Minton trying to reverse MMA stereotype

BY SPENCER CAMPBELL
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

After knocking out Frank Mir in the second round at UFC 100, Brock Lesnar treated fans to a one-finger salute, degraded the event’s main sponsor, Bud Light, and proceeded to unleash a string of invective aimed at his vanquished, bloodied foe.

The former WWE star’s tirade only strengthened the stereotype detractors use to depict mixed martial arts fighters as blood-thirsty savages.

And that’s the exact same stereotype Tyler Minton hopes to obliterate.

Don’t get him wrong, Minton is a bad man – just not in the Brock Lesnar mold. Although Minton is dedicated to unleashing perfect violence within the cage, he’s as equally adamant about respecting himself, his team, his opponents – not to mention his burgeoning fans – outside it.

“[Lesnar’s] not really helping the sport out by bringing wrestling to it,” Bluff City’s Minton said by telephone. “Every athlete says this, but I love the ability that I can be a role model. In this sport, especially, it hasn’t worked out too well. Everybody thinks we’re these violent people with haunted pasts that go out there and fight. I’m anything but.”

Minton is an undefeated (4-0) MMA amateur, fighting for Team Oxendine in Johnson City. On Saturday, his middle-weight title match against Lynchburg, Tenn.’s Joel Doak will headline Extreme Fight Night II in Chattanooga, Tenn. XFN II is one of the biggest amateur MMA circuits, and presents Minton with his first-ever title shot.

“He’s incredible, man,” said Casey Oxendine, head instructor at Team Oxendine. “He’s been with us for about a year and a half. In that time his skill alone has improved tremendously. ... I see really, really big things for him in the future. He’s everything you could want in a fighter.

“But on top of that, everything he does promotes a positive outlook for martial arts and for our team. He knows how to talk, but he’s always respectful. He puts a good image, a good face on what we do.”

After graduating from Sullivan East, Minton found no competitive outlet at East Tennessee State, where he went for college. The Buccaneers don’t offer football or wrestling, his preferred high school releases.

A few acquaintances recommended MMA, and Minton headed into his first bout intending for it to be his last.

“That fight lasted 12 seconds,” Minton said. “So I decided to keep trying it.

“For me, I absolutely love the competition of it. Plus, I think it’s the most pure sport available. It’s pretty much what God gave one person [against] what God gave another person.”

Purity is big with Minton. He is studying to become a nutritionist, and his typical diet consists of a banal routine of three eggs and a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, a piece of fish (usually salmon) and a sweet potato for lunch, and a grilled chicken breast garnished with a cup of spinach and a cup of brown rice for dinner. He can have a late-night snack of cottage cheese for protein, if he so desires.

He’s never tasted a drop of alcohol. XFN’s promoter told him about the bout’s after-party, which is being held at a Chattanooga dance club. “I hope you’ll make it,” he told Minton.

“If I do, it’ll be the first club I’ve ever stepped foot in,” Minton responded.

He trains five night a week at Oxendine’s, where he’s routinely worked through by Oxendine, a Brazilian black belt in jiu jitsu, a wrestling coach who’s competed in four Olympic trials, and a professional muay thai instructor. This, of course, doesn’t include his independent strength and cardio conditioning.

Minton hopes all this hard work will pay off when he turns professional after his eighth fight, which is the schedule Oxendine has set for him.

“And I can start getting paid to get hit in the face,” Minton said, “instead of doing it for free.”

First things first, however, beginning with Saturday’s opponent. Doak is undefeated, and Oxendine compares his unorthodox style to Lyoto Machida, the fighter who beat Rashad Evans at UFC 98. Nevertheless, Team Oxendine is pretty sure it has concocted a plan that will spoil Doak’s record.

Even so, and irregardless of how nice and amiable he is, Minton realizes that Saturday’s bout will be decided by violence.

“I’m not a mean person,” he said. “Everyone asks me how I can get mad to go in there and fight. I don’t want to hurt the guy, I just want to beat the guy. If it takes him getting hurt to win, that’s fine.”

Tyler Minton’s a bad man – when he has to be.

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