If You’re Going to Xtreme Couture, Beware the “Greenlight”

Shawn Tompkins talks Greenlighting - Watch more Funny Videos

There are two similar, but slightly different meanings for the term ‘greenlighting’ inside Xtreme Couture. Shawn Tompkins explains the kindler, gentler meaning in the above video. Basically, it’s when the pros spar and don’t hold back, which means somebody is probably getting knocked out. That’s pretty normal for an MMA gym, but there’s another meaning too.

When someone comes in to Xtreme Couture who isn’t a member of the team, someone who for one reason or another thinks he’s the baddest son of a bitch in a room full of bad sons of bitches, that’s when a different kind of greenlight might occur. It’s the kind that begins with the guy feeling like a certified grade A ass-kicker, and ends with him begging for the beating to stop. And who is the greenlight specialist down at Xtreme Couture? None other than Jay Hieron, who loves – absolutely loves – to put a hurting on big-talking newbies.

I heard about Hieron’s love of the greenlight when I spent some time at Xtreme Couture last week. One of the stories involved a guy coming in and claiming to be a pro fighter with ten fights under his belt, asking if he could train with the pro class. Once the class started it became quickly apparent that he wasn’t quite as skilled or experienced as he was letting on.

‘Can I get a greenlight on this guy?’ Hieron is said to have asked Shawn Tompkins.

‘Sure,’ Tompkins told him. The guy wasn’t a team member, and wasn’t showing the proper deference as a guest in the Xtreme Couture household.

So Hieron greenlighted him, which meant beating him up and down the mat, dropping him several times and waiting for him to get back to his feet, pounding on him until the guy asked him to let up. Hieron just looked at him, shrugged, and said, “It’s the pro class, man.”

“Nobody likes douchebags coming in their gym,” Hieron explained when I asked him about his passion for greenlighting. “You get these guys, they think they’re the toughest dudes in the world and so they just walk right in to our place. I love guys like that. They need to be humbled.”

The first thing I wondered when I heard this was, who is dumb enough to think he can walk into Xtreme Couture, where there are more high-level pros on the mat at any given time than there are in any one county in the rest of the nation, and think he can act hard? It can’t happen very often, right?

“You wouldn’t believe how many of these guys there are,” said Hieron. “It happens way more than you’d think. I can’t stand it. I wouldn’t go to someone else’s gym and disrespect it that way. That’s like you coming into my house and disrespecting me. That’s not gonna happen.”

Hieron even has a special pair of shorts that he puts on for a greenlight. Other guys on the mat see those shorts, he says, and “they know what time it is.”

Hieron’s greenlighting might prove to be good practice for his next fight with Paul “Semtex” Daley at Affliction III, which he says he’s just recently signed the contract for.

“I’m excited. It’s been about six months since I’ve fought and I can’t wait to get back in there,” he said.

Daley’s known as an explosive striker on the feet, but isn’t exactly renowned for having a great ground game. Asked if this might play right into his background as a wrestler, Hieron replied: “We’ll see. I feel like I’m very well-rounded at this point. I always try to use my wrestling, but I’ll take what the guy gives me. I think my striking’s just as good as his.”