On the most recent season of The Ultimate Fighter, Hannah Guy shared her experiences as a child and adolescent dealing with social anxiety. The feelings plagued her youth, but were something the Bellator veteran had felt like she had mostly gotten over. However, under the bright lights of the television cameras in Vegas, Guy felt a lot of those same feelings return.
“When I got on the show, I was kind of surprised with myself. I’ve always struggled with social anxiety since I was a kid, but I thought I may have overcome that,” she shared. “But when I got in the house, I kind of felt those similar feelings of low confidence and not sure I belonged.”
While being on the show in front of all of those people brought back some darker parts of her early life, Guy chooses instead to see it as a positive thing. While the stress of being on a reality TV show was hard, it taught her a lot about herself – and those things were important for her growth as a fighter and a person.
“I guess you think you overcome some stuff when you’re a kid, but in stressful situations sometimes you’ll revert back to a lot of those same struggles you have,” Guy said. “The show really taught me that about myself. It really taught me that confidence has to come from me and not the people surrounding me. If I’m going to be confident in who I am and going to be able to do the things I want to do in my life, that confidence and that strength needs to come from within me.”
And Guy has really tapped into that concept heading into Invicta FC 49 this Wednesday. She’s found confidence in her abilities and has surrounded herself with a training staff that helps her with the mental side of her game as well as the physical. Chief among those changes is a move to do training camps with Alan Belcher and team down in Biloxi, Mississippi.
“[Alan] has been a super good mentor and coach. It definitely drew me in as far as the mental side of things. He really has a good head on his shoulders and understands the MMA game too,” she shared. “It’s been great to learn from.”
With all that put together, she’s ready for the test of taking on former housemate Kaytlin Neil and is even confident enough to wager a prediction.
“I see it ending with being in the clinch, taking her down, and beating her up from there,” Guy said. “I’ll predict a second round finish.”
You can catch her fight with Neil on the main card of Invicta FC 49. The fight will air on AXS TV and YouTube.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview at 22:16.
