Tim Elliott Just Wants To Compete

To get through 35 professional fights and emerge unscathed like that is beyond impressive. In fact, Elliott’s lone loss by TKO to Jacky Bryant in 2009 wasn’t your typical knockout.

“That guy, he put me to sleep with the triangle,” Elliott recalls. “They stopped it because of the strikes, but I was sleeping in the triangle while he was elbowing me to death.”

Saturday's Full Fight Card Preview

With that defeat, Elliott’s pro career was off to an inauspicious 0-2-1 start, and there probably weren’t any people expecting him to one day challenge for a UFC title and remain in the rankings for years.

“When I started out, there was no 125 division,” he said. “There was no amateur or pro, I didn't have any amateur fights. I just went and fought one weekend, and I started my pro career out with zero wins, two losses and a draw. Pretty much everybody was telling me, ‘Hey man, you got to hang this up.’ And then I went and stayed at Dominick Cruz's gym up in his attic in California for a few months, and then that's where I finally started putting it together.”

When the wins started, they kept on piling up, and by 2012, he was in the UFC. After six fights in the Octagon, Elliott was released, but he returned through season 24 of The Ultimate Fighter, which culminated in a shot at Demetrious Johnson’s flyweight crown. Elliott didn’t get the win, but he did get some job security, and here he is today. No, he’s not the whirling dervish he once was, but he’s still fast, still crafty, and still more experienced than Asakura and most of his peers.

WATCH: UFC 319 Embedded

“I used to be able to just go, go go for 15 minutes, and now I just can't do that anymore,” said Elliott. “So I haven't really got a chance to show the way that I've been in the gym. When I fight, I still kind of revert back to my old ways, digging for the takedown and putting them up against the cage. But in the gym, I'm not doing that. I'm being patient with my striking, I'm landing good strikes and I haven't really been able to put together a fight the way that I've been training as of late. I used to train exactly how I fought and now I'm fighting different and I haven't got a chance to really show that yet. And the scary thing about Kai is that he's one of the few guys in the flyweight division that has knockout power. So this may be a rough one to try to work in some of that. But yeah, there's nothing that Kai can do to me that hasn't already happened in a fight. And for him, I think he's still young enough that there's a whole lot of different scenarios he hasn't been in.”

You can almost see Elliott smile through the phone lines. Yeah, he’s 38, but he’s got a lot of fight left in him.

Your Full Guide To UFC 319 Fight Week

“I talked to my manager and told him, hey man, I'm to the age now where I don't mind being the gatekeeper guy,” said Elliott. “A new guy comes in, and If he can't beat me, then he is not good enough to be in the UFC. But I'm still ranked, so I'm getting these fights like Kai, who just fought for the belt, and now I'm thinking, my gosh, if I win this fight, am I going to have to fight (champion Alexandre) Pantoja next? I don't know. But really, all I want to do is be healthy and stick in this game because I miss this. I love to fight and the gym doesn't give me the same feeling that I get when I get to go in there and compete. And it's not even about winning or losing, it's just going in there knowing that’s where you belong and competing. I haven't got to do that in several years, so I can't wait to get in there and do that, and I want to keep doing that. I don't see myself retiring from the UFC gracefully. They're going to have to tell me like, bro, please stop.”