Few fighters in the sport have a nickname as fitting as junior lightweight contender Maliek “Mayhem” Montgomery. On more than one occasion, he’s averaged over 95 punches per round in a fight, and in his breakout 2021 win over Aleem Jumakhonov, had landed over 200 punches through six rounds. There is a chaotic nature to the pace that Montgomery can cut, a video game-caliber punch output, one that seems dangerously audacious, but is somehow within his aerobic capabilities.

“I know there’s levels I can take it to in the ring that other fighters can’t reach. I’m gonna push that farther and farther until my opponent can’t take it,” said Montgomery (20-0, 18 KOs). “I don’t think anybody’s fought anybody like me.”

When you’re imagining the psyche of that person, you probably wouldn’t expect to see them sitting in a living room filled with his girlfriend and family’s beautiful art, playing on the floor with his baby daughter. After years of staging camp in Las Vegas and Florida, Montgomery has settled back into a familiar—and familial—routine, training at home in Macon, Georgia. The ruthlessly aggressive mentality Montgomery carries into the ring can’t, and as he found out, shouldn’t be turned on at all times. While he might not ever slow down inside the ring, he’s had to find a way to do so outside of it.

In other words, the mayhem stops at the final bell, or the final buzz of the gym timer each day.

“That's a whole 'nother battle, turning you know turning off of that zeroed in, dialled in workout mood and you know carrying yourself a certain way in the gym, and then turn around and kind of soften up for your kids and being around your child. You know, I have a seven-month-old and I have a five year old, so you know dealing with them, taking care of her, dealing with him and dealing with their emotions and things, that's a battle in itself, but one thing that I appreciate with being able to do my camps at home is the fact that I can be that present Dad,” Montgomery told The Ring. "When I'm in the gym it's gym time, when I'm not in the gym is recovery time. And even when I'm recovering, it's nice to every night have a good laugh with my kids or a good laugh with my girl, and it it's like, like yeah there is actually life outside of the boxing ring that I can think about."

Family has always been at the center of Montgomery’s career in a very direct way. His father, Michael Montgomery Sr., was a professional boxer who passed his knowledge of the sweet science down to his sons Maliek, Michael Jr. and Mikhail. The three brothers were at home playing Fight Night 2004 when their father finally extended the invitation to go to the gym with him. For Maliek, there has seldom been a day since when he and his Dad haven’t been in the gym, whether it’s preparing for his own bout or training children at the Macon Bibb United Boxing Club at Freedom Park. In part due to that community charity, but also because of he and his brothers’ success in both the amateur and pro ranks, it was decided last year that the building would be renamed The Frank Ray-Montgomery Brothers Boxing Arena.

The Montgomery patriarch demanded an otherworldly commitment to cardiovascular fitness. Maliek remembers the first time his father introduced “the workout sheet,” which always started with a six-mile run, then after a series of other exercises, ended with the brothers taking turns running a push lawnmower loaded with one of the other brothers up a hill he describes as being three quarters of a vertical mile, again and again, even in the 100 degree Georgia heat.

That commitment allowed Montgomery to not just hang with, but overwhelm with the fighters with more bountiful resources elsewhere in the country. It led him to two National Golden Gloves titles and a spot as an alternate on the 2016 Olympic team, capping an amateur career that included wins over Edgar Berlanga and Bruce Carrington.

Montgomery humbly views his talents as the result of an incredible amount of hard work rather than God-given gifts, but perhaps what he doesn’t see—likely because it’s second-nature to him—is that his gift is his capacity for hard work. Even from a young age, he was drawn to the sports with the largest demand of a person’s energy and the highest risk of injury, as he competed in boxing, wrestling and cross-country simultaneously during his school years. Most kids don’t have that kind of energy. Even as an adult, most fighters aren’t doing those types of workouts, and most fighters—as is statistically proven—do not throw as many punches as him.

Perhaps, you could say he had to work hard to find out that his gift was the ability to work hard.

“It's kind of funny and ironic but my brothers got all the artistic value, literally my brother, my older brother, younger brother and my sister, all of them are great artists, but I'm just the one who didn’t get the artistic talent in the gene pool,” said Montgomery. “I've always been on the lesser side of the ability. I was athletic athletically inclined but I wasn't as an athletic inclined as my brothers, or, you know, my predecessors, people around me. And so I've always known that, for me, it's always been. I can't afford to come at something half measure. I always had to put my full everything into everything that I did because I knew that was just for me to get on their level, let alone to surpass them, I had to push it even more, you know? If everybody's running 10, I gotta run 20, you know? And I just think it just carried on, you know, is to make me the fighter and make me the person I am now.”

Montgomery headlines the next Overtime Boxing (OTX) event at the Sycuan Casino in San Diego, CA on March 22 against Jeremy Hill, marking his third appearance under the OTX banner. In his last two fights, he’s stopped veterans Sakaria Lukas and Oscar Escandon in less than four rounds, following up on a thrilling promotional debut against Cesar Juarez that was one of the best under-the-radar action fights of the year. The Juarez fight in particular was the best illustration of Montgomery’s mindset in the ring. Montgomery could have easily outboxed Juarez to a comfortable decision, and quite possibly could have forced a stoppage in doing so. But it felt as though Montgomery was deliberately producing action by inviting non-stop exchanges on the inside. There is a tangible incentive to do so in OTX—the Fight of the Night winners are rewarded with a sponsored swag and gift packs, but it felt as though Montgomery was going it for his own enjoyment, as if he was getting joy out of being in that kind of a punch-fest.

“Yeah I do (feel joy in that kind of fight). I'm extreme. If you've ever been in the gym with me in a camp and see me spar, I can fight six different styles when it comes to sparring. I'm able to do different things inside the ring, but when I fight, once that fight breaks out in a sense, I get so one track minded where like my dad sometimes has to reel me in,” said Montgomery. “Once that fight breaks out, I'm just so caught in the moment and I enjoy those moments where, you know a guy feels like I can take this, he’s not gonna run over me, and I’m like, yeah? I need that, like I need it. I get so caught up in the moment of it, man, and then the fight goes on and the fight's over and I'm just like, yeah, that was a good time, I'm ready for the next.”

In terms of what could be next presuming he defeats Hill, in terms of deciding upon his dream opponent, Montgomery immediately considers which fight he would actually enjoy the most and the one that would be the most entertaining for the fans: Emanuel Navarrete. It’s as if he scoured the CompuBox standings for punches thrown by 130-pounders and selected the man he thinks could hang with him. As he says, “never been you know one to never shy away from the hardest option.”

“I feel like that fight would be amazing. I feel like I would love that fight, and I feel like the fans would love that fight,” said Montgomery. “I just feel like that would just be the fight, like that would be a fight that everybody would talk about.”

He might not have been blessed with the artistic talent of his brothers, but Montgomery’s art is in his performance in the ring, one he seems to curate specifically for the viewing audience, above all else.

It’s 2:30 PM and Montgomery is itching to get back into mayhem mode. He gets ready to feed the baby and head back to the gym named after him and his family.