“The Ultimate Fighter 31” is underway with coaches Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler attracting more eyeballs back on the series.
This season, which features eight lightweights and eight bantamweights, debuted Tuesday 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 alumni 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 into the episode.
Check out what Holobaugh had to say about Episode 6, which featured his first bout on the series, below.
Self-creating your pre-fight video bio
“They just send you a camera in the mail. I’m not exactly sure the type. It was a pretty cool little camera. You can add a little selfie stick to it and you can do some recording. That’s really all they did and they just wanted you to record everything you do. They said, ‘Hey, even if you just put the camera on record and just have a casual conversation, give us as much to work with. I actually felt like I did a really good job doing all that and I was still like, ‘Man, I don’t know if I did a good job or not.’ They did a good job on it.”
An accurate representation of Kurt Holobaugh, the person?
“I was extremely happy with it. I actually kind of felt like earlier in the show, I guess they kind of put me off as the cocky guy on the show.’ I’m like, ‘Man, I don’t know if I like that look. That’s not really me.’ I said, ‘Yeah, maybe I had to talk a little bit.’ But I didn’t know if I liked it. Now that you guys are able to see who I am and what I’m really like through my home video, I thought that was really cool.”
A bond formed with a previously targeted opponent
“Row Roberts is one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met. Sometimes whenever you meet a guy whether they’re a fighter or not and you start talking to somebody, sometimes you know right away if you click with this person. Is this person like you? Would this be a person you’d hang out with? Roosevelt Roberts is everything like that. I definitely consider him a good friend. I thought we had a good bond in the house as well as with the other lightweights and the other bantamweights, too. He’s just a great guy overall.”
“… It’s funny because we actually talked about that in the house. I was like, ‘Did you ever get an offer to fight me?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, did you ever get an offer to fight me?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ I thought it was pretty cool he was like, ‘I already knew who you were when I saw you here.’ But yeah, I don’t know why that fight never happened.
Living with someone you're set to fight
“Lee was the only guy that I just hadn’t talked to, didn’t talk to almost the entire time, leading up until our fight. All the other guys, I had conversations with them. I talked to them. But Lee, no. Of course, we’re fighting. I did not talk to Lee. I don’t know. I was already mentally prepared for it, so it wasn’t weird to me. But when you stop and think about it, it’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s weird.’ You’re living with this guy you’re going to fight. I don’t know. It was weird.”
Added motivation fighting 'Conor's guy'
“Yeah, for sure. It already felt like I was going to have a lot of eyes on me because this was the guy when Conor showed up and kicked half of the cast off, this was his guy. I think that was a big target on Lee’s back, too. I know Roosevelt Roberts want to fight Lee Hammond right off the bat. He said, ‘I want Conor McGregor’s boy first.’ I’m like, ‘All right. I guess I’ve got Conor’s boy. Let’s do it.’ I think it was definitely one of the most anticipated fights.”
Lack of Hammond tape available
The only thing that sucked for me was they let us watch film on all the opponents, but Lee had no film out there. I just don’t know if they couldn’t get the Bellator fights or what. I didn’t even know he fought Bellator at the time. I found that out later. I knew he was 4-0 or 5-0 and finished most of the fights. That’s really all I knew. The only video they gave us of him was an amateur fight back in 2016 or 2015, and one fight where the video cuts of him on top and then he’s on the bottom. We had nothing to really study or go off of. I kind of went in there not knowing exactly what to expect. We knew how tough he was going to be.”
“… I don’t think Chandler or any of the coaches are actually allowed to pull footage to show us. The producers actually have to come out there and hook the stuff up to the TV and show us the fights.”
Where things went wrong...
“Starting off, I knew he was going to be a little bit bigger and a little bit stronger than me. I was on a very good diet in the house just for the simple fact that we didn’t know how this was going to work. We didn’t know when we were going to fight. I didn’t want to be one of the first ones to fight and cut a whole bunch of weight. My weight was down. Lee’s weight was very high. I want to say there were a couple times when he stepped on the scale and he was 180-something pounds a week out from the fight. I’m like, ‘I’m sure he’s going to make weight but he’s going to be very big and very strong the next day.’ That could’ve been an advantage for him, but he’d also have a big weight cut. We knew that.
“… I just couldn’t get settled down in that first round. I even had a couple good positions myself. It looked like he was 10 times stronger with the way he’d just sweep me off the top. I don’t get swept off the top like that. I think I was just too much in ‘go-mode.’ If I settled, it would’ve been a little bit different. At the end of the day, we were doing what we were planning on doing and that was wearing him down and gassing him out a little bit.”
The real reason McGregor told Hammond to pull guard
“I knew I lost Round 1 and I needed Round 2. I knew that I hurt him. One thing that they didn’t show during the fight was the in very first exchange, the very first kick in Round 1, I cut his knee open with my kick. He must’ve checked it or stepped right into it. He caught my kick but the kick still landed on his knee. It really gashed his knee open. That’s why Conor, in between rounds, said, ‘Pull guard if you had to.’ I don’t know if his knee cap was hanging out, if Lee thought he couldn’t walk, or what.
... and how things went right
“I knew I was losing the fight and I knew it wasn’t going to a third round. I was looking right at Chandler. We worked a two-on-one grip the entire time. That’s all Chandler would say. He’d say, ‘Hey, get the two-on-one and let’s get back to our feet.’ That’s kind of what we did. I got the two-on-one and came up. Lee dropped for a foot or a leg and I tried to do a back-step. But when I did a back-step, he tried to come up and hug my hip. I’m pretty good with a guillotine. As soon as I felt his head come up beside my hip, I hit the guillotine. From there, I was like, ‘If I don’t finish, I’m going to finish the round on top and I should be able to win this round and go for a third.’ Then, I felt it and realized I could get it. I started squeezing and got the tap.”
When the tap came
“I really did just make a really crazy come back. That was my whole thought. I couldn’t believe I came back and won that fight.”
McGregor's shove on Chandler
“I had no clue that was coming. As soon as they got me out of the cage, I had a big cut on my eye. They were trying to take me to the back to get me checked out by the doctors and stuff. I heard a commotion, so I turned around and started looking. They’re like, ‘Come on, Kurt. We’re trying to go.’ And I’m like, ‘Come on here.’ I couldn’t really see. I heard about it and now the footage is out.”
A satisfyingly crushing blow to Conor McGregor
“It was definitely surreal and it was definitely a big deal. I beat Conor’s not only No. 1 guy, but his actual teammate, who he really, really cares for. You can see Conor dropping to his knees afterward. You know he wasn’t happy. … For sure (it was satisfying). To be able to drop Conor to his knees like that, I’ll take that any day.”
