Two fights have been completed on The Ultimate Fighter: Undefeated and the show’s lone Canadian, Winnipeg’s Brad Katona, is off to a great start.

After Team Cormier secured the first win in the show’s premiere when Joe Giannetti choked out John Gunther in less than 20 seconds, Team Miocic sought revenge when they pitted their top featherweight selection, Kyler Phillips, against Katona on the show’s second episode.

The matchmaking turned out to be flawed as Katona picked Phillips apart, earning a majority decision victory. Katona’s use of counters and powerful leg kicks shifted the momentum his way for much of the two-round exhibition fight.

“Going in against Kyler, obviously he’s a good opponent, but a lot of it came down to just trusting in my abilities,” Katona told TSN. “When I went down to the tryouts for the show, I went down there with the mindset that if I go down, I’m going to make it on the show. When I came back home, it was like, if I make it on the show, I’m going to win this thing, I really truly believe that I can and that I could compete with everyone that was in the house. So being able to fight the number one pick, Kyler, and then take him out was a major step towards achieving that goal.”

One of Katona’s fears was having octagon jitters during his first UFC opportunity, but that wasn’t the case once the fight started.

“I always thought that fighting in front of 50,000 people would be extremely intimidating, you walk in, the canvas is cold and the lights are hot and it’s just this alien experience,” said Katona, explaining what he thought his first UFC experience would be like. “When I walked around the octagon in the beginning of the fight, I noticed how soft it was and how warm. It was kind of a comforting feeling. It made it feel like this is just like a wrestling mat; this is just like any canvas I’ve competed on in my lifetime.”

One of the perks for Katona was the ability to fight early in the show because he is guaranteed some downtime before his next bout.

“Immediately after the fight, I took a mental break for a day or two to just let my body relax,” said Katona. “Being in the tournament style, first off competing early in it so that I’d have more time to recover was a big benefit in my opinion so that I could check out mentally for a day or two and then refocus on what’s coming next,” said Katona.

Katona had the opportunity to watch the episode and was very pleased with his overall performance against his toughest opponent to date.

“What impressed me most with my fight with Kyler was my composure in there. He was known as being an extremely quick and hard-hitting fighter,” he said. “Looking back on the video and watching the shots that hit me, I saw everything and that’s why none of them really hurt me. I remember in the fight time was just moving much slower. I was surprised at how slow he seemed to be moving and from there, just watching the tape, watching me take apart his lead leg. Everything came together and then seeing it on video was very satisfying.”

Watching Team Cormier train from a viewer’s perspective shows how his camp, American Kickboxing Academy, got its reputation for being one of the most intense environments in mixed martial arts. With former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez and light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier training with far smaller fighters, it looks like a pretty humbling experience for these smaller fighters.

“Training with DC as well as Cain, it was the most gentle butt-kicking I’ve ever had. Both of them are world champions for a reason, so I was really impressed by the skill level. Of course they’re going to be good, but to train at that world championship level is very important because we’re all starving for that,” said Katona. 

Despite fighting at featherweight on the show, Katona sees himself as a bantamweight if he ends up staying on with the UFC upon the show’s conclusion.

“Absolutely, bantamweight is my home,” he said. “When I fought Kyler, I didn’t cut any weight for that match. I woke up 146 and went to weigh-ins from there. I changed what I did eat that week, but really I saw no benefit in changing my diet and putting on a lot of fat just to be a couple pounds heavier on fight day.”

Not only does Katona display a high IQ inside the cage, he’s no slouch outside the sport, earning a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering at the University of Manitoba while simultaneously sharpening his combat sports skills.

“I’m not going to pretend that it was easy, but it was both things that I wanted to do and I was fortunate to have supportive parents, which allowed me to do both,” he said. “I was able to live at home when going to school rent-free and that freed up all my spare money to use towards training and competing. Really it was just having multiple goals. …As I got better at being a student, I could take on a bigger course load and more difficult courses, and as I became a better athlete I was able to structure my training more efficiently. It was really just being able to manage both and maybe you can say that I had to sacrifice going out and stuff like that, but I didn’t really view it as a major sacrifice. I loved what I was doing, both in school and in training. I was surrounded by great friends. I just surrounded myself with great people in both my pursuits.”

Katona has taken his training from Winnipeg to Dublin, Ireland, where he trains at the world famous Straight Blast Gym (SBG), which also houses former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion Conor McGregor, as well as his Team Cormier teammate Richie Smullen, who is competing in the show’s lightweight bracket.

“It was very good to have Richie, not only on the show, but on my team. It would have been a little bit more uncomfortable if he was on Stipe’s team and we’d potentially have had to give each other secrets, which neither of us would have even done,” laughed Katona. “It was nice knowing somebody, just somebody you could trust and you could tell pretty much anything because we’re training partners in Dublin and on the show, so it was nice just to have someone that you knew going in because there’s no guarantee that you’d get along with the other personalities in the house”

SBG was in the headlines earlier this month when McGregor and some of his teammates stormed Barclays Center in an attempt to confront now-lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, which ultimately resulted in McGregor and teammate Cian Cowley’s arrests.

“As everything was happening I was in Portugal, so I was actually not there until a week after that and it had all blown over,” recalls Katona. “I don’t think anybody totally understands everything that went on and what prompted it. All we have is a small clip of Khabib slapping Artem and that’s it and it’s unlikely that there isn’t more to that situation that nobody else knows about. So Conor defended one of his good friends. Were there other ways of handling it? Absolutely there’s other ways of handling it, but something fired him up and he’s obviously a genuine person and acted accordingly.”

With the win, Katona advances to the semi-finals of the featherweight bracket and a shot at the finals, which take place July 6 in the Pearl Theater at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas.

The Ultimate Fighter: Undefeated airs every Wednesday night and the July 6 finale air on TSN