As tailspin continues, what's to become of Jason 'Mayhem' Miller?

In the video, he’s wearing a black vest, some gold chains, and a pair of sunglasses with one lens missing. On his head, there’s a baseball cap with what appears to be a sleep mask strapped to one side. When the host of the show, “Inside MMA’s” Kenny Rice, says his name, he flashes a wild grin at the camera. When he finally starts talking, it’s in a series of voices not his own, drifting between a high, manic monotone and a sleepy singsong.

This is one of the ways we get our glimpses of former UFC middleweight Jason Miller these days, in bizarre TV appearances or in YouTube videos where he comes off as confused or drunk or both.

The other way is in mug shots. He shows up grinning and shirtless beneath a purple mohawk after live-tweeting a stand-off with police in 2014. Then he’s smirking and disinterested after a fight with police at his Orange County, Ca., home in 2015.

There were other arrests, too. For domestic violence. For breaking into and then falling asleep inside a church. For driving under the influence. For vandalism. All, according to Miller, the result of a targeted effort by law enforcement officers who have effectively declared war on him, he said.

“If this was not happening to me, I would probably find it more interesting,” Miller told MMAjunkie.

But what is happening to the man the fight world knows as “Mayhem” Miller? Is he sick? Is he pretending? Is he a danger to himself and others?

Maybe most importantly, what’s going to happen if he continues on his current trajectory, which from the outside looks a lot like a tailspin?

‘Without MMA, I think it’s only going to get worse’

He had “a crisis.” That’s the word Miller used to describe it.

“Actually, I had like a hundred,” Miller said. “When you have basically zero support system, and you have the classic Hollywood moment where everything goes away and your pool turns green? I’d call that a crisis.”

But according to many who know him, Miller’s support system (or lack thereof) is what he’s made it. Former friends and training partners describe an increasingly disturbing pattern of violent and destructive behavior that eventually isolated Miller from those who cared about him.

“A lot of people have tried to help him,” said one person who spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying he feared for his safety. “And he has (expletive) all over those people in every possible way that you can (expletive) on someone.”

“It saddens me, man,” said another former friend who also requested anonymity due to safety concerns. “It really does. Because I know how Jason can be – not ‘Mayhem.’ But at a certain point, what can you do if he just can’t control himself?”

When confronted with those statements, Miller laughed.

“That’s hilarious,” he said. “Just hilarious. See, what I don’t get about that is, where are all y’all? Everybody shut the cage on me. And I kind of don’t blame them, with the bad press and all, because that’s how people are. But a lot of people closed their doors on me, like completely. Everybody did, actually. People wonder why I give weird interviews where I say weird stuff to Bas Rutten. It’s because where the (expletive) were you guys?”

Miller’s last professional fight came in May 2012, when he dropped a unanimous decision to C.B. Dollaway at UFC 146. It was his second straight defeat in the UFC, following a TKO loss to Michael Bisping in late 2011. He was released from the organization shortly after the defeat to Dollaway, and his legal troubles started soon after that.

But earlier this year Miller announced plans to return to the cage after nearly four years, meeting fellow former UFC middleweight Luke Barnatt in a middleweight title bout for the upstart Venator FC organization, based in Italy. The booking drew criticism from fans and media, who cited Miller’s many arrests and his pending trial on charges related to domestic violence as reason enough for Venator to pull him from the bout.

That criticism didn’t sit well with Venator president and self-described “serial entrepreneur,” Frank Merenda, who fired back with a strongly worded statement telling media members to “be ashamed” of themselves for trying to deny Miller a chance to earn a living, and all before he’d been convicted.

“Miller has been convicted in the court of public opinion, but the government has yet to win any of five pending cases against him,” Merenda told MMAjunkie. “Right now, he’s innocent. I don’t want to be the court and I don’t want to be the judge. I think we can give him a chance.”

