The Past and Future 03.02.09: T.J. Grant
Posted by Robert Steele on 03.02.2009
The Past and Future profiles the career paths of the known and the unknown in MMA. This week profiles Canadian submission specialist, soon to make his UFC debut, T.J. Grant.
T.J. Grant has a 13-2 professional record. Of those 13, 12 have come by submission. Of those 12, seven have been victory by way of an armbar. At UFC 97 in Montreal, Grant will fight Japanese fighter Ryo Chonan.
The Past
Born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Grant trained in Brazilian jiu-jitsu starting at the age of 15. In addition, Grant also did his fair share of wrestling throughout high school. According to an interview with Sportsnet, Grant said everything came together in 2006 when he was laid off from his construction job. From then on he took MMA more seriously as a profession.
In Grant's first professional fight, even though it ended in an armbar victory, he managed to showcase himself as an all-around fighter. At the inaugural Extreme Cage Combat, Grant backed-up his opponent, Craig Skinner, with a series of strikes. He slammed Skinner, then stood and pounced, pinning him to the cage. With Skinner with few options left, Grant managed to synch in a vertical armbar for the victory.
Grant's one win not to come by decision came at ECC 3, where Grant toppled Eric Beaulieu and quickly came at him with a flurry of punches. He ended it in a brief 33 seconds.
Grant moved on to eventually fight Jesse Bongfeldt at TKO 32 for the Welterweight title. Bongfeldt was an interesting fight for Grant, since Bongfeldt is equally well-known for his ability to submit opponents. Grant displayed some nice knees in the clinch, but the contest, as expected, mostly stayed on the ground. While some find fights that stay to the ground boring, when there are two fighters who excel at it, you have to be crazy not to love it.
The fight was pretty even, with both fighters passing guard and finding superior positioning throughout the fight. It ended, however, with Bongfeldt finding an armbar, forcing Grant to tap-out while standing.
At TKO 35, Grant fought UFC veteran Forrest Petz. It was a dominant performance by Grant. Although yet again he managed to win with his ground game (via an arm triangle choke in the second round), he also again demonstrated some great Muay Thai knees from the clinch.
Most recently, for Phoenix Fight Promotions, Grant defeated Beau Baker. Baker had been undefeated at 4-0 up until that point. "The plan was to keep it standing and at the same time if there were opportunities to put him on his back then to do it," Grant said in an interview with MMAmania.com. The latter came true, and Grant won, you guessed it, by way of armbar submission late in the third round.
All of Grant's fights have been in his home country Canada. When he makes his UFC debut, he won't even have to leave home to do it.
The Future
Aside from the flying scissor heel hook on Anderson Silva back in 2004 in PRIDE, Ryo Chonan has been less than impressive. Chonan's record is 1-2 in the UFC. TJ Grant, on the other hand, has beaten two former UFC fighters in Chad Reiner and Forrest Petz. Even though both of these names have not had tremendous success in UFC, they are still high-calibre fighters.
What will be interesting to see is the game plan for Grant coming in to this fight. I think his striking is greater than Chonan's and I expect him to keep it standing, showing that he is quite comfortable on his feet. Grant's results table is a little bit misleading. Though he dominates on the ground, he doesn't mind using some fists or knees to get there.
Everyone on the Canadian side of MMA knows that Grant is the real deal. In a lot of ways it is a good thing that he has not moved to UFC too quick. He has had some time to develop some more experience. In his MMAmania.com interview he said, "with the sport of MMA you [have] got to balance the time between wrestling, jiu-jitsu, Thai boxing and of course conditioning." He will showcase how well-rounded he is as a fighter on April 18th.
While the MMA community in Canada knows he is the real deal, he needs to now show that to the rest of the world at UFC 97. He should be able to do so. Whether it's a flying scissor heel hook, or an armbar, it could quite possibly be submission of the night. But I have a feeling we'll see a KO instead.
