New Zealand lightweight Kieran Joblin is making the trek to Canada this week to compete on Triumph FC’s inaugural event.
Joblin replaces Jose Rodriguez on just seven days notice and will face Alex Ricci, a Toronto based fighter who is currently 9-3 in his professional career and is coming off a win in his lone fight for 2015 against Kyle Prepolec.
“I found out about the fight Saturday morning while I was watching my son play soccer. All I was told was to eat clean and standby. Next thing I get told was Canada next week.
“I know he has some good striking and grappling skills and most Canadian fighters are well rounded. He’s definitely going to be the toughest opponent to date. This opportunity is great and gives me the opportunity to fight first and foremost and secondly to get my name out there in North America. It’s exciting,” Joblin told Fight News Australia.
The kiwi prospect, who is 16-6 and riding a five fight win streak, considers UFC featherweight Dan Hooker a huge source of inspiration for his burgeoning career and would like to follow in his footsteps with a major international fight contract in the future.
“I’ve trained with him (Dan Hooker) a few times and he’s just like one of the boys so knowing that he can make it to the UFC and that we all started at the same place, y’know? That’s probably been the biggest influence on me.”
UPDATE: The Triumph FC 1 live stream has unfortunately been canceled.
Triumph FC will be streamed live at GFL on Saturday 23 April (Australia & NZ) and is headlined by a lightweight title fight between Tom Gallicchio and Andrew McInnes.
To check out the rest of Joblin’s interview with FNA you can listen to the first episode of the podcast here.
