That’s when it happened – the compliment of a lifetime.

“After that Greg Jackson pulled me aside and told me I had exponential talent and that I could be a world champion,” Caraway said. “He wanted me to move there and he would take care of whatever I needed.”

Caraway, who had a 5-2 pro MMA record at the time and had only recently started taking his training seriously, contemplated the invite. Then, while other fighters were tripping over each other to relocate to New Mexico in the hopes that some of Jackson’s genius would rub off on them, Caraway declined the chance for higher education at what is arguably the Harvard of MMA academies.

His reasoning: “I just never wanted to move to New Mexico.”

Home Sweat Home
Instead, Caraway stayed closer to home in Washington state under the tutelage of Dennis Hallman, a veteran of 50-plus pro fights who has competed in the UFC and holds the distinction of having submitted former UFC welterweight champ Matt Hughes not once, but twice. For Caraway, the affiliation with Hallman’s Victory Athletics gym keeps him close to his small town roots in Goldendale, Wash., not far from breathtaking mountain views of the Columbia River Gorge.

In Goldendale, a ranching and farming hotbed where the population is less than 4,000, and there are only three stoplights, Caraway excelled as a three-sport athlete. His unofficial motto seemed to be: Weed out the wimps. This is perhaps fitting for a young man whose father was in the Army Special Forces and served two tours in war-torn Nicaragua.

Grueling sports that effectively expose the courageous and expel the cowardly appeal to Bryan Caraway, who craves competitions where physical punishment is a consequence and revealer of character. The 25-year-old Washingtonian knows how exhilarating it feels to clear a 70-foot-long jump during a Motocross dirt bike race; the misery of cutting large amounts of weight and then lose a state championship final in wrestling; and the natural high that comes with winning 10 of his past 11 pro fights.

He points to Motocross as a particularly demanding sport where rider heart rates often climb to 180 and 190 and stay there for 30 seconds while straining to control a 200-pound bike at 35 miles per hour around a winding course.

“It beats your body up,” he said. “The landings and the vibrations of the body are tough. It’s constant beating, beating, beating (on your body). Once I finished a race I could barely get off the motorcycle. I couldn’t even close my hands all the way and I could barely stand up because my lower body had taken a pounding. It was harder on my body then almost else I’ve done.

“I actually won the Pacific Northwest championship series in Motocross. I went unbeaten for a season and won like 22 moto races in a row without losing. I raced dirt bikes all through high school and I won a lot of championships and trophies in the northwest.”

Cheating Death
Caraway said he had a model childhood, with one exception. When he was 15 years old, five people in his town under the age of 21 committed suicide. That means the small town of Goldendale in 1999 experienced a suicide rate that was more than 10 times the national average. Compounding the tragedies, three others peers died in car wrecks.

“It was crazy,” Caraway said. “That’s a huge deal when you’re in a small country town where there’s only 500 kids in the whole school and everybody knows everybody. It was a huge shock to the entire town.”

After graduating from high school, Caraway earned a wrestling scholarship to North Idaho College, a junior college powerhouse. Motocross had become too expensive and risky, so he concentrated exclusively on wrestling, and transferred to Central Washington University, but the Division II wrestling program was later axed due to budget cuts.

“It was like a stab in my heart,” Caraway said. “I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know what to do. I was pretty much lost and that’s what led me to MMA.”

Fast-Forward to Fighting
Five years later, after earning his bachelor’s degree in Exercise Physiology, the fast-fisted featherweight they call “Kid Lightning” is eager to make a splash at WEC 46 against explosive Canadian striker Mark “The Machine” Hominick. Caraway feels privileged to face a well-known fighter who owns wins over Yves Edwards and Jorge Gurgel, among others. The Sacramento showdown will mark Caraway’s WEC debut and Hominick’s return to the organization after an 11-month absence.

“Mark Hominick is a UFC veteran and he’s been around forever,” Caraway said. “He trains under Shawn Tompkins, who is arguably one of the best striking coaches in the world, so Hominick is a world-class striker. His jiu-jitsu is OK and I think wrestling is where he’s lacking the most. But I have a lot of respect for him. I think he’s a good person and very respectful.”

Twelve of Caraway’s 14 wins have come by submission, and he hasn’t been stopped by punches since his pro debut in 2005, when the fight was halted due to a cut.

“Fighting is one of the hardest sports in the world,” he said. “It really tells you who you are as a person, what kind of character you have. You never really know who you are until you’ve been in a fight. It’s about pushing yourself to the limit mentally and physically. I love the challenge and I love that other people can’t do it at a high level or can’t endure the pain, the suffering or cutting weight.”