'I feel like I'm a modern-day rockstar': Inside the meteoric rise of Tommy 'Gun' McMillen

PHOENIX -- If you can look long enough past the aggressive tattoos, dark sunglasses and jet-black floppy hair of rising UFC featherweight Tommy "Gun" McMillen, you'll notice a calculated businessman who espouses just as much method when he speaks as he does madness.

In only 12 months, the trash-talking, hard-partying and bonus-cashing native of Great Falls, Montana, has taken the UFC by storm with a thrilling, come-from-behind victory last fall on "Dana White's Contender Series" to earn a contract and a pair of exciting finishes inside the Octagon that have made the 28-year-old feel like an overnight success.

The reality is that McMillen (11-0), who often refers to himself in the third person as "Gunz," is where he's at as much for his sheer will and maniacal hard work as he is because of a seemingly other-worldly level of confidence that suggests his success was a foregone conclusion. In fact, if you talk to him long enough about his plan to take over the sport, you'll often hear McMillen repeat the same line to close many of his responses.

"This is unfolding just like I knew it would. "

McMillen, who packed up and left Montana while still a teenager to move to Phoenix and rent a room inside the house of future UFC bantamweight champion "Suga" , became the first fighter to be cornered by O'Malley and head coach Tim Welch while representing their Red Hawk Academy banner. Years later, McMillen appears to be knocking loudly on the door of breakout stardom entering Saturday's return.

Just two months removed from stealing the show at UFC Fight Night in Oklahoma City, when he outbrawled and finished to break long-standing UFC record for most significant strikes landed in a three-round bout, McMillen will enter as a small betting favorite when he faces knockout artist Marwan "Freaky" Rahiki (9-0) in a featured fight at

"That's 20-plus years, two decades of obsessing over the same vision, over and over again," McMillen told CBS Sports. "That's manifestation. That's something that a lot of these guys haven't done and can't go back and get.  It's something that just has to be in you. It's that hunger that has been in me since a little kid and has driven me to where I'm at. That's why it truly feels like destiny.

"This is a lot bigger than just me and I think a lot of people are starting to realize that now. "

In the three-plus decades of promoting up-and-coming fighters flashing future star potential, UFC has produced a number of athletes who became household names while creating a set of unique archetypes fans can easily identify with.

"The Iceman" was a mohawked knockout artist who looked like he stepped into the Octagon directly off of a motorcycle. was a classy and respectful martial artist adorned in a traditional gi. was part Michael Jackson and part Michael Jordan as UFC's version of an untouchable, human-highlight reel. And Brock Lesnar, with his cartoonish muscularity and WWE-built charisma, was a larger-than-life superhero in the flesh.

Tommy "Gun" McMillen is something altogether different.

With much of his upper body covered in an array of eye-catching tattoos flaunting his combative lifestyle -- including an image of the antihero drug kingpin Tony Montana from the 1983 film "Scarface" on the right side of his chest, below the words "The World Is Yours" -- McMillen keeps the same energy at the after party that he does inside the Octagon, where his all-out, pressure style of technical brawling has repeatedly drowned his opponents into submission.

"There's not really anymore rockstars nowadays. I feel like I'm a modern-day rockstar, like a Motley Crue," McMillen said. "I just truly feel that the way that I live my life -- I party and I fight -- I'm a modern day rockstar. I don't think it's something UFC has ever seen before and it's because there is only one 'Tommy Gun. ' There is only one 'Gunz. '"

O'Malley, who grew up in Helena, Montana, was just 18 and on the verge of beginning his amateur MMA career when he first met a cocky, 14-year-old McMillen, who was already flashing an unfiltered confidence "before he really went out and beat anyone good" that O'Malley credits, to this day, as McMillen's most dangerous attribute.

McMillen's confidence comes, in part, from experience. His father Joe, a former semi-pro boxer and regional MMA fighter who went on to open the first MMA gym in Great Falls, quite literally prepared his son for the life he lives now by putting him in amateur wrestling at just age three and youth boxing at six.

"I've just always been naturally good at fighting," McMillen said. " I've never lost a fight in the street or in the cage in my life. I'm just a natural-born fighter. "

A self-proclaimed "wild kid," McMillen credits his father for instilling in him a work ethic by never handing him anything and believes looking back that fighting saved his life by allowing him to channel the "crazy energy" within him.  But when McMillen talks today about the two decades of manifestation that has led him to his breakout debut year in the UFC, he isn't joking.

McMillen knew he wanted to be in the UFC as early as the third grade and vividly remembers going to bed angry as a child after watching MMA on television as his family's financial struggles continued to become a burden.

"I was pissed off that I wasn't old enough to go fight and do something about it because I knew I could do it," McMillen said. "That hunger just drove me insane, in a sense. It's why it led me to party a lot to ease my mind [while] coming up [as a teenager]."

