Bellator's Grove talks maturity, his best fight, winning 'TUF 3'
In June 2006, a lanky, 23-year-old Kendall Grove earned a hard-fought decision over Ed Herman to win the UFC's third season of "The Ultimate Fighter." Ten years and nearly 30 bouts later, a far different fighter will be tangling with fellow middleweight Alexander Shlemenko in the main event of Bellator 162.
While Grove has learned to tame the zeal that helped and cursed him in equal measure after a stint as "TUF" coach Tito Ortiz's prized pupil, every one of the 33-year-old's performances is fueled by the ever-present uncertainty of what fate awaits him in the cage.
"I'm never nervous to fight a guy, I'm never scared to fight a guy, but I'm scared and nervous of the outcome," Grove told theScore. "But that's what makes you more dangerous, is feeling that. It makes you rise to the occasion, it makes you crumble. It's a motherfucker. Fighting yourself is the biggest fight to have and I'm sure a lot of fighters will agree with me."
The UFC alum readily confesses a case of the above-mentioned jitters heading into his meeting with a former Bellator middleweight champion in Shlemenko. The Russian has never shied away from taking the fight to his opponents and owns a laundry list of vicious finishes - a track record Grove knows will bring out the tactician in him.
"Look at the last few fights that he's finished: body shot, liver shot, spinning back fist. He's a big puncher, and I'd be stupid to tell you I haven't been thinking about it. It's woken me up. I gotta be on. Everything that I've been doing, I have to follow the script to beat this guy. If all else fails, I'll pull that ripcord and go out there and scrap. Like (Bellator commentator) Jimmy Smith says, I'll go out there and 'fight Hawaiian.'"
Grove's maturity comes years after his tumultuous 13-fight stint in the UFC as a fresh-faced prospect. "Da Spyder" won his first three contests in the Octagon, a streak he'd fail to repeat. The promotion released him in 2011 following consecutive losses to Demian Maia and Tim Boetsch, but not before he bested the late Evan Tanner - one of Grove's proudest victories.
After two nomadic years that saw him fight seven times in 2012 alone, Grove graced the Bellator cage for the first time in late 2013. He's gone 4-2 in his new home, and cites his 2015 performance against fellow UFC alum Joey Beltran as the antidote to the inconsistency that's defined his lengthy career.
"I'd say my fight with Joey Beltran is when it finally all came together. Those are two fights where I stuck to the game plan and it paid off, whereas a lot of other fights, I would start and I would get caught up. The immaturity in me would be, 'It's a fight, fuck it, let's just fight.' Then I'm fighting their game plan and sometimes I'd win, sometimes I'd lose, but I think those two fights helped me a lot.
"I know what I can deal with, so I said 'fuck it' and my corner told me to throw the combination 1-3-2, double up on the 2, and I got the knockout after that."
Grove's newfound savvy in the cage hasn't lessened his appreciation of the "TUF" triumph. The Hawaii native recently reminisced on the experience with fellow contestant and current UFC middleweight king Michael Bisping, who won the season's light heavyweight tournament.
"I enjoyed those years. I went there for a reason, I accomplished that reason.
"They put us in a house and we're fucking raging young bulls that were there to win a fucking six-figure contract in each of the weights, that's why I think me and him were such good friends. He was 205 (pounds) so I didn't have to worry about fighting him and vice-versa."
Grove will look to further his evolution when he meets Shlemenko on Oct. 21 at the FedEx Forum in Memphis.