Welcome back to This Fucking Guy, where we here at the CME take a long, hard look at someone in the MMA world with the hope of answering the question: this fucking guy, what is his deal? Today, ahead of his bout with Leonardo Santos on Saturday’s UFC Fight Night main card, we look at MMA vet and former actual carpenter Clay Guida.
Some of you just don’t get it. You don’t understand how long Clayton Charles Guida has been a professional MMA fighter. You think you do, solely because he’s been considered a “veteran of the sport” for at least as long as you’ve been watching it, but that barely scratches the surface. Because what a lot of people don’t understand is what a different world MMA was back when guys like Guida started.
For instance, prior to breaking into the big time, you know how many different promotions Guida fought for that had some version of “extreme” in the name? There was the “Xtreme Fighting Organization,” which operated mostly in Wisconsin and Illinois (Guida fought in seven of their first eight events). Then there was Xtreme Kage Kombat, a fight promotion with an admirable commitment to unconventional spelling choices. There was also the long-running midwest staple Extreme Challenge.
You wanna tell me you started MMA in 2003 without actually telling me you started MMA in 2003? Show up with a bunch of different Extreme/Xtreme events on your record. That’ll do it.
This man made what he considers his pro debut at an event during the goddamn Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. I know because I did a story on it back in 2012, by which point Guida was already considered an experienced and respected pro. He fought on the very first Strikeforce event … ever. He fought for years in a pair of shorts he’d bought at Walmart on the way to the event. He had an entire career’s worth of fights – 26 bouts, give or take – before he ever signed with the UFC. And then, when he did finally sign on, he remained in the UFC uninterrupted for the next 15 fucking years.
Think whatever you want about the man, his fighting style, or his future prospects now at the age of 39, with some scalp finally starting to show through amid those once glorious locks. But dammit, respect the grind. The hustle. The sheer resilience and longevity and utter refusal to go the fuck away.
On Saturday night, Guida fights Leonardo Santos on the main card of UFC Fight Night Vegas Apex ESPN+ Fortywhatever. It will be somewhere in the neighborhood of his 58th professional fight, the last 31 of which have come in the UFC.
Think about that. I mean, 31 fights is an entire career’s worth. And for Guida it just represents the UFC portion of his work – which itself is somehow still onfucking going.
And you know something else? He’s still pretty decent. He can still win some fights here and there. That’s tough as shit in the lighter weight classes. There may be plenty of damn near 40-year-old heavyweights hanging around, but there are almost no lightweights of similar age and experience still doing it up at this level.
Even now, you know what you’re going to get with Guida. He’ll come bouncing down to the cage, overflowing with energy, probably get slapped around by his brother before entering, then mix inexhaustible wrestling with awkwardly effective boxing for roughly 15 minutes, after which point he’ll either win or lose a close decision. You know what you call that? Goddamn consistency, is what.
If that’s not enough for you, consider this partial list of people Guida has beaten over the last couple decades: Nate Diaz, B.J. Penn, Anthony Pettis, Takanori Gomi, Joe Lauzon, Rafael Dos Anjos, Josh Thomson, Tatsuya Kawajiri.
And his last four losses? Mark Madsen, Bobby Green, Jim Miller, and current champ Charles Oliveira. Not too fucking shabby.
Away from the cage, Guida is a simple man. His Instagram page is as much about fishing as it is about anything related to combat sports. He somehow manages to embody the ethos of The Dude while also clearly being majorly into fitness and fighting. At times he actually seems to be the rare person with a healthy work-life balance in MMA. This shit is his job, but it’s not his entire world. This T-shirt is basically his world view summed up in visual form, and honestly we’ve all seen fighters who built their lives around much worse ideologies.
Fun side note: Back in 2008 I covered a UFC Fight Night event in Omaha for Sports Illustrated, and the UFC PR people installed me in Guida’s locker room all night leading up to his fight with Mac Danzig. I was curious to see what his preparations and level of overall nervousness would be like before a fight. You’d have thought he was getting ready for a bowling tournament.
The most memorable part now was an extended discussion among Guida and his cornermen about UFC commentator Mike Goldberg, who they did imitations of while imagining what it would be like if he did commentary on porn. (“Really going to town on this chick, is the pizza delivery guy.” That sort of thing.) It was actually pretty funny. To remind you that it was 2008, I also recall Guida getting excited at the news that his mom was in the crowd, sitting with the guys from 311 and a couple of The Foo Fighters. (“Not Dave Grohl. The other guys.”)
Then he got up, got warm, and went out to totally Guida the fuck out of Danzig, who at the time had a full head of steam after winning The Ultimate Fighter. It was Danzig’s first loss in the UFC. It very much felt like just another night of work for Guida. Afterwards the “press conference” was just Guida and Nate Diaz both sitting in folding chairs in front of reporters in an empty locker room. Diaz stayed for about 20 seconds before his brother convinced him that it was bullshit, then he got up and left. So Guida shrugged and then sat there for as long as we wanted, answering questions. Good dude, is my point.
Can you still have this kind of career in today’s MMA? Which is to say, the kind where you have an entire career’s worth of fighting before landing in the UFC, where you then stay for 15 goddamn years without ever becoming a champion or even really coming close? I don’t know. That feels like the kind of the thing today’s UFC doesn’t allow for, which might make Guida a dying breed or a holdover from a bygone era.
And whatever anyone else makes of what that means or of where his career ranks, you get the sense he wouldn’t really give a shit. Which is probably a pretty good way to be about it. And if you need him in the meantime, you can definitely find him out on the water with a fishing pole in one hand and a beer in the other. There are worse ways to fill up a life.
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