Cody Garbrandt - Wikipedia

Garbrandt was born in Uhrichsville, Ohio, on July 7, 1991, and raised there mostly by his mother Jessica. Cody is ten months younger than his brother Zach, who he grew up constantly fighting.[3] Garbrandt has claimed in several interviews that his drug addict father was never in the picture, spending most of his life in prison.[3] Garbrandt's parents separated after a domestic abuse incident when Cody was one year old.[3] Eventually, Cody was adopted by his mother's now ex-husband at the age of 10.[9]

At the ages of four and five, Cody and Zach, respectively, had already been dabbling into boxing with their uncle Robert Meese who was an Olympic alternate in the sport.[10] However, their mother was concerned about the boys becoming punch-drunk thus forbidding boxing and directing them towards wrestling.[3]

At Claymont High School, Garbrandt competed in wrestling and football, winning a state championship as a freshman in 2007, by defeating Zach Neibert, 4–2,[11] and was a runner-up in 2008.[12] In football, Garbrandt won All–State honors as a linebacker during his junior season.[3] After failing to claim the second state championship, Garbrandt became the NHSCA Sophomore National runner–up[13] and subsequently stopped wrestling and convinced his mother to let him start training boxing seriously.[3] Over about six years, Garbrandt compiled a 32–0 record as an amateur boxer.[3]

Despite not competing in wrestling during his final two years of high school, Garbrandt competed at the national tournament as a senior and placed fifth, claiming All–American honors and receiving interest from several NCAA Division I schools, such as Penn State and Rutgers.[14] He was then recruited by the Michigan State Spartans, but due to academic reasons, he ended up at Newberry College, a Division II school, before dropping out for academic and personal reasons, explaining:[6]

“I guess my heart wasn’t into (wrestling) anymore. I was doing boxing, and that’s what I wanted to do.”[15]

After dropping out, Garbrandt sold marijuana, worked as a bouncer, and eventually completed coal miner training in order to work in the field familiar to his family.[9] However, he decided to commit completely to his amateur MMA career, after helping several MMA camps with wrestling.[16]