Melvin Guillard’s talent, charisma, and highlight reel knockouts meant nothing now, as he sat in a cell in the Harris County

Jail in Houston last September after violating his probation on a 2007 drug charge. Forget his UFC career for the moment; it was his life that needed fixing, and finally, he realized it.

“I might have cried every night for the first two and a half months,” said Guillard. “I cried myself to sleep, saying I hate myself for putting myself in this position.”

“Getting high, was it really worth it?” he thought.

“All those parties I went to, was it really worth it now that I’m sitting here behind bars?”

Following two and a half months in jail, Guillard was moved to a rehabilitation facility. It was there that he made the transformation from talented cautionary tale back to potential lightweight contender.

“I needed it for myself,” he said, “and I felt like I needed to do something more. If I didn’t do rehab, I felt like I could have slipped back into that lifestyle.”

“The UFC is everything to me and without being in the UFC, there’s no reason to do this,” said Guillard. “I started when I was 16, and my whole goal in life was to become a UFC fighter – that was my dream. And there’s no point in having a dream if you’re not 100 percent doing it, and if you’re going to get kicked out of it, it’s not worth it. I needed to take that initiative, not only for me, but to show (UFC President) Dana (White) that I do care about my job and being in the UFC.”

Sometimes it takes almost losing everything to realize what you have. But at 26, Guillard has realized the error of his old ways and what he has in front of him if he just stays on the straight and narrow. As he explains, he needed a little time away from the world to do it.

“Being locked down isn’t anything I’d ever want to go through again,” he said. “That was always my biggest fear. It wasn’t dying; my biggest fear was always being locked up for a long period of time. And when I got locked up, it’s that tough love, but it works. You can’t bring me to jail for a traffic ticket right now. (Laughs) If I get a traffic ticket, I’m paying it.”

But it was his grandfather who put everything in the proper perspective.

Read the complete interview…