. This was a 16-year-old Jason Miller. Pierre’s like, ‘Alright, go,’ and I’m like, ‘Just fight?’ So we start moving a little bit and he does a spin kick. He kicks me directly in the stomach - so hard that it knocked the wind out of me. I’d never been kicked that hard before. I got scared. I tried to punch him with a one-two, and throw him down on the ground, which was my go-to move at age 16. He started swinging and moving, and moments later I’m waking up in my backyard looking at the trees with my dad laughing from the kitchen window.
Later, I realized that Pierre had been doing taekwondo since he was four-years-old or something. After that happened, I was like, ‘Wow, I have to learn this stuff. You’re smaller than me and you can beat me, that means this stuff really works.’ From that point on I just went on a mission. I’m still on that mission today.
Did you think that you could make a career out of this when you were younger?
I don’t know if he hated me as a kid, but my dad made me do stupid stuff. I’d get in trouble all the time, so he’d make me go to “Miller Boot Camp.” He’d shave my head and make me run around and do pushups. Part of the mental training was that he’d make me read self-help books and write out all the things I was good at. One of them was fighting, and the other one was entertaining people and making people laugh. There are very few jobs that you can do with those particular skill set. So, I found this one and it’s awesome.
So were you like reading The Art of War at 16?
I was too dumb for that one, but he made me read a lot of books. I hated him at the time, and really wanted to beat him up. Now, looking back, I appreciate it. It really made me who I am today.
Where did you get the nickname Mayhem from? I guess with Friday the 13th, Jason was already taken?
Jason was my birth given name. Now my mama calls me Mayhem. The thing about Mayhem was that it was a dig at me, to make fun of me. I’m kind of here and there and everywhere. My buddies were making fun of me because I’m like mayhem; I can’t focus very well and I get on tangents. Over the years, it got cooler and cooler. I paid my dues being the crazy guy Mayhem and now I’m the crazy guy Mayhem who is awesome.
Are you “Mayhem” both in and outside of the ring?
I’m pretty much always Mayhem. I tried to act normal when I was younger before this whole thing took over. I really tried to act normal, but later I found out that you can still lead a great life and not be normal. As an awkward youth, I really felt weird about it.
Do you learn more when you fight from winning or from losing?
I think when you lose it really forces you to poke holes in what you did wrong. At the same time, I think the top level guys poke holes even in their wins. I did a good job of beating the guy up with my last fight, but I couldn’t see any of that. All I could see was what I did wrong here and what I did wrong there.
What other fighters do you look up to?
I look at every fighter, regardless of their level. If I can steal something, I steal it. I really admire Anderson Silva’s footwork and punches. I’ve been watching a lot of Mauricio "Shogun" Rua’s old fights because I fight in an organization where we’re allowed to kick the head of a guy who’s on the ground and he does that really well.
How did Bully Beatdown come about? Did you just tell MTV that you wanted to beat up some bad guys and bring some friends along?
I had been doing “The Mayhem Show” on YouTube, where I directed my own little videos of me doing crazy stuff. They searched me out because I had a funny where I made fun of a Mormon guy. Not because he was Mormon, but just because he was the geekiest man on Earth. That was the one that pretty much sealed the deal.
Do the bullies on the show train with anyone before they go into the ring with the pro-fighters?
I train six to eight weeks for a fight, usually. That’s normal. These bullies are so cocky and stupid that they think they can beat my guy on just their natural abilities alone. They don’t realize you’ve got to put in hard, hard work in order to do really well. So, they go in there and they get beat up really bad.
After experiencing being bullied as a kid yourself, do you have any tips for teens that are currently facing harassment?
You can’t always fight. You can’t always beat everybody up. It’s not going to be the Jackie Chan scene you had envisioned in your head if you’re getting jumped by three or four dudes, OK? If you have to fight, hit him first and make a scene because you’re going to have the thing broken-up. You’re not going to get hurt that bad.
Usually, the guys who get bullied are the ones who don’t stand up to the stronger guys. Hey, sometimes you have to take an ass-whooping. But if he knows you’re going to go, he might think twice about picking on you.
Lastly, what lessons from inside the ring have you been able to apply to your outside life?
Honestly, the best lesson I got from fighting that translates into real life is sometimes you don’t gotta be the best. You just gotta be the one not willing to quit. If you just keep fighting, sometimes you come out on top. Just never quit.
