I first heard about Daron Cruickshank before I ever met him.
I was training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Michigan when someone mentioned this UFC fighter who had gone through the fire academy in his late 30s and apparently set the course record. Eventually I worked up the nerve to go to an MMA class at Michigan Top Team.
I was pretty intimidated. MMA gyms have a different culture from a lot of the martial arts I had trained in before. There were a lot of young, extremely athletic guys going very hard, and I had no idea what I was doing when we started going through the wrestling warmups.
Daron noticed immediately, came over, and showed me what to do without making me feel like an idiot.
Eventually I started taking private lessons with him, and somewhere along the way my MMA coach became one of my close friends.
Daron, better known as “The Detroit Superstar,” fought in the UFC, competed on The Ultimate Fighter Live, and grew up in an actual fighting family. His mother was a professional kickboxer and boxer, his father practiced full-contact martial arts, and Daron went from college wrestling to professional MMA.
We talked about what it was like growing up that way, how he got into fighting, The Ultimate Fighter, the UFC, knockouts, injuries, money, ego, coaching, competitive shooting, and why being an entertaining fighter mattered to him more than protecting a perfect record.
His season of The Ultimate Fighter was the live one: thirteen weeks in the house, roughly twice as long as most seasons, with no TV, no phones, no internet, and grocery lists written on a piece of paper and handed to the production staff. He calls it the closest he’s ever come to jail.
When I asked whether he was happy looking back on his career, he gave me the answer that stuck with me most:
“No one will ever tell you that I was a boring fighter. No one will ever tell you that I wasn’t dangerous. I have the ability to knock people out with all four limbs.”
We also get into some of the stranger parts of his life, including the unusual way he made money while he was a broke college student, what happens when your Christian college finds out about it, and even a spooky ghost story.
Mostly, though, this is a conversation with someone I find enormously charismatic and fun to be around. Daron has lived an unusual life, and I’m glad I got him to sit down and talk about it.
If you subscribed for the AI safety interviews, don’t worry. More of those are coming. But curiosity about interesting people is why I do this at all, and Daron is one of the most interesting people I know.
Watch: My MMA Coach Fought in the UFC | Daron Cruickshank
Timestamps
0:00 — Cold open
0:37 — Intro
3:08 — Sitting down with my coach
4:36 — Growing up in a fighting family
13:09 — What actually makes someone an athlete
16:42 — Doing first grade twice, and talent vs. hard work
18:23 — High school and welding
20:43 — Military, college, or wrestling?
25:19 — Telling a room full of recruiters he wanted the UFC
28:29 — Spinning back fist knockouts, and why belts meant nothing
31:17 — Competitive shooting as a second sport
36:25 — Inkster, and where “The Detroit Superstar” came from
38:01 — A very unusual college side job
49:31 — From amateur to pro
52:31 — A fight in Canada to pay for the TUF tryout
54:04 — The Ultimate Fighter audition
1:01:11 — “No one will ever tell you I was a boring fighter”
1:02:05 — Thirteen weeks in the TUF house
1:04:07 — The fight in the house
1:06:29 — The knockout he doesn’t remember
1:09:24 — Pranks, and the toilet seat in the tree
1:12:01 — The UFC contract, and the TUF coaching staff
1:14:53 — The hardest fight, and the ego behind it
1:16:36 — Coaching, and what he teaches from experience
1:19:43 — Quick questions
1:24:11 — The ghost in the farmhouse
1:25:40 — Acting, and doing his own stunts
1:27:48 — How we met
1:31:59 — Wrapping up
Daron on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/daroncruickshank
Michigan Top Team:
https://michigantopteam.com
https://www.instagram.com/michigantopteam
Kara Ro (the boxing coach I mention in the intro): https://www.instagram.com/kararo110/
My post on being bullied (mentioned in the intro):
If you enjoy these interviews, subscribing, sharing, or leaving a comment really does help me keep making them! This one especially: if you know an MMA fan, send it their way.
If you enjoyed this conversation, you should definitely check out this one with Bruce Lee supercollector and master storyteller, Jeff Chinn: