Louis Taylor will be spending this New Years competing for $1 million in the PFL (Professional Fight League) Middleweight final. With some of PFL’s athletes fighting twice a night, the PFL had a very active schedule in their inaugural year as participants advanced into the playoffs. Louis is a MMA veteran who has been around the block, with previous stints with Bellator and WSOF (World Series of Fighting). When asked about competing in WSOF, Louis said, “It sucked! I spent 2-3 years with them and never even had a WSOF shirt.” Louis ““Put The Guns Down” Taylor is a quiet guy that you may not have heard about until he gets in the cage. It’s probably the way he likes it. He’s very proud to be a part of the PFL and making it this far into the finals, but it’s simply not enough for him.
Born and raised in the Southside of Chicago, Louis was surrounded by 200-300 family members whom migrated from Memphis. Growing up and getting out of the city of Chicago wasn’t easy by a long stretch. Everybody is aware of what’s been going on in Chicago for years now. However, the Chicago native grew up in a Chicago that was different than it is today. According to Louis, growing up the community had more structure with the gangs and the mafia being involved. Vicelord and GD gang leaders stayed on the block from the opposing gangs that he grew up on with one of his neighbors being the infamous, Willie Lloyd. “The violence was controlled and when things happened there was no need for explanation. Police had a better rapport with gangs if they needed answers. Right now you have nobody to shake down. Louis indicated, “The kids now have no ambition except for what they call ‘Drill’ guys or getting high”. They’re pretty much junkies and don’t even know it”. Like most generations and cities, there is a gap between the older generation and youth. For Louis and Chicago, that gap can be a difference between life and death. “There is a strong disconnect between under 32 years old.” “I know that even associating myself with a kid I know and watched grow up, that even standing beside them I can get shot.” It’s a harsh reality of a man looking to become PFL’s first middleweight king. Something that “Put the Guns Down” Taylor is hoping to change one day.
Like some of us, Taylor, didn’t find fighting, fighting had found him. The Chicago native was about to be jumped by four guys in high school. While defending himself, he broke the collarbone of one of the attackers. In the course of that fight, he was tagged and the police eventually showed up. A pastor from across the street was observing that fight and came to Taylor’s defense, which led to him not going to jail. Intrigued, the pastor asked him “What do you do, Do you wrestle or box?” Louis wasn’t doing anything at this time, but defending himself. The Pastor suggested that Louis “had to do something” and knew a guy in a different neighborhood named Ken Bringe, an Olympic alternate and construction worker with a no gang member policy. Louis was raw and never understood the rules of wrestling. Ken told Louis, that if he placed in the States, that he would get him into college (2 years at Lassen College (CA) and Eastern Illinois). That’s all Taylor needed to hear. Going into a different neighborhood would require changing his address so he could attend the school. In the public school system Louis started at 13 years old, whereas if he came from a private school, he may have stated at 5 years old. Despite those odds, in two years he became the first wrestler from a public school in the city of Chicago to compete in the State Championships, further distancing himself from the gang life and streets in Chicago. “I still have love for my friends growing up, but I’m on a different path right now” stated Taylor.
With his family having such a large presence in the city, Louis was fortunate not to get involved in the gang lifestyle. His family was his own “gang”. Plenty of the gang shooters at one time tried to talk to Taylor’s female cousins and many people knew his grandmother who worked as a school crossing guard. Even as people were shot right in from of Louis, he got a pass anytime he went to school, the park, or the store. “When I got older, I thought I wanted to be a part of that. But, I started to recognize that some of these guys were really soft. That’s kind of why some of the culture involves snitching right now”, stated Taylor. He knows the ethics and street code seems to have lost its way. It’s the old cliché of talking the talk, but not walking the walk. As a fighter, devoted father, and husband, Louis has done less talking and more walking.
Depending on where you’re from, there’s a misconception about owing the hood. At 39 years old, Louis doesn’t believe in the concept. “If you look at how much “they” have taken from me in the past, I don’t think I owe them anything.” “Do I plan to give back in a different manner, yes!” says Taylor. Louis wants the people of Chicago to earn it instead of giving up anything. From his experience, there hasn’t been enough loyalty to help out everybody. In combat sports, we’ve seen kids learn from one person, take what they learn and go to another gym that didn’t create that fighter. Not only that, but the people of the community that Louis and I come from have the ‘crabs in the barrel’ mentality with people wanting handouts all the time. Louis wants kids to switch up that mentality with having them do for themselves and build their own community. Wrestling was never popular for him, “I never got a girl because I was a wrestler. It was about me getting an education,” emphasized Taylor. In a city where the Bulls, Bears, Blackhawks play a bigger role in influencing the youth, Taylor knows it’s an uphill battle. He wonders how many kids could’ve been good in a different sport and wants kids to take time to step outside of the bubble. It took Louis Taylor six months to step outside of the bubble and become a new man. That bubble and misconception in some urban communities is with wrestling and MMA not being the sport for them. There’s a stigma that you can only make it out playing basketball, football, or participating in boxing. Taylor is a positive person who strongly believes in “live and let live”. He knows he may not look the part on paper, but plans to put his opponent Abusupiyan Magomedov to sleep if given the chance. If Louis Taylor wins the PFL Middleweight championship, he hopes to shatter that old stigma. The PFL prize amount of $1 million dollars can change the minds of 1 million urban kids and has a greater value. For Louis, this one is for all the marbles, a million of them.
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