On Sunday, Jan 10th, Bryan "Kid Lightning" Caraway (14-3) out of Dennis Hallman's Victory Athletics camp near Olympia, WA makes his WEC debut when he takes on talented striker Mark Hominick (16-8) in a 145 pound matchup on the WEC 46 card in Sacramento. 25-year-old Caraway, who has fought on Strikeforce, Elite XC, and Sportfight, was raised in Goldendale, WA and is a graduate of Central Washington University. Caraway is known as a well rounded fighter with excellent grappling skills with 12 of his 14 victories coming by way of submission. NW Fightscene spoke with Bryan at length last summer and portions of the interview are below...

NWFS: Tell us about how you got into MMA and how your career has evolved. 
Caraway: I wrestled for 15 years. I was wrestling in college [at Central Washington University in Ellensburg] and one of my teammates was Matt Lininger, Dennis Hallman's cousin. He was a fighter and he started talking to me about it. And I was like What! I thought this cage fighting was illegal. And he's like Oh, no. There's a huge amateur circuit... Didn't even know. This was like five, six years ago. So that opened my eyes. End of the season came around and Lininger was like, Hey man, you should try to fight. So he showed me two days worth of training stuff in like ten minutes before the fight and I go out there and do really good. Lininger brought me over to Dennis and I fought on one of his cards and Dennis was like Oh man! He looks like a young Benji Radach. He's a good wrestler who'll throw down and throw bombs and keep his chin tight. So he pulled me aside and was anytime you want to come over, I'll give you private lessons. So I was going to school, doing my thing, and I tried to make it over to him once a month maybe. Do like a little two hour seminar. And then I would fight a couple times. I think I got up to about 6 or 7 fights and he's like you know what, you're still going to school, why don't you meet up with Rich Guerin out of Yakima Mixed Martial Arts, before Rich had a school. Actually it was Anthony Hamlett who referred me to Rich and Dennis was like oh yeah, yeah.. it was kind of a teamwork thing. Says he's a really good Jiu-jitsu coach, has all the basics and a good solid foundation to show me. And I could really teach Rich some wrestling.

Caraway with Rich Guerin

I got with Rich and I started coaching him wrestling and he was teaching me to tighten up my jiu-jitsu game at the Yakima Police Athletic League, and we were doing that together. And then one of my buddies at Central, JJ Mix who used to train at AMC and was a really good Muay Thai striker, started coming down there... and then the next you know I started recruiting more people in from Central. Wrestling buddies. Joel Thomas. Tommy Truex who I wrestled with in college. He went to Iraq and came back and I pulled him in. Pulled Kyle McCarron in. Jesse McCarty... pretty soon we were overrunning the Yakima Police Athletic League. So we talked Rich into opening up a place and we decided we want to make a team and just started running through everyone in the Northwest. Our team was just dominating at the amateur level and we couldn't get fights anymore. So I talked to Rich and suggested to start doing some fights. He got together with one of his other buddies and they started throwing some fights. Right at that time I already had like ten fights and I turned pro like three months before when I fought on Sportfight. At his first show I was the only pro on the team so I kickboxed and everybody else did MMA. And our team just took off. So everybody is fighting for like two years on all these amateur shows and I wasn't because Rich didn't really have the connections for pro fights besides Lindland and other local pro shows. I didn't really get a lot of fights. I fought for Derek Cleveland in Idaho on a pro show, fought Noah Thomas from the Ultimate Fighter show. I beat him up pretty easy. He was supposed to fight Josh Thomson, I don't know what he was thinking. He probably would have died. (Laughs)

Right at that time I signed with Matt Lindland to take over my management. Then everybody just split... went to Extreme Couture, Wanderlei's gym, Tommy Truex went to Greg Jackson's gym. So I was stuck at Yakima Mixed Martial Arts... Not really stuck. I really wanted to be there but I didn't have any training partners. So I was there about a year and a half, while Lindland was managing me. And in a year and a half he got me two fights on Sportfight which he owns, and then I fought once in Washington DC... It just wasn't working out and I didn't have any training partners at Yakima MMA. I was helping Rich run the whole school. I was teaching fight classes every night. I just didn't have enough for myself. Dennis at the same time was coming down to Lindland's and teaching the [IFL's] Wolfpack jiu-jitsu. He kind of helped start my career and coaching me, and was like, why don't you come back to Victory Athletics. So I did and I've been here a little over a year and a half. Things have been going great right when I signed with Dennis. Boom, got with the Strikeforce show. Got a good win. He hooked me up with Ken Pavia of MMA Agents. He signed me to the EliteXC, I was the number one contender from there and fought Wilson Reis who was the EliteXC World Champion. And then EliteXC just falls off and I'm in a dead spell again. Eight months goes by and I cant fight and I'm like Damn! I cannot catch a break. And now my contracts out again about a month ago and Strikeforce has me fighting for them and I'm stoked.

[Editor's note: This interview was held in June 2009 just before Caraway fought at the Strikeforce show in Kent, WA.]

