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Years before he rose the ranks of the middleweight division in the UFC, Jared Cannonier served in the U.S. military.
However, he was discharged only three years after joining because he tested positive for marijuana.
'The Killa Gorilla' opened up about his time in the U.S. Army and his subsequent discharge in a recent interview with MMA Fighting ahead of his UFC Vegas 34 clash with Kelvin Gastelum.
Jared Cannonier detailed how he ended up getting fired from the army, but his experience during that brief period enriched him as a person and as a fighter.
"I failed a drug test. I got deployed, I come home. I celebrated, smoked some weed with my family. I get back, I get drug tested. And they said, 'Yeah, bye,' for failing drug test. When I see people getting slaps on the hands for way less, I don't wanna say anything bad about that, but I have my thoughts on that. I'm gonna keep those to myself. One thing I will say is that my experience in the army has been very helpful, very useful - the skills that I have learnt. So, I appreciate the experiences that I got in there, the people that I met while I was in there. I don't like the way it ended. I don't think it was fair. I don't think it was right. But, it's all good. It worked out," Jared Cannonier said.
Jared Cannonier, currently the No.3-ranked middleweight in the UFC, was originally supposed to face No.2-ranked Paulo Costa. But after 'Borrachinha' pulled out over a pay dispute with the UFC, No.9-ranked Kelvin Gastelum stepped in to save the main event.
Jared Cannonier used to weigh 300 pounds during post-army days
After being discharged from the U.S. military, Jared Cannonier took up the role of an air traffic control mechanic for the Federal Aviation Administration. He worked out of Anchorage, Alaska.
Ten years later, in a 2019 interview with ESPN following his stellar TKO win over Jack Hermansson, Jared Cannonier and his wife opened up about their Alaska days. His wife revealed that the cold climate led to comfort eating, which inevitably led to them gaining weight. She was pregnant with their first child at the time as well.
Jared Cannonier got into MMA through the army's combative training courses and continued to pursue it while working for the FAA. He got into a Brazilian jiu-jitsu gym in Anchorage, started fighting professionally in 2011 and debuted in the UFC four years later.
Cannonier started as a heavyweight but knew that his long-term prospects would be much better in a lighter division. He took his time to go down the weight classes and finally settled at 185-lbs. Other than Conor McGregor, he is the only fighter in the UFC's modern era to have KOs in three different weight classes.