When he wasn't wrestling or training, McMillen was partying and getting into trouble. A lot.

McMullen's extracurricular behavior began to drive a wedge between him and his father. It also led to McMullen briefly getting thrown out of school for fighting despite finishing his four-year wrestling career at Great Falls High School as a three-time Montana state champion (at three different weight divisions, including a 29-0 senior season at 160 pounds).

Despite being the third most populous city in Montana with just over 60,000 residents, Great Falls very much felt like a small town for McMillen with limited beliefs, where he was often told that his UFC dream was unreasonable and that he needed a plan B.

"No one really makes it out or does anything with their life [but] I've never really listened to them," McMillen said. "I've seen this vision in my head since I was a little kid and it's unfolding exactly how I said it would and it's going to keep going that way. "

At 18, after years of hounding O'Malley and Welch as an amateur fighter on the Montana regional scene, McMillen drove his beat-up Honda Accord with no air conditioning to Phoenix in order to join them and received a first-hand apprenticeship amid O'Malley's rise to stardom and breakout social media success.

McMillen, who won his pro debut in 2019 after finishing all seven of his amateur opponents, didn't take a second pro fight until 2023. Instead, he just absorbed knowledge and trained while paying for his lifestyle through a side hustle as a solar panel salesman that led him to creating his own team and expanding to different sales ventures.

"Not many kids have networked and scaled a sales team with 25 to 30 guys and made six figures before they got to the UFC," McMillen said. "I did that all as I was full-time training to become a fighter. I didn't move out here to go work a 9-to-5 job and be away from my family. I had to think very smart and work very hard to make opportunities for me to stay in the gym. "

When McMillen first moved to Arizona, he would often eat sour candy and toaster strudels for dinner until O'Malley taught him the ropes of being a disciplined martial artist. Both O'Malley and Welch continued their mentorship by giving McMillen books to read in order to hone his mind and build upon his confidence.

Which brings us to McMillen's unique personality and mindset.

"Tommy is most misunderstood because I think people think he is kind of playing a character," O'Malley said. "Anybody that knows Tommy, it's like, 'That's Tommy. Tommy is crazy. ' Every fighter that gets in the cage, most of us are a little bit different. He's definitely different. He's not playing a character. "

As a man of extremes, McMillen is somehow everything all at once.

McMillen is a seemingly reckless action fighter who is also deliberate and calculating depending upon the matchup. He'll flash his trademark gun signs with both hands and flaunt his affinity for excessive nightlife but also be the first to arrive and the last to leave the gym the next morning. And for someone seemingly on the verge of breakout fame, McMillen takes his role as a leader at Red Hawk Academy in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria seriously and spends much of his time mentoring the next generation of fighters to pay forward what he received.

"What you see online, that's his fight spirit. If you mess with him, if you talk bad about him, he's truly a warrior and will fight you," Welch told CBS Sports. "But when he comes in the room and is part of this team, he's very giving to them and he's always looking to help other people. He's a really, really good person and I do think that we had a lot to do with helping him to not be so mean and angry to everyone.

"That's probably one of the things that I'm most proud of, the amount that they want to help other guys. They want to go to all these amateur fights and go to the back rooms and help the guys. That's probably one of the most rewarding parts is seeing those guys become leaders. "

But just like Welch alluded to, McMillen's ability to enter war mode at the drop of a hat is also very real, as is his belief that there isn't a fight he can't win. The latter was evidenced by the fact that McMillen reached out to UFC matchmakers once pulled out of Saturday's main event with an injury and offered himself as the opponent for the No. 6-ranked , which ultimately went to another Phoenix fighter in Jose Miguel Delgado.

"[McMillen] is about that life," O'Malley said. "He will fight anybody, anywhere, anytime, at any weight. He does not care. People think he's playing a character and he's not. He is a character. He's 'Tommy Gunz. '"

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If there's an elephant in the room regarding the constant excess surrounding McMillen's lifestyle as a fighter, let's just say he has already tamed, mounted and ridden it off into the sunset. As in, McMillen doesn't hide his intentions, lavish lifestyle or eccentricities in any shape or form.

Instead, he fully embraces them.

