Heather Jo Clark Talks About The Drama Of The Ultimate Fighter 22

In an interview with MMA Junkie, Heather Jo Clark (7-4 MMA, 1-0 UFC) spoke about her run on the Ultimate Fighter 22. She will return to fighting on Sunday at UFC Fight Night 87 against Karolina Kowalkiewicz (8-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC). Here are highlights:

On the drama of the show: “I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me since the filming and said, ‘God, how did you do that? How were you able to put up with that? I wouldn’t have been able to keep my hands in my pockets? I would have knocked those girls out’. A lot of people stopped watching the show because a lot of that stuff happening. The ones that stayed with me and saw I was the one who was able to put up with that, those are the fans that are going to stand by me, and those are the fans that I want.”

On working with a group of female fighters at Xtreme Couture: “I came from my first camp being Jackson-Wink MMA, came from a really great women’s team, so getting our women’s team back to that same thing where we have tons of girls to train with is really amazing,” she said. “It’s been such a blessing to have that, because you can train with guys, and we have a couple of small guys that I train with, but it’s just not the same. It gives me that confidence, and that real confidence, because you don’t know whether the guys are going too easy, or are they pushing really hard, and that’s why you’re not getting that takedown. So it’s a lot easier to get confident when you’re going with high-level girls, because you know they’re always giving their all.”

On being sidelined with a knee injury: “I would just say I wasn’t really sane, to be honest. It was hard for me. But I’d say what got me through it was watching and being around fighting, and watching my boyfriend – he trains at the Olympic Training Center and is a wrestler on the Greco Roman team. I got to watch a lot of that. And basically just eating – eating whatever I wanted. That helps out a lot.”