When Mariscal says he fought everybody, he’s not kidding. In 20 fights before his UFC debut against Trevor Peek in June, the Cicero native fought eight UFC vets, including Gregor Gillespie, Pat Sabatini and Bryce Mitchell. He won some, lost some, but he was getting elite level tests every time, proving that he was ready even if he had doubts occasionally.
“It was tough, especially because I have losses,” he said. “I was a little hard on myself, as well. I didn’t really believe in it and I was already looking at different promotions and even different careers. I was like, maybe if I don’t get in the UFC, I’ll just go and do something else. But suddenly something changed. I had a teammate go to the UFC, he had a short notice call, he won by knockout, and it just drove me to keep going. And then suddenly two or three weeks later, I got the call, and finally I was in.”
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It was ten days to fight day against the unbeaten Peek, but Mariscal wasn’t going to rely on those ten days because he had been training his entire career for this moment, and he delivered, winning a three-round unanimous decision that was a revelation to some, but a validating effort to most who followed the career of the 30-year-old “Machine Gun,” especially the man himself, whose early philosophy of testing himself constantly paid off.
