Jesse Ronson gladly takes 'Call of Duty' break for promotional debut at UFC 165

Jesse Ronson‘s buildup to his UFC debut has been pretty much what he expected based on what he’d seen other fights go through.

And then the company sat him in front of a giant stack of posters with a Sharpie. Before going to work in the octagon, Ronson had to go to work autographing the official event poster for UFC 165, which will be sold on site at the event.

“The only thing that bothered me was having to sign 300 posters, one right after another,” Ronson told MMAjunkie.com Radio about arriving in Toronto for his first UFC fight week.

Ronson (13-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC) meets Michel Prazeres (16-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC) on the preliminary card of UFC 165, which takes place Saturday at Air Canada Centre. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on Facebook and FOX Sports 1. The Ronson-Prazeres bout will be part of the early Facebook prelims.

Ronson got the call from the UFC on short notice to replace fellow Canadian Mark Bocek against Prazeres just about a month ago.

Ronson, though, knew he’d have a little bit of work to do fighting the scale to make lightweight in time.

“It was a Tuesday, Aug. 21, at about 4 o’clock,” Ronson recalled of when he got the good news. “I was sitting there playing ‘Call of Duty’ and my manager told me some bad news about another fight, but then told me I was going to get in the UFC. I said, ‘Hold on a second.’ I put the phone down and stepped on the scale and was like, ‘Oh, crap.’ I was a half pound under 188.

“So I had a lot of work to do, but I was super excited and super stoked to get the diet back on and get back into training camp.”

But there was never really a question of whether or not he’d say yes to the fight. In fact, he didn’t have to.

“I think (my manager) said yes for me because he knew automatically that I wasn’t going to say no,” Ronson said. “It’s the UFC. This is exactly where I want to be – this is exactly where everyone wants to be when they do MMA. You don’t start fighting and training to not get to the UFC.”

And his opponent didn’t matter, either. Besides, Ronson, who keeps up with other fighters in his weight class, already knew who his potential opponents might be on the card.

“I had researched all the (potential) opponents for UFC 165 because I’m always interested in the lightweight division,” he said. “I feel comfortable going up against anybody at ’55, so it didn’t matter who it was on the roster.”

Prazeres was the name that came back to him. The Brazilian started his career 16-0 before signing with the UFC, then lost his promotional debut to Paulo Thiago in May.

It didn’t take long for Ronson to know what he’d be in store for against Prazeres, who has half of his 16 wins by submission.

“I like to watch tape of my opponent right at the beginning, just to see what he looks like and how he moves,” Ronson said. “I can break somebody down in two of three minutes of watching them fight. I don’t know – maybe it’s a special gift of mine. So I watched two fights of his, and that’s all I needed to watch.”

Perhaps Ronson expected the bigger learning curve to come with just dealing with things like the poster signing and meeting fans who suddenly recognized him, rather than a step up in opponent quality.

So far, though, Ronson is digging the experience – especially being able to debut with the UFC in his home province.

“I’m definitely thriving on it, because it’s only two hours away from my hometown,” he said. “I know a lot of people here and I’m just getting a lot of support. I wasn’t expecting a lot of people to know who I was, but I walked into the (hotel) lobby and people were like, ‘Hey, man, can I get your picture? Can you sign this?’

“Me? Really? I wasn’t expecting that type of response. I’m actually enjoying it, because I’ve never had it happen before.”

With a win in his debut, he may have to get used to it.

For more on UFC 165, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.