LAS VEGAS — It was only two years ago that Matt Mitrione was a green rookie on The Ultimate Fighter. During that season, he was picked 13th out of 16 fighters, yet despite being the newest to the game, he’s now on the verge of being the most high profile of the bunch.
At Saturday’s UFC 137, Mitrione will make a big leap in opponent level, facing the veteran Cheick Kongo. Mitrione has always been prized for his promise and athleticism, but given his late start in MMA (he was already over 30 when he started his pro career), there have always been questions if he can pull everything together in time to make himself a factor in the UFC‘s heavyweight division.
With a win over Kongo, he will have accomplished that, even though it’s not something he’s not focused on.
“I haven’t really thought too much about it because I’m not paid to think about it,” he said. “I’m paid to go out and try to put on the best performance I can. And if I do well and go out and beast him, that’s a conversation to have. And if I go out there and get my ass kicked, then that’s a conversation not to be had. But I don’t really have to worry about either one of those until the press conference afterwards.”
Describing Kongo as “the upper-end measuring stick,” Mitrione acknowledged that this fight will provide information on just where he stands in his career. The 33-year-old has been brought along in a measured process until now, winning all five of his fights, with four coming by way of KO or TKO.
It’s been a strong run in his second pro sport. After playing collegiate football at Purdue Mitrione made it to the NFL, spending time with the New York Giants and Minnesota Vikings. But after being cut in week six of the 2005 season, he transitioned from athletics to corporate America, where he designed and sold benefits packages for corporations.
While he made a good living, it didn’t quite scratch his competitive itch, and the sports door opened back up when his friend, Washington Nationals’ baseball player Jayson Werth decided to produce an MMA event and asked Mitrione to take part in it.
Mitrione, who had begun training ended up getting hurt and didn’t fight, but by that time, he had developed friendships with Chris Lytle and Jake O’Brien, and he stuck with MMA. Six months later, he was on TUF.
Wednesday’s fighter workouts took place at the TUF gym, providing Mitirone with some flashbacks from his early days.
“I was kind of struggling day by day,” Mitrione said of his time on the show. “I was d—— around too much. I kind of lost a lot of my wide-angle focus. I got tunnel vision pretty well on just fighting Scott Junk and making things happen that way. It’s nice I’m on a little bit of winning streak. It’s nice to come in here and have a little bit of something under my belt. But yeah, I was here, it sucked, but it was the best worst thing of my life.”
Mitrione said that the 20-something version of himself would not have been able to handle this rise, saying “I probably would have been a flash in the pan, if I was even a flash.”
“It’s something that I’m mature enough to be able to handle this career now,” he said. “When I was younger, I was a dumbass. I was drunk and partied way too hard so I probably would have f—– it up somehow.”
Mitrione has shored up his training, flying in grappling coach Neil Melanson to work with him, spending hours on the road to improve his wrestling with coach Ryan Root, and even traveling to Florida to train with his former TUF coach Rashad Evans.
So Mitrione is embracing his TUF roots in order to achieve his future goals. He knows full well about Kongo. The French fighter is dangerous, with powerful, accurate strikes, and Mitrione is aware that his usual aggression could play into Kongo’s hands. Yet he believes that everything has led him to this moment. His early immaturity, his time on TUF, his late-blooming MMA career, it has all led him to the brink of breaking into contender status.
“I see it as the right opponent at the right time,” he said. “It’s definitely a step up from the caliber of competition I’ve faced already. I’m excited for it. It’s something I’ve wanted.”