UFC 132 Results: 5 Reasons Melvin Guillard Is a Bad Matchup for Anyone

The UFC may have a new lightweight title contender in the form of former The Ultimate Fighter 2 contestant Melvin Guillard. Guillard convincingly crushed the always tough Shane Roller last night at UFC 132, earning his fifth straight fight in the Octagon.

As the Louisiana-native works closer to a title shot, it’s wise to examine what his chances truly are against the division’s top to fighters—Gray Maynard and champion Frankie Edgar—who are expected to fight for the third time this fall.

As was pointed out tonight by the commentary team of Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg and later elaborated on by Melvin himself, Guillard is a crazy-talented fighter who could do some serious damage at 155-pounds.

Here are the top five reasons why the 28-year-old lightweight is a bad matchup for anyone in the division.

5. Speed Kills

As was mentioned numerous during last night’s pay-per-view, Melvin Guillard has the kind of speed and explosion that makes him an extremely awkward opponent for his fellow lightweight competitors.

Though the 155-pound division is well known for the high-octane fights with energy that always delivers entertainment, few fighters can keep up with Guillard’s punching speed along with his sudden movements. This means that when his opponents are training to fight him, they are often times left stuck because they cannot replicate the kind of movement he demonstrates.

4. Confidence in Striking

In a division filled with many high-paced and talented fighters, there are few who actually have the power to knock their opponent out. Melvin Guillard stands out, not only because of his always-improving standup game but also because he has the kind of power that would normally be found in a welterweight or even a middleweight.

In 29 career wins, Guillard has knocked out 19 of his opponents, including three of his last four. He is so confident in his standup that he was even seen sticking his chin out like a boxer last night against the notoriously heavy-handed Shane Roller.

Guillard has never been knocked out in his 39 professional fights and is fearless when the fight is on the feet.

3. Relatively Unknown Ground Skills

For a guy who has been fighting for nearly nine years now, it’s odd to think that we really haven’t seen much of Melvin Guillard’s ground game. At least, not in the past few years.

We did get to see some of it in his fight against Ronnys Torres in February 2010 at UFC 109. He was taken down countless times in that bout but showed some surprisingly impressive submission defense against the Brazilian.

Guillard had been submitted in his previous fight against Nate Diaz, so the fact that he was able to stay in good position on the ground in the fight against Torres was a big-time confidence builder.

Since that fight, though, we haven’t really seen much of Guillard’s seemingly improved ground game. He claims to have solid jiu-jitsu now, but it’s hard for opponents to really get a true gauge on that based off of what we have seen lately.

His improvements on the ground can likely be attributed to...

2. Greg Jackson

Ah yes, the man who is putting together arguably the most dominant gym in America now has yet another potential title-holder waiting in the wings.

Greg Jackson’s “Jackson Submission Fighting” gym has been a huge step in the right direction for the career of Melvin Guillard who has gone undefeated since joining the team prior to UFC 109.

We all know how well fighters like Georges St-Pierre, Rashad Evans, Jon “Bones” Jones, Shane Carwin, Nate Marquardt, Carlos Condit and Clay Guida have done in recent years. But when you add in guys like Brian Stann, Joe Stevenson, Donald Cerrone and Diego Sanchez, it’s easy to see why Guillard seems to be a different fighter now than he was even two years ago.

"I didn’t gameplan it like Coach Greg teaches it," Guillard told UFC.com prior to UFC 109. "My gameplan was more like ‘okay, this guy is a jiu-jitsu guy, so I just want to stay on my feet and keep him out there.’ But with Coach Greg, he teaches you a gameplan even if you go into their element. That’s what I didn’t learn in other places. They’re teaching me ways of not only weathering the storm, but of creating problems for guys in their own element."

Jackson’s game planning along with Guillard’s physical tools make for one bad ass fighter.

1. Clean Urine

Before you laugh, and I know this is somewhat of a funny title, I want you to just think about how important this really is.

We saw last week at UFC on Versus 4 how important it is for a fighter to be clean of all potential “chemical” problems when Guillard’s training partner Nate Marquardt was unable to get medically cleared to fight in the main event of his fight. Immediately afterwards, UFC President Dana White announced that Marquardt would no longer be fighting for the organization. Marquardt had tested positive for steroids in the past, and although he did not this time, he was still unable to fight due to the “doctoring” he was doing to his body.

With Melvin Guillard, the issue wasn’t steroids. Instead, a far more serious addiction to cocaine was his vice as he tested positive for the drug following a loss to one of his friends, Joe Stevenson at UFC Fight Night 1. What was even sadder is that unlike steroids, cocaine only stays in a high-level athlete’s body for a few days. This means that Guillard was likely participating in the activity only days or even hours before the fight itself.

"It was definitely a life lesson learned. It was me again being young and hanging out in that crowd,” Guillard later told UFC.com. “I had too many of the wrong people around me wanting to be my friend because of who I was. Now I'm over that and I no longer have those former friends.”

The UFC gave Guillard a second chance, and it has been smooth sailing, at least on the drug front, ever since.

Without the distractions of drugs, Guillard has dedicated himself fully to the hunt to become the UFC lightweight champion. He may only be one or two more fights away from that chance...And quite frankly, he might have be the best hope of anyone in the UFC of defeating either Frankie Edgar or Gray Maynard.