This particular chance came together with help from another fighter and trainer, Jason Manley, who Merenda described as a friend. Manley, who said he’s worked with Miller off and on since 2011, insisted that he pushed for the bout in the hopes that a return to fighting might help Miller with his struggles outside the cage.

“He’s got some issues for sure,” Manley said. “He’s got stuff he’s dealing with, trying to get his life back on track. Without MMA, I really don’t see him getting it together any other way. He doesn’t have anything to look forward to. He doesn’t have anything to prepare for or hope for. Without MMA, I think it’s only going to get worse.”

Manley didn’t disagree with others’ assessments of Miller as a man who isn’t easy to help. When Miller is drinking or in the middle of “one of his episodes,” as Manley put it, attempts to address his behavior can easily lead to physical confrontations, he said.

“He can get violent with people sometimes,” Manley said. “It’s not even necessarily safe for some people to try to help him. He’s not one of these guys where it’s going to take the first time you try to help him, or even the second or third time. If you really want to help him, you’ve got to continually stick your neck out there and try, and the thing is, he’s going to stab you in the back two or three times for trying to help him. I’ve been in that situation with him.”

When asked about that characterization, Miller replied: “Who’s Jason Manley? I don’t train with anybody named Jason Manley.”

Manley responded with a cell phone video that showed Miller discussing the upcoming Barnatt fight, saying he took the bout because, “Jason Manley asked me to fight, so I’m fighting.”

‘I am absolutely a prick’

According to several people with knowledge of the situation, Miller’s trouble really began after his 2013 arrest for domestic violence. His then girlfriend claimed that Miller assaulted her after an argument over text messages she found on his phone. Miller claimed that the woman attacked him and that he merely restrained her.

He has yet to stand trial on charges related to the incident, but said that the arrest pegged him as “a big, scary monster” in the eyes of local law enforcement.

“These white knights have got their armor on, thinking I beat up my chick even though they don’t know the whole story,” Miller said. “I didn’t do any of that. So every cowboy in Orange County has got his spurs jingling and jangling. I’m just trying to call a truce.”

According to his lawyer, former Orange County prosecutor Cameron Talley, that arrest unfairly tarred Miller.

“Once you’re pegged as a domestic violence guy, you just get lumped in with a lot of bad guys,” Talley said. “But listen, he didn’t do that. I’m going to walk him out the door on that trial. I’m telling you, he didn’t hurt that girl.”

Talley said that the arrest, coupled with Miller’s often aggressive response when dealing with the police, has made him a favorite target of police and prosecutors in Orange County. Talley cited the 2014 standoff at Miller’s home as an example of law enforcement overreaction, as well as the $1 million bail (Talley later argued it down to $200,000) following Miller’s most recent arrest, related to an alleged vandalism incident outside a shuttered tattoo parlor.

“The bail schedule on that (charge) in Orange County is $10,000,” Talley said. “The prosecutor went in and told the judge all about what a bad guy he is and how many police contacts he’s had, and they set the bail at $1 million. And even though this is a guy who always shows up in court, except for one time when he was sick, do they send him a notice (to appear)? No, they go out and do a felony car stop and stick a gun in his girlfriend’s face. Now you tell me why there’s a million-dollar bail on a $1,600 vandalism charge. That is targeting. It simply is.”

At the same time, Talley said, Miller “has not always been his own best friend” when dealing with police. That’s one charge Miller has no problem copping to.

“I am absolutely a prick,” Miller said. “You know the idiots on YouTube who point their phones at the cops while they record and ask stupid questions because they know their rights? I’m like one step removed from that guy. I’m kind of an aggressive version of that guy. I’m the guy who’s like, ‘No, you can’t just shake me down for my ID.’ Donald Trump hasn’t ordered everyone to show their papers just yet.”

Mayhem Miller Industries

In conversation, Miller sounds at times like the same guy he’s always been, which is to say eccentric, and sometimes stubbornly and maddeningly so, but still intelligent and without question mentally competent. That’s the Miller many fans remember from his days hosting “Bully Beatdown” on MTV, one who is funny and zany, without being literally crazy.

