UFC Fight Night 26's Uriah Hall: Losing TUF 'could have broke me, but it didn't'

UFC middleweight Uriah Hall knows how to turn a negative into a positive, and that’s exactly what he did following his upset loss to Kelvin Gastelum at The Ultimate Fighter 17 Finale in April.

Since Day One of the reality show, Hall had high expectations around him, and it appeared he was well on his was to meeting them after crushing his opponents through the early rounds of the show’s grueling tournament format.

When the live finale and a chance to earn the coveted six-figure UFC contract came around, though, Hall didn’t show up with his best, which forced him to reevaluate everything.

The first change the 29-year-old made was in scenery. He left his longtime camp at Tiger Schulmann’s in New York and moved across the country for a fresh start at Reign Training Center in California.

While Hall is reluctant to share details regarding the nature of his split from Schulmann’s, he happily explains his satisfaction with being at Reign alongside the likes of UFC contenders Chael Sonnen, Mark Munoz and Jake Ellenberger

“I’d rather not even go into that,” Hall told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) of his choice to leave Schulmann’s. “I’ve been working with Reign, and Reign is amazing. The atmosphere, it’s all about being comfortable. You got to go to a place where you feel comfortable, where it feels welcoming.

“It’s like working out. When you wake up and want to work out, you’re like, ‘Alright, I can’t wait to go.’ But if you don’t want to go, it’s because you’re not motivated. But since I’ve been there, I’ve been motivated to go because of the positive feedback we’ve got and what I’ve learned.”

What Hall has learned is that the fundamentals are one of, if not the most important, aspects of the sport.

Throughout preparation for Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 26 bout at Boston’s TD Garden, Hall (7-3 MMA, 0-1 UFC) has been forced to deal with a lot of uncertainty as his opponent was switched on two separate occasions. He now meets promotional returnee John Howard (20-8 MMA, 4-3 UFC) in a FOX Sports 1-televised bout.

From opening his camp training for Nick Ring to a short time training for Josh Samman and finally for Howard, the Jamaican-born Hall learned he needs to spend less time worrying about his opponent and more refining his own skills.

“I was taught to take something good out of anything, and I’ve done that, and one of the things I took out of it was like, ‘Alright, I got to start focusing more on me.’” Hall said. “And I remembered on the show one of my coaches told me, ‘Don’t get ready; stay ready.’

“I just kept doing what I was doing, and not to take anything away from John, but I know what he’s good at. I know what he’s strong at. I know what he’s weak at, and I know what I’m great at, so it’s just putting it together.”

Hall is hoping that when the cage door closes, he’ll put it together in a much more impressive fashion than earlier this year against Gastelum. With a lot of credit going to his new training environment, Hall’s confidence has grown tremendously in the four months since that forgettable night.

While Hall doesn’t want to share exactly how he’s improved in his time at Reign, he is adamant all the ups and downs in the weeks leading up to the fight will make his sophomore UFC experience nothing like the first.

“I (improved by) just stepping outside the comfort zone,” he said. “When you work on something you’re not good at, I think you get better overall. … Explaining it is not really going to do much. I guess I just have to display it.”

Hall is aware of the hype that surrounded him coming off his “TUF” stint, and he’s even more aware he didn’t fulfill those expectations the way many had hoped.

Fortunately, though, he never let that get him down. And even with the process of finding a new place to train and preparing for multiple different opponents, Hall never lost focus of the true goal of becoming the best fighter he can be.

“[Losing 'TUF'] could have broke me, but it didn’t,” he said. “I just wanted to get better, and that’s what I did.”

For the latest on UFC Fight Night 26, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.