After eight-year hiatus, former teenage prodigy Taylor Guardado ready to shine at Invicta Phoenix Series 3

Nearly nine years since her last fight, former amateur standout Taylor Guardado is turning pro and looking to make an instant impact.

Competing under her maiden name of Taylor Stratford, Guardado was once considered one of the hottest rising prospects in female amateur MMA. Starting her career as a teenager, she amassed a 9-1 amateur record with wins over the likes of future big-show fighters Raquel Pennington, Amanda Bell and Ashlee Evans-Smith, and her only defeat came against a certain rising star named Ronda Rousey.

Now 28 and a mother to a 2-year-old son, Guardado says it’s time to enter the fray once again, this time as a professional, as she leaps straight into Invicta Fighting Championships’ eight-woman, one-night bantamweight tournament, Phoenix Series 3, in Kansas City, Kan. The event streamed lives on March 6 on UFC Fight Pass.

Mixing with future stars

Chatting to MMA Junkie from the mats of Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, Guardado looked back at her amateur career, when she was considered to be a potential star of the future, and revealed how her lone defeat to the biggest name in the sport built a friendship that helped give her perspective on her own career path.

“When I started, it wasn’t really a very popular thing for women back in 2009; it was still getting started, so when I got into it, I knew I wanted to do it in the long run,” she told MMA Junkie. “Meeting Ronda Rousey – meeting anyone I fought, like Raquel Pennington, Ashlee Evans-Smith – it’s been fun. Now I took a little time off, some of it my own choice, some of it because I had to, but now it’s a good time to get back, and I feel great.”

That lone defeat to Rousey brought the pair together, and Guardado’s reaction to being finished by the future Strikeforce and UFC champion’s trademark armbar earned her instant respect from the former Olympian.

“Literally, she liked that I got angry after my loss to her,” she explained. “I threw a straight temper tantrum after my loss. I was in the back, I was pissed off because I hadn’t lost before, but also because I didn’t tap to that armbar. She came up to me and was like, ‘I respect that mentality that you don’t want to lose.’ We exchanged numbers on Facebook and ended up staying close for a little while.”

That relationship saw Guardado offer to help Rousey get out of a contractual issue by agreeing to step in to take one of Rousey’s fights in order to let her move on to Strikeforce. While Rousey was a woman in a hurry to get to the top, Guardado, four years Rousey’s junior, knew she had more time on her side.

“I just remember seeing how far she was going with it and I was like, ‘I can do that, too,” she said. “‘It may not be right now, but I know I can do that. I’m still young.’”

A change of plans

Under different circumstances, Guardado could easily be a seasoned, experienced professional fighter with multiple fights in a big organization by now. But her career took a different path to those of her high-profile opponents from her amateur days.

Things seemed all set for an eventual transition to the pros but, after falling out with her coach in Reno, Guardado looked around for a new gym and eventually landed in Vegas, where she met her husband and, soon after, had a baby. At that point, her immediate priorities had changed, but her desire to train never diminished and, crucially, she never closed the door on her fighting career.

“I never really stopped training, that was kind of a big thing; I just never really looked for a fight, to be honest,” she said. “I don’t think I ever put a limit as far as my time goes. I’m still young – I’m still in my 20s, you know? But it was just a matter of when I could really commit to it and really take the time out and find really good coaching and feel comfortable with where I’m at and get my focus back.”

Now that focus is well and truly back. With her son often joining her and her husband in their home gym to hit pads – “It’s super cute!” – Guardado has found her home on the mats of Xtreme Couture and is preparing to dive straight in at the deep end, with the possibility of three fights in one night, some nine years after her last competitive appearance inside the cage.

“I had a full-time career, it was salary-based, (an) amazing career making good money, then postpartum (depression) kicked in and I couldn’t function well,” she explained. “So I took some time off from work, and I started working out at a regular gym. Then I was like, ‘Hey, one day would you mind holding mitts for me?’ and (my husband) held mitts for me upstairs, and I was like, ‘Oh, I still want to do this.’ I reached out to a couple of coaches here and they were like, ‘Yeah, we’d love to have you in again,’ so I started going back to pro practices, and it’s just been non-stop since then.”

Back in the mix

Guardado has been in full-time professional training since April 2019, and will make her return at Invicta FC’s Phoenix Series 3, where she’ll look to win three fights in one night to win the tournament and kickstart her MMA career in eye-catching fashion. It’s a huge test for “No Mercy,” who said she can’t wait to get back into competitive action.

“It’s going to be a party,” she laughed. “We’ve been looking for a fight since August of last year, with everyone saying no or dropping out quickly when they found out my record, I guess. So we were like, ‘Well, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to have to just fight whoever says yes.’

“Then (Invicta president) Shannon Knapp reached out and she was like, ‘Hey, I have a tournament coming up. You’re going to have to fight three times in one night if you win each of your fights.’ And I was like, ‘I want to get into this. Let’s do it again! Why not now? Let’s make this my year!’”

After so long away from the cage, Guardado says her approach will be exactly the same as the one that took her to such impressive performances as a teenage prospect in the ammys. This time, however, she’s here to stay.

“I think the mentality just has to be to dominate and win, which is my mentality for all of my fights,” she said. “I might change a few things depending on who I’m fighting, but as far as (my) mentality for the tournament, it’s literally just to dominate and leave no questions.

“This is just the start. This is the beginning of a brutal and beautiful career that’s about to happen. People will definitely be knowing who I am, where I’m at and everything. So it’ll be cool. It’s a good time.”