Tommy McMillen is the newest member of the UFC’s featherweight roster, and now joins teammate Sean O’Malley on the big show.
McMillen earned a contract after winning a majority decision in an absolute war with David Mgoyan at DWCS Season 9, Week 4 earlier this month. After nearly getting finished by Mgoyan — who landed a nasty spinning back elbow, then nearly cemented it with a mounted guillotine —McMillen battled back and got the job done and a contract to boot.
After surviving the first round, McMillen,
along with O’Malley — who was in the corner — and head coach Tim Welch, realized the momentum had changed big time.
“I definitely did,” McMillen told MMA Fighting. “Tim was in the corner really motivating me. Tim and [Sean], they’ve been vouching for me for years. They know the kind of dog I am, bro, like I grew up around this shit. I’ve been doing this since I was three years old. You’re really gonna have to kill me if you want me to go out. I thought my neck was going to break at one point, and I was cool with it. I was giving the ref a thumbs up, because I thought he was getting close to stopping it, cause I felt my neck crack a bunch, and, yeah, I thought my neck was gonna break, dude, and I didn’t care.
“But once I did get back up, and even just ending the first round, even though it was only the last 10 seconds, I ended the last 10 seconds, stuffing one of his last few shots and ended up in the front headlock. I’m like, ‘Yo, this kid just hit me with his best shot, spinning back elbow, caught me off guard out of nowhere, then puts me in the nastiest choke ever, he just gave me his best, he can’t kill me, bro. Like, he can’t. He doesn’t have what it takes. I’m a bigger dog than this kid, and I knew, literally sitting on the stool after the first. I’m very analytic. I’m very [analytical] at fighting. I think in there. I’m very actively thinking. I think my fight IQ is one of the best things about me, and I knew I was down a round, big time, but I was thinking in my head, I was like, I stopped his wrestling. The only time he took me down once was when I was rocked from that shot. Other than that, I’m stopping his wrestling, I’m getting a dominant spot. I feel like I just need to keep going and outdo this kid.
“I’m going to break him. I could just see him even after that first exchange… I could see in his eyes that he just looked at me different when he was like, I can’t put this kid out. I don’t think he thought I could go through that at all. … I saw him start to fade, you know, even in the second round, he did. The thing about me, and I was saying it before the fight, I fight that kid 10 times. I know I can finish that kid. I’m a really good fighter.I got clipped and had to work through some adversity, so I was kind of starting off from behind, but I think the biggest difference between me and this kid is he didn’t really mean it when he said he’s down to go to war. I want the dominant finish, but at the end of the day, bro, I’m a fighter and I like to go to war like that.”
McMillen was transported to the hospital after the fight, so he couldn’t stick around the UFC APEX to see if Dana White was going to offer him a contract.
After improving to 9-0 as a pro, and showing not only his fighting skills, but his ability to battle through adversity like he did in the opening stanza, McMillen was quite confident White would reward him.
“Yeah, I was fully confident, McMillen said. “I had Dana out of his seat, jumping up and down, super excited, and I think one thing Dana likes about me that he can see is, for one, I’m a very marketable kid outside of the cage. I have very good socials. I’m very engaged with my fans. I got a lot of support. My numbers on the Contender Series, if you look at the weigh-ins, mine’s five-times the views compared to what everybody else’s on the weigh-ins.
“I was opening [the] card, So I knew I was getting a contract after that, especially… I think Dana likes to see a kid, in a way it kind of worked out for my favor [battling back like that].
“Who knows how the fight goes if I don’t get in that guillotine, [if] I don’t get rocked. I think the best thing you can show fighting at this level is something that you can’t teach, and that’s what I got. A lot of people, for one, couldn’t have gotten out of that guillotine. And then, [two], to come back from that round and then win and put it on, push the pedal like I did in the third after going through that first round, that’s something you just really can’t teach and Dana is one of the the most knowledgeable men in this sport when it comes to seeing fighters and who’s got what and who doesn’t. Because he’s been around it so long and so I was confident that he saw that it factor in me, and that he knows, I can be a big star in this game one day if I just keep doing what I’m doing.”
The 27-year-old knows he has a lot to work on after his victory, and realized he offered up some tells in the first round that Mgoyan took advantage of. It was a valuable learning experience for “Gun” as he not only made it to the judges’ scorecards for the first time in in his career, he made it out of the first round.
As far as when he wants to make his octagon debut, he hopes it happens the next time his teammate, and former UFC bantamweight champion makes his walk to the octagon again.
“I want to pop on the same card as my boy O’Malley,” McMillen said. “We’ve been doing this together for a long time. I think two Montana natives, people that were born and raised in Montana on the same card is absolutely legendary. And judging by my last fight, you guys know how I can set the mood for the night.
“So just go ahead and let me open up the card for my boy Suge, and I’ll be happy with that.”
