Wonderboy has a criminal record: Stephen Thompson reveals he was jailed over a mischief gone wrong

This Saturday at UFC Orlando, Stephen Thompson will make his comeback to the octagon against Kevin Holland. Following consecutive defeats to Gilbert Burns and Belal Muhammad, he is attempting to get one back in the winning column.

39-year-old Thompson is well known for being one of MMA’s most revered strikers. With the exception of a few uncomfortable confrontations with former champion Tyron Woodley, he has seldom engaged in combative interactions with his opponents. And even caught flack from UFC when he asked Woodley why he was being mean.

Thompson is perhaps one of the last UFC guys you’d expect to have a criminal record. But he managed to get inside a jail while growing up in South Carolina.

In a recent interview, Thompson revealed:

“I spent a weekend in prison one time. Skinny dipping, man. They had cameras and we had no idea. There were girls involved, they had cameras up because someone vandalized the pool the week before. So they were trying to get us… I was like ‘I’m never going back!’”

Thompson shared a very interesting story a while back. At one of his tournaments he was pitted against a man who was making unwanted advances towards his sister at the time.

“A guy named JR Benard. Now a little history behind it. This guy was a very cocky ”

“He had just got done beating my dad’s instructor… Not only did he beat him, but he did it in a very unrespectful way.””

“After he was just kinda showboating and stuff like that… My sister was talking to him a little bit, like talking talking to him a little bit”

“this was another reason I had to go all out on this guy.”

It’s interesting how teenage mischief over vigilantism was the one thing to land Thompson in jail.