According to those who knew him, Wyatt Lewis was a smart and talented martial artist, a selfless individual and a pioneer for mixed martial arts in Alberta. Tragically, his life was cut too short in an act of senseless violence.
The former MMA fighter from Lethbridge was fatally stabbed on Saturday while trying to protect a couple of friends and longtime training partners at a celebratory party in Calgary. Many details remain unclear, but a suspect who was believed to be unknown to Lewis was still being sought by police.
One person who has a unique perspective on the victim and the tragedy is Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight Nick Ring. The Calgary fighter, who has been everything from opponent to training partner to friend to Lewis, was shocked to hear the news of what happened but not in the way Lewis handled what was a very dangerous situation.
“Upon hearing that he got stabbed sticking up for another person, that does not surprise me whatsoever,” Ring said. “That’s exactly the kind of guy he was. Unfortunately in this case, he paid for that with his life.
“I’m always going to remember him as just being very kind-hearted, polite and if you ever did get to have a conversation with him, he was very intelligent, with a strong sense of moral values.”
In Ring’s second professional fight, he fought Lewis on Feb. 8, 2003. By that time Lewis had already been competing for a couple of years and had three fights under his belt — all wins, including in the co-main event of the first ever event for the Edmonton-based Maximum Fighting Championship, where he defeated Jeremy Livingston in Grand Prairie, Alta., on March 3, 2001.
Ring beat Lewis, who at the time was training out of Progressive Fighting Academy in Lethbridge, by unanimous decision to hand him his first professional loss. Later Lewis moved to Calgary and joined Anderson Goncalves Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (now Tilt MMA), a “rival gym” to Ring’s. But that didn’t stop Lewis from reaching out to a fighter who formerly beat him at a time when Ring needed it.
“It’s ironic, I didn’t talk to him for probably a couple years after (our 2003 fight) and in 2006 I had a big fight in Japan. This is the kind of guy Wyatt is … I had nobody who was my own size at my gym and he knew that I needed the help so he very graciously stepped up and helped me train over several weeks as a sparring partner to help get prepared for my fight.
“I thought that was very generous of him. He didn’t need to and Lord knows I wasn’t paying him nothing. He was just helping me out, one guy to another.”
Ring won a unanimous decision over Japanese fighter Ryuichi Murata in Tokyo and would go on to improve his record to 10-0 and earn a contract in the UFC, where he has since gone 3-1.
Lewis only fought two more times after the Ring loss and finished with a professional MMA record of 4-2. But he continued to play a big role in the growth of the sport in the province and was a noted jiu-jitsu instructor and well known to many.
“A lot of people don’t know this about Wyatt but he was one of the very first people in Alberta doing mixed martial arts. He was doing it before it was considered cool, before there was any fanfare.”
Lewis, who is believed to have been in his late thirties, was a family man with a wife and three boys, as well as a daughter.
Ring himself was witness to a similar incident in June when he saw a couple getting attacked by a large group of teenagers on a Calgary street. He chased the suspects and called the police, who were later able to apprehend them, and Ring was later hailed as a local “super-hero.”
However, Ring feels that the two situations were different.
“I was in position to help but it was outside so I always had the option of running away. From what it sounds like in this case, Wyatt was trapped inside a building with these guys and if you’re outnumbered and they’ve got weapons, I don’t know what the good solution is.”
Ring admitted that apart from conversations he had with Lewis on Facebook from time to time, he had lost touch with him a little bit. But he still feels the loss and believes it will have a major impact on the local MMA scene.
“Our community here in Alberta is very small. There’s not many of us and we run into each other quite a bit.
“He was a good martial artist, but he was also a very intelligent man outside of the ring and off the mat. You know he had a lot to talk about besides martial arts. He wasn’t just a meathead, he was very, very intelligent.”
The death comes just over a year after another MMA pioneer was lost, though under very different circumstances. On August 14, 2011, renowned trainer Shawn Tompkins died in his hometown of London, Ont., of a heart attack.
Tompkins, nicknamed “The Coach,” was more well known and had become one of the head trainers at a couple major gyms in Las Vegas, while also being the mentor to many UFC fighters, including fellow London-based Canadians Sam Stout and Mark Hominick. But Ring believes Lewis will be missed just as much out West.
“Wyatt was a dedicated instructor and very loyal to his friends,” Ring said. “He was very important to us in the Alberta martial arts community and very influential.”
Ring, who is coming off a win over Court McGee at UFC 149 in his hometown of Calgary, is still waiting on a next opponent but expects to fight before the end of the year. And when he does, he would love to honour Lewis in any way he can.
“I would do that in heartbeat.”
A memorial service for Lewis will be held on Friday, Sept. 7 at 2:30 p.m. MT at McInnis & Holloway Funeral Homes Fish Creek Chapel at 14441 Bannister Road Southeast in Calgary. Friends, family, acquaintances and those in the MMA community are invited to attend.