In a 40-minute phone interview with MMAJunkie, that Miller was still very much on display at times. Asked what he saw in his future after the Barnatt fight, he launched into a typical “Mayhem” riff.

“I want to fight Kimbo (Slice), maybe. And I want to fight Royce Gracie. And I want to fight Ken Shamrock. And I want to fight Dikembe Mutombo. And I want to fight Jared from Subway. And I want to fight Vladimir Putin. And I want to fight Scott from ‘Family Ties.’ And Zach Morris and A.C. Slater at the same time. Maybe some of those could be grappling matches. But full MMA for Jared from Subway.”

Then there are other times when it’s difficult to tell where the line is between fun nonsense and potential actual delusion, such as in this exchange:

Miller: Forum comments, they hurt my feelings sometimes. Like someone said I’m just doing this for the money. I’m like, what? Mayhem Miller Industries is on track to be a multi-million dollar company.

What is Mayhem Miller Industries?

Miller: We’re experts in legal and quasi-legal services.

Legal and quasi-legal, what does that mean?

Miller: It’s exactly as I said. I don’t know. There’s some gray area in the law.

Can you give me an example of a service Mayhem Miller Industries might provide?

Miller: No, I’m just saying. We look out for the people who prefer not to carry guns…[long pause]…I’m sorry I trailed off just now. I was having a problem with my pool. I wasn’t paying attention while I was talking just then, so I could have said anything.

Later he would insist that Mayhem Miller Industries promotes “underground fights,” and has been doing so for some time. He also maintained that he’s not fighting in Venator for the money, which he doesn’t need thanks to some smart investments and a voice-acting career that’s “really taking off.” It’s impossible to tell how serious he is about any of this.

According to the Venator president and co-founder Merenda, what we see with Miller these days is at least partly a self-marketing effort, even if the trouble it’s landed him in is very real.

“I think that when you have nothing to do and you’re kind of a punk, as he is, you get into trouble,” Merenda said. “That’s the problem here. He’s half a genius and half a (madman), but not in the sense that he is a bad guy. It’s just, one day you are famous and you are one of the most entertaining fighters in the world, then suddenly you are trash and you are no one.”

The way Miller’s lawyer sees it, some of his issues were the result of legitimate depression following the decline of his career and persistent knee injuries that kept him out of the gym and away from the fight game these last four years. Returning to the cage might be a positive step for exactly that reason, said Talley, who was himself an amateur boxer in his youth.

“I think it is a good thing for him,” Talley said. “When you’re training, you’re focused. You have a purpose.”

Some of Miller’s former friends aren’t so sure. Having a fight scheduled might be the only way to keep him safe and sober and working toward a goal, one said, but it also brings with it the kind of attention that might ultimately send him back into the same spiral.

“Without fighting, he won’t be focused,” said one former friend who spoke on the condition of anonymity, wishing to avoid a confrontation with Miller. “But with fighting comes notoriety, and that fuels those flames for him.”

According to his on-again, off-again trainer Manley, “Skill-wise, he’s still got it. It’s not a question of if he can still fight. It’s just if he can control all the outside stuff.”

Miller seems confident that he can. Then again, he also seems confident that most of the “outside stuff” was never his fault to begin with. He was falsely accused of domestic violence, he said. He was unfairly targeted by police. He was written off as a washed-up lunatic even by those he trusted, and so he went on TV and acted the part.

“So if you guys want to take me as a (expletive) joke, keep taking me as a (expletive) joke,” Miller said. “People don’t realize, for a long time there I wasn’t healthy. I couldn’t accept a fight knowing I wasn’t up for it. When I was all janky-legged, I knew I couldn’t put on a good performance. But now, (expletive) everybody. I dare you to get in my way. I got some years left.”

But what will those years look like? And will they be spent inside a cage or behind bars? At this point, it’s hard to say whether even Miller knows for sure.

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