Eric Shelton Was Surprised By His TUF Ranking

Eric Shelton spoke with MMAjunkie about his win over Yoni Sherbatov on the fourth episode of TUF 24. Some highlights are below:

On coming in near the bottom of the TUF rankings: “I was surprised at my ranking. I have a big record, so I thought I was going to be higher up in the rankings, but it’s just numbers. It took me a little bit to understand it was numbers, so I was surprised, but it is what it is. I felt like being No. 15 took the pressure off me a little bit.”

On being prepared for Sherbatov: “I didn’t know of him before I got in the house, but when I got in the house, there was a lot of talk about him. He did a lot of cool stuff in the tryouts and stuff like that. People thought he was going to be lower ranked because of his record, and he thought he was going to be a dark horse. Once I found out the matchup, it was strategizing and training with the coaches right away. But you don’t have much time so you have to go in there right away and be the best you can be.”

On the fight’s unpredictable nature: “There’s so many variables in that house. Any little thing will play a factor. There are so many things going on in that house. The short time to cut weight. The short time to prepare. Everything was rough. Some guys were banged up a big, and we were like, ‘Dang, we have to do four fights like this and continue to win? It’s going to be tough.’”

On going right back to train for the next fight: “It’s weird winning and beating someone you’ve built a relationship and taking his dream from him, but then trying to be excited as well because you’re moving on in the tournament. It was all mixed it. The emotions you feel in that house were crazy because of so much stuff going on and trying to make the right decisions. It was an awkward situation.”