Uriah Hall only wants to live up to his own expectations at TUF 17 Finale

LAS VEGAS – The Uriah Hall Hype Train rolled back into Las Vegas this week.

But as far as Hall is concerned, he’s merely a passenger on that train. He’s certainly not the conductor.

Hall tore through his opposition on Season 17 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” notching three knockouts and sending two opponents to the hospital in the process. UFC President Dana White said he may be the best fighter to ever come out of the show. Coach Chael Sonnen said after his quarterfinal win he’s already a threat to middleweight champion Anderson Silva.

The hype on Hall (7-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC) has been big, and on Saturday he’ll try to make it all worthwhile when he meets Kelvin Gastelum (4-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) for the “TUF 17? crown at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.

Just don’t ask him to get on board with all the big talk about him.

“I think I’m the same guy (I was before the show),” Hall said. “The only difference is I’m on TV. I just started this to see how far I can take it. I didn’t sign up for all the fame and publicity – I really didn’t. As long as I’m breathing, I’ll be doing this. Absolutely (I feel the pressure). But I don’t look at it like that. I think a lot of people are looking at me as the guy to beat. I don’t feed into that. I go into the room by myself. I don’t think have anything to prove to anybody. I did this alone. I have no one’s expectations to live up to but myself.”

Hall said having Sonnen as a coach helped him with the mental side of the sport. Before meeting him on the show, Hall had Sonnen’s clowning side in his head.

But once the two started working together and spending time talking, he learned that there are two sides to his “TUF” coach.

“When Chael was here coaching me, it wasn’t just the physical aspect – it was mental,” Hall told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “In a situation like this where you have six weeks, what can you learn in that six weeks? It’s the (grueling nature) of it and how can you overcome that, and Chael was that positive influence and he kept us motivated all the time and stayed on top of that.”

And when Sonnen told him he might be ready to challenge Silva for the middleweight title right now? Well, that’s part of the hype that Hall doesn’t want to buy into to.

But as long as he keeps improving, he believes he might just make it there one day.

“I was shocked. I was like, ‘Give me time,’” Hall recalled. “But sometimes as a coach, he’ll see things in you that you don’t see. I guess as my coach, in that time, he saw that potential. Maybe down the line, one day it’ll happen. But it’s not something I’m pushing. I feel, personally, the guy’s a walking legend. If I ever get the opportunity one day, that’ll be great. But I’d rather work my way toward it like the rest of the guys.

First, Hall has to get past Gastelum, his teammate on Sonnen’s squad. He’s more than a 3-to-1 favorite to do just that. And if he does it as impressively as his final three fights in the “TUF” house were – first-round KO stoppages – then he can expect that train of expectations to keep on speeding down the tracks.

But there might be one little bit of hype that Hall doesn’t mind.

“The cool thing I’ve been hearing is I’m like a video game character (when I fight),” Hall said. “But I know myself and my friends know who I am. So that’s what’s really important.”

The TUF 17 Finale has a main card airing live on FX on Saturday at 9 p.m. ET following prelims on FUEL TV (7 p.m.) and Facebook (5:30 p.m.).

For more on The Ultimate Fighter 17 Finale, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.