When Alexander Hernandez stepped in to fight Kurt Holobaugh at UFC Vegas 104, Brendan Fitzgerald dropped a quick comment that many many have missed. Hernandez’s newly formed fight team, along with teammates Brandon Royval and Luis Gurule, were opperating with a rotating team name. In fact, whoever is fighting in the given week, is in charge of making the official name.
Before his UFC debut this weekend, Luis Gurule explained how that came to be.
“It’s really that none of us has come up with a name that’s stuck. Everyone’s like, ‘no, this is the name. No, this is the name’. One day it’s ‘The Boys’ with Alex [Hernandez] and then it’s “Raw and the Dogs” or ‘Rawdog and Associates’ doing [Brandon Royval’s],” Gurule said. “It’s just like a fun running joke at this point. Who knows if we actually ever get like a building name and a gym, maybe we’ll just have to put all three names on the outside.”
Gurule has enjoyed the idea and likes that it’s getting a bit of attention. He likes it even more that it’s now his fight week and he gets to give his team a bit of a personal touch for himself.
“It’s my fight week, so I got to make the name this week. So we’re ‘Misfits MMA’ over there at the UFC gym in Lone Tree,” he said. “I got all the tattoos and the metal thing going. So I’m like, no, I think Misfits MMA is good.”
With the Misfits MMA team behind him for this one, he’ll make the walk to fight 10-fight UFC veteran Ode Osbourne. While this will be just his first time in the UFC cage, he thinks the pressure that he brings to the fight should be the difference.
“He’s super fast, counter striker, southpaw, but he doesn’t really work very well off the bottom and he gets tired pretty quickly. So I think just that constant pressure and that constant threat of being taken down or being hit, I think that’s just gonna wear on him,” Gurule added. “Specifically, I’d say a second round of ground and pound finish.”
You can catch Gurule’s UFC debut as part of the UFC Vegas 105 main card. That card airs at 6pm EST on ESPN+ and ESPN.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview on the latest edition of the Top Turtle MMA Podcast. The interview airs at 2:00.
