Mike "300" Hayes will be fighting in the opening round of the Bellator Heavyweight Tournament on Thursday, August 26th against veteran fighter, Alexey Oleinik.

29 year old Hayes is a NW native who has fought mostly on pro shows in the tough NW circuit such as Sportfight, CageSport, and Rumble on the Ridge. Earlier this year he made his Bellator debut with a impressive win over Steven Banks that landed him a spot in the 8 man Bellator Heavyweight Tournament. NW Fightscene had the opportunity to speak with Mike in the week before his fight as he trained at Eric Dahlberg's Ring Demon Mixed Martial Arts in Tukwila, WA...

NW Fightscene: You're fighting next week on Bellator. Do you know who your opponent will be?
Mike Hayes: I think Alexey Oleinik, Russian Sambo guy. He's 27-5-1. Hundred percent submission guy though. Undersized heavyweight. I think I match up good against him sizewise and my cardio's good and should be able to outstrike him.

NWFS: How'd you hook up with Bellator?
Hayes: I had just been doing a lot of local fights. I was sick one day and got on the internet just looking around trying to find myself a fight somewhere. I started emailing different promotions and a couple different bigger name management guys. And I got a hold of Ken Pavia and he called me back and said 'if you want to jump on board with me, then I'll get you into Bellator'. So had him send me over the contracts and it looked good from where I was just doing the local fights. Kind of my opportunity to make a name for myself against good competition. And a good time frame and everything. I like the way Bellator has set up its tournament style. So I'm really excited about that. I'm excited that I got that first fight out of the way, got into the tournament, and now I get to go prove myself.

NWFS: So some of these guys in the tournament, do you know much about them?
Hayes: I wouldn't say I know a lot. I know the basics. The favorite of the tournament is Damian Grabowski, Polish guy who's like 12-0. But he's not that big. I feel that I match up with him pretty well sizewise. You got Cole Konrad, real big wrestler known as being Brock Lesnar's training partner, but very much untested in MMA. Neil Grove just beat Eddie Sanchez in his first fight and he looked good. The guy is huge. Definitely wouldn't want to take many punches from him. Other than that I don't know too much about the other guys. Just kind of going day by day with this, focusing on my fight that's coming up, and then see where it takes me.

NWFS: You started fighting in 2007 with the White Buffalo Warriors under Will Hammond. How'd you hook up them?
Hayes: I found Will through Craigslist. He had an ad going for anyone that wanted to come and train and fight. I was just messing around looking up MMA on Craigslist, it popped up and at the time I just had a kid and it was like 'Oh, I can't really afford to pay anything' and he was offering to come and train and fight for free so figured I go and check it out. Went in and its all out of his garage and it was fun. Definitely got me into the sport.

NWFS: Now you've come here to Ring Demon. How did that transition take place?
Hayes: Will and Eric are friends and Will brought me down here a few different times to train and I felt that Eric was a good fit for the holes I have in my game. Pretty much my ground game. Really, now that I look back, I see everything in my game was bad from when I started fighting, but Eric was just a perfect fit for helping me get better with my ground game and working with my wrestling. Then there's a few different guys down here like Bobak & Trevor [Smith] who's fighting pro now. Delo and Serenity. They all help me a ton. Big heavyweights that are great wrestlers, great ground guys. Its really helped my game round out a little bit.

Hayes training with the big guys at Ring Demon MMA

NWFS: You turned pro early after 4 or 5 amateur fights. Was that by design because there were just not enough heavyweight fighters on the amateur level?
Hayes: (laughs) Honestly, it was Strikeforce offered me money. I had a kid not too much before that and I was hurting a little bit financially and Strikeforce was like 'hey, we'll give you some money to fight.' And its like, all right, sounds good, better than doing it for free. I did it. I definitely turned pro too early. Didn't know enough. Lost some fights because of that. But overall, it is what it is. I just got to go with it and learn from the experience.

Hayes pro debut at Strikeforce - Feb '08

NWFS: You've fought a lot of the toughest big guys in the Northwest: Devin Cole, DJ Linderman, Matt Kovacs, Mario Miranda who's now in the UFC fighting Damian Maia coming up, and so on. Of all those guys, which ones stand out to you?
Hayes: Honestly, really Mario. He's like the obvious one. Like you said, he's fighting Damian Maia in the UFC. He put a good whooping on me. I went very unprepared into that fight and I lost to him. I mean he didn't finish me so I feel good about that, but at the same time I feel like I should have competed a lot better against him. He's a tough guy and I think he's going to have a really good career. Other than that I've fought some good people but its all competition, its all just opponents. I'd love to see some of them succeed, some of them are really nice guys, and then there's other people like Linderman who I'd like to just see retire.

