Corey Hill  The Wait is Almost Over

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By Thomas Gerbasi

He’s like the Loch Ness monster, provoking hushed whispers and striking fear into people who have never even seen him. But when Corey Hill makes his way to the Octagon for the first time against Joe Veres on January 23rd’s UFC Fight Night Card at The Palms in Las Vegas, all the talk of his great potential and prodigious raw talent will either be realized or shucked to the side. That’s a lot to fit on anyone’s shoulders.

“Just to be in the UFC alone is pressure, but I wouldn’t say it’s any extra pressure,” said Hill of all the positive notices coming out of the MFS Elite Gym in Iowa, notices that have even had world-renowned trainer Pat Miletich saying that if Hill stays on the right path that he will wear a championship belt in two years. “Pat Miletich is a great guy, and he’s one of the people that really gave me confidence. He puts pressure on me by saying ‘with your ability and your talent, we expect this from you,’ but I look at it as a positive thing and as a motivational tool. I’m the type of guy who says ‘put the pressure on me and I’ll run with it.’”

That shouldn’t be a surprise coming from the former junior college (Colby Community College) national champion, especially considering how he put himself on the line in front of the nation as a member of the fifth season cast of The Ultimate Fighter last year. And no, it wasn’t just that he was competing against 15 of the top 155-pound prospects in the game, but that he did it with a grand total of one pro fight under his belt.

Not that anyone but Hill knew that going in.

“Obviously I falsified my record a little bit, but other than that, I wouldn’t say I fooled anybody,” laughed Hill, whose little fib about his record was documented on the show late in the season. “I went down there with the rest of those 700 guys (for the TUF5 tryouts), I stood in line like everybody else, and I think (UFC President) Dana (White) saw something in me being 6 foot 4 – you don’t see too many 6-4 lightweights out there. Plus, I had a pretty solid wrestling background, being a national junior college champion and runner-up, so I kinda had a ground game, I just didn’t know what to do with it. (Laughs) But I knew that alone wasn’t gonna get me on there and that they wanted someone with a little more experience, and that’s where the record falsification came in. I talked to Dana and that was the first time that I met him – I didn’t even know who he was – and he said ‘what’s your record’ and I’m like ‘8-0.’ I don’t know why but that number just popped in my head. It was one of those things where the moment I said it, I was like ‘why did you say that?’ I knew I had no way to back it up or prove it.”

By the time the show aired, the record made it to 4-0, but as it turned out, his lone pro fight was a 34 second TKO of Stryder Fann in 2006. Yet despite this little sleight of hand to get on the show, from the moment people saw Hill in action, you could see that he was raw, but that he had the size and talent to make some noise on the show, and not just from his pre-fight rants against castmate Gabe Ruediger. And hey, having an ‘8-0’ record behind you didn’t hurt either in his early days in the TUF5 house.

“In a lot of ways, you fear what you don’t know, so for me to be 8-0 and people have never seen me, they’re like ‘how is this guy 8-0 and we’ve never seen him? Where did he come from?’” he laughs. “So I kinda made the other guys a little nervous too. Hey, we were all nervous.”

Hill’s nerves translated into intensity though, and even when working the pads or the heavy bag, he attacked like his life was on the line. An attitude like that can cover a multitude of sins when the bell rings, and Hill knew it.

“I’ve always been an athlete, I’ve always competed and a lot of what you saw was me being nervous,” he said. “Once I realized that some of the guys on the show had more experience than me, I was a little nervous and a little scared, and something went off inside of me that said ‘these guys are a little more experienced and a little more knowledgeable than you, so just go out there and give ‘em hell and let the chips fall where they may.’”

Hill would win his first TUF5 fight via a three round “sudden victory” decision over Rob Emerson, and he was doing well against eventual show winner Nate Diaz in their quarterfinal bout before being submitted in the second round via triangle choke. It was after that defeat that it sunk in to Hill that if he could do what he did with little if any formal training, a full and consistent training camp with a top-notch team would make him a contender sooner rather than later.

“Absolutely, 100 percent, without any equivocation,” said Hill. “After that loss to Nate, it kinda hit me. Here I am coming out of nowhere and I held my own with the guys on the show pretty well. I’m a realistic person and I know what I put in before the show and it was maybe three months.”

Once the show was done, Hill was scheduled to compete on the TUF5 finale card against fellow castmate Allen Berube last June, but an injury scrapped him from the card.

“I try to find the positives in every situation, so instead of looking at it as frustrating, I see it as me having more time to train,” he said. “It’s like I’ve been training for this fight with Joe Veres since I left the show. I’ve been training almost a year for this fight, and its more time for me to get ready and focus and get with a great camp.”

It actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because not only did Hill get more time with the MFS Elite team in Iowa, he got to build a reputation in the gym that some guys don’t even get by fighting. And part of that rep came from his work ethic.

“I’ve always competed and I did want to go out there and just kinda let people know that this is something that I truly have a lot of passion for and I really do want to be around for a while,” said Hill. “I’m not the guy who comes off the couch and says ‘I can do that’, who talks a lot and then doesn’t produce. I wanted to let those guys know that hey, I know I’m inexperienced but I’m gonna work my butt off until I learn what I’m doing.”

And if Miletich, not one known for doling out praise haphazardly, thinks you’ve got what it takes, that’s a high compliment indeed. Then again, how many 6 foot 4 lightweights do you see around? That’s a daunting style matchup for anyone at 155 pounds, and the 29-year old Hill doesn’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon.

“All my life, I was a light guy, and I had hit a point once where I wanted to lift weights, bulk up and be a big guy because I was tired of being skinny, but for once in my life being skinny kinda worked in my favor,” laughed Hill. “I walk around at about 160-162, so I’m gonna be at 155 for a while. I think I’m done growing, so what you see is what you get, and while I see why those guys at 155 would like for me to grow and move up, I’m staying down there with them.”

On Wednesday, the talk is over. Now it’s time for Corey Hill to deliver, and he and his team are setting a high bar, one that should make an interesting division even more interesting.

“I just hope that the fans see the potential we see down here in Iowa,” he said. “I want them to see the explosiveness of this new threat in the lightweight division. There are a lot of great guys out there and I’m still far away from where we’re trying to go, but we’re looking for me to be the Anderson Silva of the lightweights. There’s not that standout, terrible guy that everybody’s afraid of, and I essentially want to be that guy.”

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