Jacob Highley grew up like most kids in the Cuba area, playing a variety of sports — soccer, baseball, football, basketball and track. But his trajectory in life changed when he discovered mixed martial arts (MMA) at 20 years old. 

Highley, a 2017 Cuba High School graduate, began his MMA training with local professional fighters, Dakota Bush and Jake Collier. After starting as just ‘a body in the room,’ he gradually earned training time in the ring and started to find his love for the sport. He said he also noticed that it was positively affecting his life outside the octagon.

“I got the bite for it (MMA) and got addicted to it,” he said. “I also was having a lot of success in my normal life from it, just like growing as a human through martial arts and getting disciplined and stuff.”

Highley entered the amateur ranks shortly after and took on some of the top amateur fighters in the region. He went 6-2 in his first eight fights in the span of a few years and local businesses sponsored him. Highly credited his sponsors’ confidence in him for his ascent up the professional ranks. 

“My sponsors helped me get there, especially when I was an amateur,” he said. “It really helped out, because I wasn’t getting paid yet, and it helped me take that leap of faith into it. I got a lot of people supporting me, so I can do this.”

Highley decided in March 2025 to register with the State of Missouri as a professional fighter. He quit his full-time union job as a concrete finisher for Cowling-Garbo Concrete after he took his first professional fight. Cowling-Garbo is now a sponsor, along with other local businesses like Missouri Hick Bar-B-Que, Meramec Package Liquor, Riviera Maya Mexican Restaurant, Frisco’s Grill and Pub and DML Dumpsters. 

At 27, Highley is now 3-0 fighting as a welterweight in the Shamrock FC, a mixed martial arts company based in St. Louis. His next fight is the Shamrock FC’s Co-Main Event on March 14 at the Ameristar Casino and Hotel in St. Charles against Cape Girardeau native Nathan Stearns. Highley said that many people from Cuba travel to see his fights, and he expects to see a large crowd at his next bout.

“Cuba travels well. They’re competitive guys here who are super supportive. I got one of the bigger crowds in the Shamrock FC, for sure,” he said.     

Highley described the Shamrock FC as the AAA of MMA, and he’s potentially one fight away from getting the call from the big leagues — the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) — the $12 billion nationally televised conglomerate with stars like Conor McGregor, Khabib Nurmagomedov and George St. Pierre and has a lineup of fights set for June 14 at the White House.

Fighters like Collier and Joaquin Buckley have previously made the jump from Shamrock FC to the UFC, and Highley said they are his inspiration. 

He has experienced the bright lights of the UFC’s home base in Las Vegas as a member of Collier’s corner and was able to see firsthand how professionals at that level operate. “I cornered for Jake (Collier) in the UFC a few times, and went to Vegas. So it was, like, once you see that level, it’s like, OK, I can do that,” Highley said. “You know, I was backstage, seeing everybody warm up, seeing how everybody moved, how all the pros acted. So getting that experience was a big step for me, for sure.”

At the same time, Highley is laying down roots in Cuba. He owns a house with his wife, Caitlin, their dog and their infant son, Maverick. Highley has also built and opened a private MMA gym, Highley House, which he co-owns with his older brother, Kenny Highley. He is planning to open the gym to the public this summer. His goal is to give the next generation a place to learn mixed martial arts. 

Cuba High School doesn’t have a wrestling team, and Jacob Highley hopes to establish a community interested in having one.

“What I’m doing now, settling down, getting my own home base, getting my own people who are coming in, like younger guys, like Kevin Killeen, a 16-year-old training with me, is awesome,” Highley said. “Because Cuba doesn’t even have a wrestling team, I got some kids wrestling now. This is just the first small step because I’m going to start a wrestling program here. So just getting more martial arts established here in Cuba, that’s where I see my end goal. Just being a coach, trying to get other people to the big level.”  

Kenny Highley helps train Jacob Highley and spoke about the growth he’s seen from his brother’s journey as a fighter.

“That’s his biggest thing, just trying to get back to the community,” Kenny Highley said about his brother. “This just gave him a lot of discipline and got him dialed in where he wanted to be. He wants to give back to the community and everybody else. It’s always been a big thing. Getting young kids like this in here, getting them to fall in love with the sport. We have a great opportunity here to do so.”

Jacob Highley said that he knows it’s hard to get into competitive fighting, but he wants to provide an outlet for those having trouble at home and at school.

“It’s hard to get into fighting if you don’t know anybody. It’s like, ‘OK where do I start? How do I even get started?’ But the major thing is that a lot of the kids that could be troubled, having rough stuff going at home, this just really helps them emotionally,” he said. “I feel like people who aren’t emotionally available, they have their first-ever emotional outburst in training. It opens their eyes to everything going on in their life.”

Kenny Highley agreed with his brother’s assessment of the mental aspect of fighting. 

“Usually, once you start training, you actually have a lot less of those outbursts and you don’t want to be around people who freak out in the community and at bars,” Kenny Highley said. “When you start training, it’s pretty therapeutic. Martial artists are actually the most chill people you run into.”

Although Jacob Highley isn’t the first professional fighter to come out of Cuba, he said that he’s proud to represent the small town and has no plans to move away.

“Jake (Collier) made it first out of here, then Dakota (Bush) and Terry (Copling) and then now me,” he said. “But I think it’s cool. I think it shows the grit in our community. We’re hard workers, you know, just country boys, all that stuff. I think it just shows the grind here. And I love being from a small town and not making it from a big city. A lot of the guys leave whenever they make it. So I wanted to plant my roots.”