"I feel like I'm a real-life 'Grand Theft Auto' character," McMillen said. "I go on these heists for the UFC. I go cash bonuses, I go upgrade my car, I go upgrade my clothes and upgrade my cribs. I'm living life like a video game. I'm Player 1 and it's my time. "

There's a thin line between fun and excess when you are a self-proclaimed rockstar and real-life prize fighter whose pockets are lined with bonus money. It's an age-old cautionary tale that has befallen many a future star in the worlds of both professional sports and the music industry in the past and McMillen readily admits, "I don't think I have found that line yet. "

Case in point was his UFC debut in April when McMillen, who recorded a first-round TKO of in just under four minutes in Las Vegas, revealed in future podcast appearances that he partied for three straight days after the win without sleeping, which he referred to as a "bender. "

The multi-day debauchery saw him receive a wellness check of sorts by UFC's chief business officer, Hunter Campbell, which McMillen said he was touched by because it showed him how much the promotion cared on a personal level. But even though McMillen admits he toned down his act considerably following his July win over Montes in OKC, which he said showed UFC he could be trusted, it doesn't appear as if his voracious appetite has been fully satisfied.

This isn't an act, this is just who McMillen is and, really, has always been dating back to his teenage years.

"I don't think I'd be who I say I am or as good as I say I am if I can't go on a three-day bender and then go knock out a kid like Rahiki," McMillen said. "If you want to be a GOAT, that's the shit you have got to do and, at the end of the day, I think I'm going to go down as one of the greatest to ever do it. "

One thing McMillen has found is a bit of a life compass in human form through his relationship with Welch, a former aspiring fighter who went 14-6 over an eight-year pro career that ended in 2017 due to injuries. A native of Missoula, Montana, Welch went on to train O'Malley at the MMA Lab gym in Phoenix before opening up Red Hawk Academy in 2019.

McMillen praises Welch, now 36, for "not really telling me what to do or how to live my life" but instead guiding him in the right direction to find a happy balance between fighting and his personal life.

"It's just sitting down with him as a friend and explaining to him the opportunity he has," Welch said. "This next five to 10 years, you have the opportunity to build generational wealth to where you never have to work another day in your life. Then, you can party and have fun. But right now, when he's young and he's healthy, we can really focus on becoming better and becoming a world champion. That's our main focus. "

McMillen, who has cashed $100,000 bonuses in both of his UFC wins, has also been extremely purposeful and intentional about how he fights and how he positions himself on social media in order to maximize his profits.

Despite a decorated background in wrestling, McMillen barely uses it in his fights and said he will only call upon it if he needs to. In his DWCS win last September over , a Russian-born Armenian grappler who is cornered by UFC lightweight , McMillen came in as the betting underdog and claimed he didn't even have a full camp due to a pinched sciatica and still stuffed all 10 takedown attempts from Mgoyan over the final two rounds to keep the fight standing in a majority decision win.

"I don't think that wrestling shit works, not against a kid like me. I've been wrestling my whole life," McMillen said. "I could've just taken him down and laid on him but I saw [UFC CEO and president] Dana White standing there. I wanted to give the people what they wanted to see and earn a UFC contract. I don't go out there like all these boring ass fighters, I go out there and I knock people out for $100K. I get in their face and I talk shit. "

McMillen has routinely stated publicly his goal to become the most dominant and entertaining fighter in history and believes the Rahiki fight is just another chapter in what he calls "one of the most entertaining runs for the love of the game" that UFC has ever seen. He's not afraid to get hit and doesn't go out of his way to protect his chin because it's his mindset that he believes separates himself from his opponents.

"I have a self belief and confidence that no other man can break and I like to expose that in my opponents," McMillen said. "I truly don't believe they will obsess over this game and this journey as much as I have and I feel like that's where I hold the advantage. Nothing scares me in life. I think that's what gives me the ability to fight the way I do. I train my mind not to fear death. I have no fear in anything and I think that's why I'm kind of a wild party type rock star kid. I just truly don't feel that I fear anything at all and I think people see that when I fight. "

When it comes to why he fights, McMillen said it's a combination of things. Firstly, it's the opportunity to build generational wealth for him and his family. But that's not all of it.

"I want to inspire kids around the world to show that you don't have to be the most perfect kid, you can kind of be a f---ed up kid and make something with your life," McMillen said.

Welch believes it's the fact that McMillen has the guts to put it all out there in the open -- the good, the bad and the ugly of his life as a fighter -- that resonates so deeply with fans in such an authentic way and allows him to follow the same path O'Malley once took in becoming a superstar. But like O'Malley, who at 31, remains among the top rated bantamweights in the UFC as he continues his quest to regain his title, none of it matters if McMillen doesn't keep winning and certainly not if he can't continue to find the balance between discipline and excess.

No matter your opinion of him, McMillen is going to continue to do things his own way in a calculated and obsessive manner meant to entertain and get paid handsomely for doing so.

"I'm a real American gangster," McMillen said. "I fight like a gangster, I walk people down. I'm very business oriented and street smart. I can outwork anybody and I think that's the biggest key. Hard work doesn't scare me. At the end of the day, this is my job and I take it very seriously. I'm a fighter but I'm also a businessman and I think the UFC sees that in me.

"I'm the kid for the job. You need something done, send me. "