But the lessons learned in life do show up in the Octagon, and on The Ultimate Fighter, Hubbard showed the talent he previously showed in winning three UFC fights over Kyle Prepolec, Max Rohskopf and Dakota Bush, by defeating Aaron McKenzie and Roosevelt Roberts. This time, though, those wins hit a little different as he fought his way back to the big show.
“Going through all those things changes your perspective a little bit,” he said. “And not to say I care any less, because I’m definitely very thankful to be in this position and I care a lot to be in the UFC and everything along those lines. But, I don’t know, I’m just different. I don’t feel the same about things anymore and it’s just the way it is. Good or bad, I feel like it does help me fight better. My first time around, I felt a lot of pressure to perform. You’re new in the UFC, I was younger in my career, and there’s a lot of pressure that can get to you sometimes. So I feel like I didn’t quite perform the way I was fully capable of. And I feel like I overcame that slow start, so to speak, just because I feel a lot more free in there now. And honestly when I go into fights, it’s the closest I feel to my brother. So it’s not really a stressful thing as much as it used to be.”
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That attitude makes Hubbard a dangerous fighter, and while he wasn’t necessarily looking at TUF as his way back, he has no regrets about taking that route on his way to TD Garden.
“All the guys in the house were very cool and down to Earth people,” he said. “There wasn’t anyone in the house that was a bad person or anything along those lines, so I think that helped the experience, for sure. It’s definitely the craziest fight experience that I’ve ever gone through, but I had a lot of great learning lessons going through it and, at the end of the day, I’m very, very happy that I got the opportunity and capitalized on the opportunity.”
