Chris Duncan, a.k.a. “The Problem,” was coming into his full UFC debut this past Saturday after one of the most exciting fights on the Contender Series, ever.
In that Contender Series win, Duncan scored a come from behind knockout over fellow prospect, Charlie Campbell. With that highlight knockout gaining traction on social media, that made Duncan an instant ‘must watch’ before he’d even strapped up the official leather UFC gloves.
For him though, preparing for his UFC debut wasn’t the only thing he’s being doing for the past however many weeks. Duncan admitted that during his preparation for his fight with Omar Morales, he had still being working full-time in his day job as a personal trainer.
“This fight meant a lot to me because financially I was working full time before I left to go to ATT [American Top Team], so this kind of puts a stamp on that I’m now a professional athlete and I can leave my work, not completely but not rely on work itself to look after my family.” Duncan said.
Despite admitting that he won’t give up his job as a personal trainer completely, he did joke that he would be bumping up his prices due to the inevitable demand since his UFC win.
“A lot of my clients know that this will be my career eventually and it’s more the reliability of it, if I don’t need to rely on it the job doesn’t seem as much as a job. If I could do that on the side and help the people that want to be helped, I’ve got a lot of great clients back home so it’ll be great to get back to them,” the Scotsman said.
Duncan’s clients though, may have to come to terms with the fact that their personal trainer is now a fully fledged UFC fighter who may be unavailable quite soon. Duncan admitted he wants a ‘quick turnaround’ due to inactivity in the past six months.
“If I could get a quick turnaround this time around from Sean (Shelby), if Sean can get me matched I would really appreciate it, because since my Contender Series fight that’s been nearly six months, that’s too long for me, I would really appreciate if Sean could get me something really quick,” he said.
Watch the full UFC 286 post-fight press conference appearance by Chris Duncan above.
