Caraway Now a Urijah-Trained Alpha Male

By Frank Curreri

Bryan Caraway recently became one more stud in the Team Alpha Male stable, and the nerve-wracking, pre-fight episode that preceded his change of teams makes for an interesting tale.

To hear the native Washingtonian tell it, the greatest adversity in his five-year career came at the turn of the New Year as he braced for the biggest fight of his young career, a WEC debut against dangerous veteran Mark Hominick. Leading up to the bout, Caraway had more on his mind than just stopping Hominick’s crazy-fast fists and kicks.

“I was extremely confident for this fight … all the way up until the weigh-ins,” Caraway said.

MIA Cornermen
Then, according to Caraway, two of his cornermen no-showed. The next day on fight night, hours before he was to walk into the cage his trainers were still nowhere to be found, with one of them claiming a family emergency.

“I was a nervous wreck, man,” Caraway said.

Highly-regarded coach Robert Follis of Team Quest in Oregon happened to be in Arco Arena that night.  Caraway had previously trained with Team Quest and approached Follis, who agreed to serve as an impromptu cornerman. He was joined in the corner by T.J. Caraway, Bryan’s brother, and a “buddy.”

“My brother doesn’t fight or train, he’s just a big fan,” Caraway said. “He cornered me back when I was an amateur just for support, so he was there for moral support. He’s actually really educated, he’s a huge MMA fan, he’s studied a lot of technique and he watches a lot of fights and he’s trained a little bit but not too much. But he’s a really analytical person and I talked to him about what I should do in this fight.”

Trapped
The hastily-arranged braintrust did their best to prod their distracted to victory, but were no match for a Hominick triangle that ended the bout just minutes in. Hominick had set the armbar up beautifully by bumping Caraway for a sweep, then immediately transitioning to a triangle.

“I actually did know that he liked that move, so that’s why it was embarrassing” to lose that way, Caraway said. “I watched him do that to other people so I knew he had that in his arsenal. That’s one of his main go-to moves.”

Looking back, Caraway (14-4) said he was not “mentally into that fight” and expects a strong rebound against Fredson Paixao, his opponent at WEC 50 in Las Vegas.

Solid Opposition
Paixao is a four-time world champion in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and one of the few practitioners to be promoted from purple belt straight to black belt – skipping his brown belt altogether. Five of the Brazilian featherweight’s wins have come via submission, including his win over Courtney Buck in March. While Caraway has submitted more opponents in MMA – 11 – he’s doesn’t planned on getting carried away on the ground against one of the world’s best.

“He’s one of the most decorated grapplers in MMA right now,” Caraway said. “I don’t know much more about him except than he’s a world BJJ champ. I hear from everybody that’s pretty much all he is. I hear that his jiu-jitsu is phenomenal and his striking isn’t very good.

“I’ve grappled against a lot of high-level black belts and I’ve beaten a lot of decent black-belt level grapplers … and I feel my MMA grappling is at a really high-level. But Fredson is a multiple-times world champion and I don’t believe in fighting other people at their strengths; I’m gonna’ fight to my strengths. I’m definitely not going to play his game and do all these things. I’m just  going to shut  him down and (on the ground) and if the ref says, ‘Stand up!’ Oh, well, I’ll get back on my feet and beat him up some more.”

A New Start
Caraway, a former Motocross racer and college wrestler, is training with Urijah Faber, Chad Mendes and Joseph Benavidez in Sacramento. Each of the top fighters will be competing at WEC 50 and Caraway believes it will be a stellar night for his new team.

“Me and Urijah have become pretty good friends over the past two years,” he said. “I came down here for a few mini camps just to try it out, and really loved their positive mental attitudes, they are a bunch of awesome guys and great training partners.”