Although the initial excitement surrounding Season 17 of The Ultimate Fighter was based on coaches Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen, that all changed quickly after UFC president Dana White told the media about a fighter who terrorized the house.
We have a guy on this season of The Ultimate Fighter, every fight he’s in, someone goes to the hospital. The whole house is terrified of this guy. F—ing terrified. Everybody. I picked this fight, and this guy is lined up with the guy I’m telling you about, and the guy has a nervous breakdown in the house over the weekend. Has a f—ing nervous breakdown. Freaks out and has a nervous breakdown. This guy scared the living s— out of everyone. It’s awesome.
In addition, MMAfighting.com’s Dave Doyle relayed a scary message regarding an unidentified member of the house.
Dana says there’s a fighter on new TUF who put all four of his opponents into the hospital.
— Dave Doyle (@davedoylemma) December 19, 2012
In late December, Bleacher Report’s own McKinley Noble wrote an outstanding piece that points to European fighter Tor Troeng as the mystery fighter who is so terrifyingly violent that it gave Dana White chills.
Pause for a few minutes, go read that piece and meet me back here. I’ll wait.
Welcome back! I missed you.
It takes four wins to put you into the finals of a 28-man field. In the event that Troeng is the monstrous beast who hospitalized four opponents, we know that he makes it to the semi-final round.
Knowing that we will be spending the first quarter of 2013 with Troeng, we should probably familiarize ourselves with “The Hammer.”
Standing at 6’2″, Troeng is a lengthy middleweight who hails from Umea, Sweden and trains out of Alliance MMA. Boasting an impressive 11-1-1 run in recent appearances, Tor used his technical striking and quality grappling to earn a bed in the TUF house.
UFC light heavyweight contender and training partner Alexander Gustafsson spoke about Troeng auditioning for TUF and actually predicted a dominance similar to what is being reported.
“Hopefully [Troeng] will enter the house. And [he] will destroy all the competition in there for sure, I know that.”
By scouring the Internet, you can find plenty of video on Troeng, however, the most impressive video came from a December 2011 fight against Andre Reinders.
After dropping his opponent with a left hook, Tor wasted no time in dropping enormous ground and pound that left Reinders unconscious faster than you can blink.
What surprised me most was seeing that Troeng is seemingly equally as violent as he is a gentleman.
Based on reading some of the blogs on his personal website, it’s clear to see that Tor is a respectful fighter who is grateful for the opportunities that he receives, respectful of those who inspire him along the way and excited about what the future holds.
Make sure to tune in to meet Troeng beginning on January 22 when The Ultimate Fighter 17 debuts on FX.
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