The first episode of the TUF 22 season premiered last night, and as usual, a bunch of fighters had to earn their berth in the TUF House by winning in the cage. Two of those men - Tom Gallicchio and James Jenkins - are longtime Northeast fight scene veterans, so of course The MMA Journalist had a vested interest in the proceedings. How did they do? Well, let's just say they handled their business the same way they always do, in their respective badass fashions.
Here's a little more insight into these guys:
- Gallicchio has a 19-8 pro record and has been in the game since 2006. Over the course of his career, he's earned championship titles in Ring of Combat, Maximum Fighting Championship in Canada, and Battle Cage Xtreme. He also won an M-1 Global tournament.
- As you saw in last night's episode, he specializes in taking people's backs and choking them out. Like, really specializes in it. Like, he does it better than most jiu-jitsu black belts, and he was doing it long before he started getting belts in jiu-jitsu.
- In terms of striking, Gallicchio is all about using his iron chin to wade in and fuck you up.
- Speaking of iron chins, as you saw last night, Jenkins has one, too. Jenkins, however, turns into a headhunter when he gets tagged.
- Jenkins is 8-1 as a pro and 8-2 as an amateur. His lone pro loss is via a guillotine, but that happened when his opponent stunned him on the feet and Jenkins shot in for a takedown while on autopilot (which was weird considering his penchant for banging it out).
- He's great on the ground, which, given his training under Matt Serra, is no surprise. Jenkins's well-round game is one of the reasons why he was a ROC champ; his ability to bite down on his mouthpiece and bang hard is the main reason he was pegged long ago as a future UFC fighter.
I could care less about the heat between coaches Conor McGregor and Urijah Faber. But I'm going to be tuning in to TUF 22 every week to watch Gallicchio and Jenkins do their thing. Booyah.
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