Eliot Marshall Is Focused and Ready to Test Himself Against the Best

This Sunday, March 21st, the UFC invades Broomfield, Colorado’s 1stBank Center with an explosive slate of fights. This event will mark the first time that a UFC event has been broadcast on the Versus network, and it surely will not disappoint.

While fight fans are geared up and ready for a showdown between Brandon Vera and Jon Jones, there is another light-heavyweight bout that is sure to turn some heads; as up and coming former TUF cast member Eliot “The Fire” Marshall takes on tough and tested veteran Vladimir “The Janitor” Matyushenko.

As excited and focused as Marshall is for this bout, his journey to this point through the Ultimate Fighter house almost never happened; losing to Karen Grigoryan in a controversial split decision.

“It was a really wierd decision because I whooped that dude’s ass. He was all bloody, his nose was all broke, his face was all broke and I almost submitted him a couple of times,” Marshall told Bleacher Report.

“It was a really weird thing for me because no one could figure out how I lost; Frank Mir didn’t understand, Dana (White) didn’t understand. So, I was really kind of flustered there for a little while but I saw how injured Karen was and I knew there was no way he was going to continue. I was pretty certain I was coming back.”

Come back he did as Marshall was brought back to replace Antwain Britt—who broke his arm in his preliminary bout—and made it all the way to the semifinals where he lost to the eventual season champion, Ryan Bader.

A match that if it were to happen again Marshall believes it would go very differently.

“I’d probably just let him take me down and hold me down again…Nah, I’m just joking (laughs). I’ve worked a lot on my wrestling and a lot on my striking so that doesn’t happen again. I don’t ever want to get taken down and held and held and held. It’s boring; no one wants to see that. I’m not the same fighter that I was when I fought Bader the first time.”

While his TUF journey got off to a bumpy start and ended in a disappointing loss, Marshall learned a lot about himself and the path that he has chosen.

“Dana (White) says it a lot. You either find out that fighting is something you want to do or something that you don’t want to do when you come to TUF . I for sure found out that fighting is something I want to do.”

Now, Marshall is 3-0 in the UFC since his time on TUF but he is well aware of the stigma that surrounds the fighters who make it through the house and earn a UFC contract.

“I think we had a pretty strong season,” said Marshall. “A lot of people say that the TUF cast is just a TV thing and not really about good fighters.”

With season eight cast members Ryan Bader, Krzysztof Soszynski, and himself being a combined 11-1 in UFC competition, Marshall believes that their season has proved that theory wrong.

Quickly climbing the UFC ranks, Marshall has a tough test ahead of him in the form of former IFL light-heavyweight champion, Vladimir Matyushenko. Matyushenko is the veteran of 27 professional fights and has fought some of the best in the game but Marshall is confident that he can get the win.

“I just need to stick to the game plan. You stick to the game plan and you stay focused and you pull the trigger. I can’t control the winning or the losing, all I can do is come out and do what I’m supposed to do and hopefully everything will turn out for me for the best.”

While some fighters get into the habit of looking ahead to what is next on the horizon and who they think they will be or should be fighting next, Marshall has his eyes fixed on the task at hand.

“Joe Silva’s going to do what Joe Silva’s going to do as far as who he’s going to give me to fight. All I can do is go do my thing and let the cards fall where they may. I can’t think about what Joe Silva is going to do or what’s going to happen next. I have Vladimir Matyushenko, who’s a tough, tough dude standing in front of me and that’s all I worry about."

“I train with the best guys in the world. I train with Nate Marquardt, Shane Carwin, Rashad Evans, Duane Ludwig, and Brendan Schaub. When they call, they call and I always say yes. That’s how it goes.”

Even though Marshall is dialed into what he needs to do to against Matyushenko, he is not oblivious to the UFC’s recent signing of boxer James “Lights Out” Toney.

“Sign me up baby! I would love to fight James Toney, are you kidding me. That would be a great fight. I don’t think he’s going to make an impact on the sport, he’s a boxer. I can’t go box, I mean I could but I’m not going to be super phenomenal at it because I don’t spend all my time boxing. He’s spent his whole life boxing."

“He said he's going to box and do MMA but you see what happens when people divide their time; they do those things mediocre rather than one thing really well.”

With the support of his friends, family, training partners, and sponsors—Performance MMA, MTX Audio, Sprawl and TCB Fightwear—Eliot Marshall is ready for the biggest fight of his young career.