World series of Fighting competitor John Howard was recently diagnosed with autism. Boston native, Howard has been fighting professionally since 2004. He holds a brown belt in brazilian jiu-jitsu. Currently training bjj at Crossfit Prototype.

He made his UFC debut back in 2009 against Chris Wilson at UFC94. After some mixed reviews he was facing Matt Brown in June 2011 in what would turn out to be his last UFC fight. He was defeated via decission.

From there he made it onto Classic Entertainment and Sports Never Surrender where he won multiple fights via knockout.

Following the Boston Marathon bombing he stated he would like to be on UFC Fight Bight 26 in Boston to support his hometown. He ended up defeating Uriah Hall that same night via split decision. His professional record as of right now is 23-12.

A few months ago he stumbled into a conversation with his neurologist. After the doctor picked up a pattern in Howard’s story he started gaining insight into the situation. More neurological tests confirmed – he was clinically autistic. Had been his whole life.

Howard confirmed to MMA fighting :

“Now a lot of stuff in my life makes sense. Now I’m thinking about my life, it makes sense why I do certain things. Even to this day.”

For Howard, speech was always difficult as were more abstract social skills like education and maintaining relationships.

Growing up, I was always in Special Education classes, I always struggled with learning disabilities. But back in the day, when I was coming up in school, we didn’t have autism, ADHD, all these things that we know about now. We didn’t have the science to understand it. So if you were any kind of handicapped, or your thoughts were flawed, you were put in Special Education automatically. I went my whole childhood being in Special Education class, basically thinking that I was slow and stupid.

You can read his whole interview on MMAfighting.com