Ed Herman: My First Training Experience

Coming into the third season of The Ultimate Fighter, Ed Herman was already a well-respected competitor who had battled his way from obscurity on the regional circuit to the pinnacle of mixed martial arts in the UFC. Before setting foot inside the Octagon, Herman had notched victories over notables in Brian Ebersole, Glover Teixeira, Nick Thompson, and former world champion Dave Menne.

“Short Fuse” has since become a contender in the middleweight class when after a near two-year hiatus from the sport due to injury, he’s gone on to stop both Tim Credeur and Kyle Noke inside of the first-round.

These accolades all exist after a humble start into the world of MMA began when a few friends of Herman’s coaxed the former high school wrestler into taking up jiu-jitsu and it all snowballed from there.

“I had been watching the UFC’s with a lot of my friends and stuff and we had talked about wanting to train”, recanted Ed.

“A couple of my friends started doing jiu-jitsu at this little gym and it sounded like fun, so I went in and trained a little bit. What I do remember most about my career is shortly after that, Team Quest opened.”

The gym housed living legends such as Randy Couture, Dan Henderson, and future world champion Evan Tanner—so when those same two friends nonchalantly mentioned that they’ve enrolled in said academy, Herman was willing to call their bluff.

“Some friends of mine went out there and signed up. The same two guys who got me doing jiu-jitsu, they had left that gym and went to Team Quest”, said Herman, with a recalled sense of doubt in his voice.

“I was like ‘Yo, you can’t just go up there and sign up and train—no way’ because Randy was there, Evan, all those guys were already there. I was like ‘Yeah right,’ and they were like ‘Yeah dude, we signed up!’”.

It was never a specific goal of Herman’s to become a mixed martial artist, but his admiration for the sport eventually turned into a calling. It was a matter of the right place at the right time.

“I was like 21. I was like ‘sweet’, so I cruised down there in a light rail and that arrival class, that’s what changed my life. I was walking through the door and meeting with Robert Follis and getting the chance to train with him and Couture and all those guys was pretty amazing to do that right off the bat.”

By: BLB