“The Ultimate Fighter 31” is ongoing with coaches Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler attracting more eyeballs back to the series.
This season, which features eight lightweights and eight bantamweights, airs Tuesdays on ESPN. McGregor’s team features eight fighters who have not competed in the UFC against Chandler’s team of eight UFC alumni.
Among those UFC alums is Kurt Holobaugh, the lone fighter who had two previous stints with the promotion. Holobaugh went 0-4 over those stretches, but history shows a tough strength of schedule: Steven Siler, Raoni Barcelos, Shane Burgos, and Thiago Moises.
Now at lightweight rather than featherweight, Holobaugh devastated two opponents to get a third look from the UFC.
Each week here at MMA Junkie, Holobaugh will peel back the curtain and provide an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look and give insight into what may not have made the cut onto the episode.
Check out what Holobaugh had to say about Episode 8, which featured his first bout on the series, below.
Emotional toll of the TUF process
“This is hard enough, what we do, when we are home with our families. When I’m home, it’s still hard. When I have to leave that week to go out to wherever the fight might be, I’m still kind of emotional. We didn’t get our family pictures until a week or two in the house. That’s why what Renato Moicano recently said kind of bothered me. We were in a hotel for two weeks before. By the time we got the pictures back, we’d already been away from the family for about a month. … They take every item from us and then we get them back as they slowly approve them. They slowly started bringing the pictures back one at a time. But that’s three weeks into the house.”
Fight reaction: Rico DiSciullo def. Hunter Azure via knockout (punches) – Round 2
“You can see in the first round, it went exactly how everybody on our team thought it would go. You can argue it. I think it could be close to a 10-8 round. Hunter was doing well, man. He was controlling everywhere the fight went. Rico did open him up with some elbows on the side of the head that made for a bloody fight. But it was an easy round to call. It could’ve been a 10-8 for Azure depending on how you score it.”
McGregor's taunts fired up Team Chandler
“It was definitely unnecessary. … I guess Conor is happy with winning one fight.”
Shoutout to Rico DiSciullo
“Not that our team was counting Rico out. We just knew how good Hunter was. We believed in Hunter. All the footage we were able to watch, it just didn’t look like a good matchup for Rico. Clearly in the first round, it wasn’t. But Rico shocked everybody. Maybe Hunter gassed out a little bit too much, it looked like. When the second round started, he was a little bit slower and more hesitant to engage in anything. Rico ends up catching him.”
An unexpected yelling match viewers didn't see
“There was another guy (UFC fighter Charles Rosa) there in the Apex. He was talking trash to Row (Roosevelt Roberts). I’m assuming he was on the side of McGregor’s team. He came over and started talking. You don’t do that to Row. So Row was trying to get at him. They had to keep them apart all the way to the back. I bet they kicked him out of the Apex.”
“… (That filming day) was intense, especially with me fighting and then having to come out and watch Jason’s fight. Then, Rico and Hunter’s fight after, it was a hell of a day.”
Semifinalist polled
“After the quarterfinals are done, everyone is kind of wondering who is going to fight who now, how are they going to do it, are they still going to go off the rankings. But at the same time, you might have two No. 4s that won and you might not have a No. 1. We knew they were probably going to ask who we were going to fight. At the time, we already knew.”
“… Me and Jason looked at each other and said, ‘Hey, look. We need to fight. Let’s go ahead and get this one out of the way. It’s going to be a fun fight, man. We’re going to put on a show for Dana. I know how you fight. You know how I fight. Let’s go out there and let’s give a fight of the year.”
Seven supporting one
“We all know it’s the fight game and anything can happen. We all had Hunter’s back either way. I think that was kind of important for us to have his back and keep him up. He seemed to be in good spirits the whole time after that.”
