Age: 29
Record: 10-3
Nickname: “Robzilla”
Division: Middleweight
Opponent: Ryan Loder
Path to final: First-round TKO of Giannis Bachar, first-round submission of Paddy McCorry
Rob Valentin
“To be honest, I didn’t imagine anything. I was just looking forward for the feeling and the feeling is indescribable. It feels like I’m in the right place. I wouldn’t call it pressure. I would say it’s more excitement. I love the cameras. I love the show. I love the lights, and the bigger the stage gets, the more excited I get to go in there. I’m so f*cking pumped.”
“I loved every single day. I woke up every day with a smile on my face. It was the perfect environment for me. I feel like my whole life prepared me to be in (‘The Ultimate Fighter’) house and to perform to my best. I just had this feeling every day that I’m a man on a mission. I don’t want to lie: Everyone has doubts before the fights and stuff. I had these doubts. But I would always – for example, in the morning, I go for my run and I would tell me nothing’s going to stop you,’ to ‘OK, you’re going to change your life today. This is your time.’ And I would say this for five weeks straight, every day to myself, and I think it manifested. So, yeah – I didn’t want to leave. I told the producers it’s not about the house. You don’t care about anything. You get food, you get every everything you need and you just train, fight and yeah, I miss it. I miss it.”
Ryan Loder
“I’m really excited to get in there with Ryan. I pictured that we would face each other in the final because he’s a very disciplined athlete. He’s a very strong guy, and I think we were both maybe favorites. I think I’m a terrible matchup for him, and I’m the guy that can make this fight entertaining, and I think I don’t want to take anything away from him because he has ways to win fights. But his style is not very fan pleasing, and I actually have the skills to make this a fan-pleasing fight. I’m just looking forward for both of us getting inside of there expecting the best shape of the opponent and putting it all on the line. I want to have a long fight. I don’t want to have a first-round finish. I want to give the people what they need, and they need more air time of ‘Robzilla’ in the cage because the last performance was too short. I want to give them more. I wouldn’t sit here. I literally would still be home if there is not a chance to make someone bleed. That’s why I took the flight to Vegas: I don’t go to jail for splitting someone’s skull. That’s why I’m here, and that will never change.”
“2023, I have a pretty important fight coming up. I traveled from Thailand to Switzerland like three weeks before, and in my headspace I was not right because I was battling staph infections. I had a very bad relationship at that time. So I go to the mountains. And I take a sh*t-ton of mushrooms. I’m alone in the forest, in the mountains, in the dark, and I spent the night there. … After a couple of hours, the tree started bending. The trees were bending and the gods showed up and they literally told me, ‘You’re the guy. We need you to bring us blood violence. We want to have something to cheer for and you’ve got to make your ancestors and the old gods proud.’
“This night, I felt so strong. I remember I took my shirt off. I started shadow boxing in the forest and I felt like my feet would grow roots into the soil. Nature gave me so much power and strength going into fight week after that. I would have those voices in my head all the time … This is my source of power and that’s why I always, before fights, I look for a connection with nature and to connect to home soil if possible. But if not, even like just connect to nature because that’s where I I gain so much strength from. That’s the whole base of Nordic paganism is the connection of man and nature. That’s basically the story of my trip in the mountains.”
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