Many fighters over the years have spoken to the difficulty of appearing on The Ultimate Fighter, isolated from friends and family, cut off from the outside world.
For Kaan Ofli, however, the experience was nothing but positive.
Ofli is a featherweight finalist, and will face Mairon Santos for the TUF 32 crown and UFC contract this Saturday as part of UFC Vegas 96.
“For me it was probably the best experience I’ve had in my whole life, being able to have no distractions, complete focus, just martial arts,” Olfi (11-2-1) said of his time in the TUF house. “Training, fighting, eating martial arts, and no foreign electronics- to me, that was the best experience that I could have had, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to experience that again.”
“I thrived from it, and it’s really leveled me up in many ways.”
In case the message wasn’t clear, when asked what the most difficult thing about show was, Ofli replied “there was nothing hard about it.”
To be fair, Ofli won both his fights on the show decisively, claiming a two-round decision over Nathan Fletcher before submitting Roedie Roets in the semifinals. Now, it’s on to Mairon Santos, who Olfi was familiar with prior to the show.
“I respect Mairon. I think that he’s young, talented. He was already supposed to be signed to the UFC before, so he’s already been on the UFC’s radar. So I’m happy to be in the final with a prospect.”
Should he claim the TUF crown, Kaan Ofli does not want to waste time. He believes himself to already be a top-10 fighter, and wants to climb the rankings quickly. He has one assignment in mind that might surprise some, to that end.
“After this fight, I’d like to be a back-up fight for Diego Lopes and [Brian] Ortega. It’s pretty soon, it’s only like three weeks after, but I’m here,” stated Olfi. “When we were talking about this fight, I thought it was going to be in The Sphere. I always had a dream of fighting on the moon. When the Sphere ended up happening and Grasso vs. Shevchenko was going fighting on it, I was like ‘cool, amazing, my dreams have come true.’ Not the case, but hey, I’m down for it. If I’m healthy, I’m all good, if something does happen with then, I respect the both of them but I’m here. I don’t know if the UFC will do something like that, but I just want to let them know I’m up for it.”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 96 media day appearance by Ultimate Fighter 32 finalist Kaan Ofli above.
