Joseph Sandoval (photo courtesy of Keith Mills / Sherdog)
Unbeaten Texan takes on Walel Watson
Joseph Sandoval is equal parts excited and level-headed about making his UFC debut on Saturday night.
Undefeated through the first six fights of his career, the 25-year-old fighting out of Lubbock, Texas meets Walel Watson in the opening bout of the evening. Like every fighter, it’s a dream come true for Sandoval, though he’s taking a fresh approach to accomplishing one of his dreams.
“My coach Eric Davilla—they call him “Bighead”–he’s the one that actually broke the news to me,” recalled Sandoval, speaking with Heavy MMA late last week. “It was awesome. I was in that state of mind like, `Really? Don’t play with me now. That’s something you don’t play with. Don’t tell me and it not be true.’ But he broke the news, and he told me about the four-fight contract and everything. Man, I got so excite that I had to pee.
“I don’t think it’s hit me yet. The initial effect hit me when they told me about it, but the excitement about telling everybody and everything, it kind of wore off. I don’t think it will hit me until after the fight. Win, lose or draw, I’m going to go out there and put on a show, but that’s when it’s going to hit me.
“Because you really can’t say you’re a UFC fighter until you’ve fought in the UFC. I can say I got signed and everything, but if I get hurt now and the contract’s scratched, I never fought in the UFC, so I can’t say it. So I don’t think it will hit me until after the fight.”
That’s a pretty even-keeled outlook on things for anyone on the verge of making their debut on the big stage, not to mention someone with less than 18 months professional experience.
“I started out in Amarillo. It was just one of them things where you’re in school and you’re in shape, then you get out of school, you go about your life, and one day you look at yourself in the mirror and you’re like, `Man, I didn’t use to look this way.’ I just decided to hit up the gym.
“I found a gym back in Amarillo that did MMA. I had seen UFC – I liked it – and I started training. I didn’t think they trained right, so eventually, things in my life happened and I ended up moving to Lubbock. I got down here, and I just met up with Eric and them, and started training at their gym. I remember telling Eric that I wanted one or two more amateur bouts before I even thought about going pro, and he told me strictly, `This is a pro gym. If you’re going to fight through here, than you need to go pro.’
“What’s funny about my first fight, they switched up the person I was supposed to fight three or four times. I got the fight two-and-a-half weeks out, and they switched the guy up on my four times. That’s pretty much how fights one through three went.”
Fights four through six came with a little more time for training and development mixed in between, and yielded the same result—wins for Sandoval. He’s split six fights between stoppages and decisions, showing the ability to gut out tough fights to the very end, but also finish a fight with his hands on three occasions as well.
After rattling off his first six fights in the span of 18 months, Sandoval welcomed the last three months he’s spent exclusively in the gym.
“It’s helped out a lot,” admitted the affable and polite Texan. “Honestly, the way they came at me with it – and I talked to (my manager) Bryan (Hamper) about it too – I told him, `Honestly, I’ll do anything, but I just want that preparation time.’ If it was going to be for the UFC, Strikeforce, any other company, any other show, and he understood everything I was asking for. All the preparation time that I’ve had for this fight, it’s been awesome. I’m going to have awesome cardio for it.”
In addition to getting to dedicate some time to the gym, Sandoval admits that facing a fellow newcomer and fighting on a televised event—not a pay-per-view—has helped keep his nerves in check a little more heading into Saturday night.
“It does feel a little bit better to come into the UFC with another newbie. That doesn’t bother me none; I would have taken the fight with any of the guys that are in the UFC’s 135 (pound) division. I’m excited about it. I would have trained the same no matter who it was for, but it does come a lot easier knowing that it is against another newbie.
“It does kind of tone it down just a bit, it being on Versus and not so hyped up. It’s still hyped up because they’re putting up the 135 (pound) belt for Dominick Cruz, but it feels good to put it that way. I feels good to actually see the champ perform on the same card, because I get to see those guys do their work just the same.
“It’s awesome because I still remember sitting at the house watching Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber, Joe Benavidez – just watching those guys get at it somewhat in awe – thinking someday I’ll get up there. It’s awesome. I love it. I get excited thinking about it.
Explaining how he hopes Saturday night plays out, Sandoval’s youthful exuberance and excitement come pouring through, but is quickly followed by that level-headed realism; the dream and the reality.
“Heck, I’m excited for this fight; let’s put it that way. I’m excited to go out there and put on a show. I just want to make it super, super exciting.
“What I’ve been telling everybody is that I want to make it to that spot where – you know you’ve got a time slot for that Versus card – so I want to make to where my fight is exciting enough so that if the rest of the fights end up in knockouts and they’ve got to fill the rest of that time slot somehow, I would love to be on the end of that card.
“I’m looking just for the W any way I can get it; it doesn’t matter. Knockout, submission, decision, split decision; it doesn’t matter, as long as I get the W. That’s all we’re looking for.”