NWFS: I interviewed Dennis Hallman and when I asked him which of the Victory Athletic guys we should be on the lookout for he made a point of mentioning Bryan Caraway "when he's not nervous". That must be something he's talked to you about. Tell us about that and how your trying to overcome it?
Caraway: You know its actually kind of funny. He calls me Nervous Nancy.

(mutters) Bastard! (laughs)... Anyway, I think its not like I'm nervous in that I compete bad. I always compete and perform well. Its just that I think it drains my body a little bit. I think I can compete even better and I'm just so competitive. I grew up my whole life being so competitive, wanting to win so bad, more than the average competitive person. And I know any fighter is going to be competitive but I think I have a little bit more. When you're losing to me is like life or death. There is nothing after that. Like I am a fighter and this is what I do and losing to another person in a one on one combat sport is the worst thing I can possibly imagine. Like losing one of my family members. And I think I've let that consume me a little too much and I'll try to fight not to lose, as opposed to fighting to win. I've really been working on thinking "you know what, I'm a bad ass. I'm 21 and 4." I'm not going to worry about what he does because I cant control what he does. I'm not going to control fate if it happens that he closes his eyes and gets a lucky punch. That'll happen. That happens to everybody every once in awhile, so I can't focus on that. I got to focus on what I am good at and what I am going to do and just know that I'm going to win and have confidence in my skills... I just got to focus on winning and not really care about anybody else. And that's what I've really been doing. A lot of kind of mediation, focusing and just relaxing, and just realizing to myself that hey man, don't make this so stressful. I do this for fun. I am super motivated but I do this for fun. This is why I train and bust my ass just so I win. I'm doing all this hard work, and I'm putting in my time, and this is what I want to do. I did all the hard part. I cut the weight, I ran my sprints, I did my circuit training, I did my iron mans, now its the fun part. And that always makes me settle a bit and realize I'm ready to rock and roll.

NWFS: You've been in a long-term relationship with Pro Fighter Miesha Tate.

What's it like to be going out with a fellow fighter?
Caraway: At first I was really like I didn't like it actually. I dated Miesha for three months in college and during that time I started a MMA club at the school with Tommy Truex. We still had our fight team in Yakima but we were like hey lets find a way to get some new gear and get the school to give us some money and recruit some more fighters. Miesha showed up and was like Hey I want to learn some self-defense and jiu-jitsu, it looks cool. She started getting good and she decided she wanted to come down to the fight team and at first I was like oh man, that's my sanctuary. That's where I kind of go and get away from everything. She started coming down there, and maybe if we are going to be teammates we should just be teammates. We kind of broke it off there and were teammates for about a year and a half. And then we ended up getting back together and dating for a little over two years, about two years three months now. And I've really come to appreciate it. Over that time when we were broken up, I saw how dedicated she was. She wasn't like a girl that said "Oh, I need special treatment". She was busting her ass harder than most of the guys in there. She was serious, she didn't ask for anything extra because she was a girl. So I was like, you know what, this is not just some girl who wants to look at guys and get attention. She's for real. I saw her work ethic and I really admired it, and realized that women can do it and women can fight and women can be serious about it and be just as tough [as men], and I admired that.

Since we've been dating, there are a lot of positives. She understands when I'm cutting weight. She understands what I feel like. She knows I'm grumpy and pissed off. She knows what it is to go through cutting weight, dieting, and cutting back, and what you're supposed to eat and what you're not supposed to eat. And it makes it a lot easier... And I'll be like "Hey were in this town on vacation, I want to go train" and its not like some girl who says "We're on our vacation in California and you want to go train? We're supposed to be on our alone time." She's like "Sweet, we're going to train at Faber's gym. That's cool!" And we can share that. That's what we do together and she's a partner for me to teach and she's been my prodigy. Ever since she started training, I've been her main coach. I mean Rich helped her out but I've been her main solid coach. I'm smaller and our techniques work better for smaller weight people. And she's blossomed. I'm super proud of her and she works hard. She's earned everything that she's got. Its awesome you know. Having a girlfriend that understands what you're going through. Things are good.

NWFS: Who to thank?

Caraway: I want to thank, first and foremost, Victory Athletics. Dennis Hallman for taking me in. He let me live on his property for free and made it that I don't have to pay anything, so I want to thank Dennis. I want to thank all my teammates at Victory Athletics. I want to thank my family. My mom and my dad, my brother. They've been super supportive. That's like the most important thing. Without them I couldn't have done anything. I wouldn't be who I am today. So I'd really like to thank them. Especially my mom. She got me into wrestling. She's my core. I also want to thank Miesha Tate, my girlfriend. She's there every step of the way for me, pushing me and helping me keep my mind straight. I want to thank Yakima Mixed Martial Arts for being there for three years for me. And just being my family. Those three years were a huge influence on me and the person I am. I really want to thank Rich Guerin and Julie Guerin. I want to thank my sponsors, Vicious Fightgear, Fight University, Tussle Fight Gear. And just all the fans.