Hayes battles Mario Miranda in March '09

NWFS: What part of this game is the most fun for you?
Hayes: Honestly the most fun as much as I'm probably am not that good at it, the most fun is the jiu-jitsu. Just because, it really is, it's a game. And you can go hard on it everyday and it's just like a mind game that you're playing with your friends or opponents . Whoever it is on a day to day basis. It's really cool. It's almost like playing video games with your friends but it's live action. (laughs) It's pretty cool. 

NWFS: Training everyday, what thing do you hate the most about being a fighter?
Hayes: Wrestling. Like I had to do today. Man, I'm trying so hard to get better at it but I just feel like its such slow progress and that's the thing that drives me absolutely crazy. Because I want to see quicker results and I'm just not seeing them as fast as I want to. Everybody tells me 'hey you're getting better. I'm seeing you get better.' but I don't feel like I see it. And yeah, it drives me a little crazy

NWFS: Are you training full-time or are you working at all?
Hayes: No, I'm training full-time although I just started a fight shop. An MMA gear and clothing store. Its online. Syndicate Fight Shop. (SyndicateFightShop.com) I'm working doing that but it's all kind of tying in with my MMA career.

NWFS: Sponsorship wise who do you have helping you out?
Hayes: Right now it's kind of random sponsors from fight to fight except for Syndicate, our fight shop sponsoring me obviously. Zipfizz has stepped up a couple times to sponsor me. My buddy's record label, High Powered Entertainment, has always been behind me. So they'll be doing my next fight song for my upcoming fights, so I'm excited about that. Those are my main sponsors.

NWFS: You just had a 2nd child. Tell us about your family life.
Hayes: Yep, I got a 1 and a 3 year old now. My kids are awesome. That's the biggest thing I love about this sport, about being able to do this full-time, is that I get to spend time with my family. Like today I brought my son down to the gym, let him run around while I was doing my workout. That's what its all about. Go hang out with them afterwards for a few hours. A lot of people don't get that much family time. I still work out a ton. I still have a full-time job with my training. But a lot of it is surrounded with my kids and my family. I have an awesome wife, Meghan. She's super supportive. She's only missed one of my fights now. She's grown to love the sport too and has always done everything she can to help me get in here to the gym more and more and more. Supported me when I quit my job even though it was a stress for us to do it, but she knew that the overall results would be good.

NWFS: Outside of fighting, what do you do with your spare time?
Hayes: Wintertime I snow ski. That's what I do. I love backcountry skiing. Summertime, I don't really do anything. I just like being outside whether its like boating or hiking or whatever. Just anything outside is cool. I'm pretty involved with my church, Eastlake Community Church. I just started a fund raising campaign through an organization called Charity Water (www.charitywater.org). Trying to bring clean water to kids and families in developing nations. That was through my church who partnered up with the organization. That's what I'll be focusing on for this next fight is trying to bring fund raising money into that.

NWFS: How about an online presence? 
Hayes: I really don't have a website for me, but you can find me on Twitter or Facebook: twitter.com/mike300hayes or just HAZE on Facebook. Other than that, I got my fight shop, SyndicateFightShop.com. Anyone who needs gear or clothing, check it out.

NWFS: Who do you want to thank?
Hayes: I want to thank God for giving me the chance to do this, this opportunity. I want to thank Eric Dahlberg for teaching me how to fight instead of just letting me go out and brawl and win some, lose some. I want to thank my strength and conditioning coach, Emil Verbovski. I'd like to thank my wife and my parents, my whole family for being so supportive. And all my fans and all my friends that continue to support me win or lose. They're always there. I love it.

NW Fightscene would like to thank Mike for taking the time to speak with us and Eric Dahlberg of Ring Demon for hosting us at his gym. Catch Mike Hayes this coming Thursday, August 26th fighting against Alexey Oleinik on the Bellator 26 fight card in Kansas City and will be broadcast on Fox Sports Net. Check local listings for broadcast time or visit bellator.com.

Mike trains with the White Buffalo Warriors (myspace.com/whitebuffalowarriors) in Kirkland and at Eric Dahlberg's Ring Demon MMA located near the Southcenter Mall at 840 Industry Drive in Tukwila and online at ringdemon.com.