Tor Troeng Says He's Looking Forward to Representing Northern Sweden on TUF 17 Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 01.24.2013
Contestant talks about being on the show...
TUF 17 contestant Tor Troeng recently spoke about being on the show and more. Check out the highlights:
On his first fights in MMA, against the likes of Mamed Khalidov & Lucio Linharet: "I had really tough fights in the beginning. I fought a lot of tough guys. I just wanted to fight. I didn't care who I fought or anything. I didn't have a manager or anything set up for me. I just took every fight I got and went from there."
On being introduced to MMA at 16: "We didn't have MMA in Sweden. When it came, I wanted to try it out. I really didn't know what it was. No one did. I just started training, and I was hooked."
On his early career vs. where he is now: "I just wanted to fight, and I would get a phone call and go fight...I think I train more seriously now," Troeng said. "I have a manager, and I have a team around me to help me with everything I need. Now I feel like I'm doing it for real. Before, I was training seven or eight sessions a week. Yeah, I trained hard, but not as hard as I needed. Then I started for real."
On not being interested in TUF initially: "At first, I didn't want to go. I wanted to fight. I didn't want to watch the show, but I had a lot of friends fighting there, so I went and watched it. I think it was one of the best MMA experiences I've enjoyed. The crowd was so great. The Swedish MMA fans, they know MMA. They weren't just cheering for the home fighter. They know about technical aspects of MMA, too, and I think they appreciate it."
On representing his homeland: "Since I'm the first guy from the north of Sweden, I kind of represent that part of Sweden. I consider myself a hard-working guy, I've developed a lot since the beginning of my career. I'm confident if I fought some of those guys again, things would be different."
