Tyson Griffin is a mixed martial arts fighter from Albany, CA born on April 20, 1984 in Sacramento, California. Ever since his high school days, he was a prominent wrestler where he wrestled at Santa Rosa Junior College. He later dropped out of college and began his training at Cesar Academy and David Terrell's NorCal Fighting Alliance. He got two gashes over his left eye while fighting with Terrell and he vowed in his hospital room that he will build his career in MMA. In his early days of training at the Academy, he had full support of his mother but later on he took side jobs to support himself.

Tyson Griffin started his real wrestling career in 2004 in the Gladiator Challenge Promotion. He defeated Urijah Faber in his third bout. This was Faber's first defeat in three years. He won all of his first six fights after which he faced Duane Ludwig at Strikeforce: Revenge. He attracted attention of nearly every major promotion by winning the bout by TKO or the technical knockout. Griffin wanted to continue to fight stateside so he joined UFC even after having offer from Pride Fighting Championship. He met members of Xtreme Couture for the first time in Las Vegas while cornering for David Terrell at UFC59.

He made his debut against David Lee at UFC 63. He earned the Submission of the Night of Honors that night with his rear naked choke in the first round and won the bout. This success was well spent by him to move to Las Vegas and join Xtreme Couture camp. He rejected the accusation by his former teammate Nick Diaz of being a "gym jumper". His first professional loss came in 2007 when he fought Frank Edgar at UFC 67. Although, he has Edgar tightly leg-locked when the bout ended, nevertheless, judges unanimously ruled the bout in Edgar's favor.

He rebounded about his loss with two successive victories over Clay Guida at UFC 72 and Thiago Tavares UFC 76. He earned Fight of the Night Honors three times in 2007 which were judged in the top 10 best of the year.

Griffin recorded unanimous decision victories over Gleison Tibau at UFC 81 and Marcus Aurelio at UFC 86. At UFC 90 he faced Sean Shrek. He lost three-round war by unanimous decision but bagged his fourth career Fight of the Night. His fifth career Fight of the Night award came when he beat Rafael de Anjos at UFC Fight Night.

After winning Fight of the Night five times out of eight wins, he has been unofficially nicknamed as "Mr. Fight of the Night".