Shiloh’s Sanchez wins TV show finale and contract with UFC

Andrew Sanchez has been hitting the mats in one fighting discipline or another since he was 13 years old.

It started with Taekwondo. Then, as a junior at O’Fallon Township High School, he discovered wrestling, the sport that twice made him an NAIA national champion and four-time collegiate All-American at McKendree University.

Next came Brazilian jiu-jitsu with a little boxing mixed in.

“I think he just gets bored and moves on to other stuff to challenge himself with,” said James Kisgen, head wrestling coach at McKendree. “The thing about him is that he’s just a sponge. It’s amazing how fast he takes things on.”

Sanchez has taken everything he’s learned on the mats into the Octagon, where competition in mixed martial arts is making him a household name.

At the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas Friday night, the Shiloh native won a three-round unanimous decision over power-puncher Khalil Roundtree to win season 23 of the reality television series, The Ultimate Fighter (TUF23 to hardcore fans).

Sanchez’s reward is a six-fight contract with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the promotion company that has made mixed martial arts the most-watched sport world-wide. He also got a new Harley Davidson motorcycle.

“It’s $100,000 over all six fights, so it’s not like I’m getting all this money dumped on me,” he said. “If I don’t perform — maybe lose a couple of fights and fail to get anything too exciting — then they can cut me lose at any time. That’s fair, too. I do get the Harley, but mostly it’s the opportunity I’m after.

“They’ve given me my chance, now I just have to perform.”

Sanchez, 28 years old and known also as “El Dirte,” has nine wins in 11 professional mixed martial arts fights, five by knockout, two by submission and two by decision, including Friday’s TUF23 championship bout over Roundtree.

He notched three other wins on the television show, but the two-round bouts don’t count toward his overall record.

In addition to being the 2011 NAIA collegiate Wrestler of the Year, Sanchez holds titles in the International Brazlian Jiu-Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) and the Resurrection Fighting Alliance (RFA).

“I don’t think a lot of (mixed martial arts) fighters have the variety of background I have,” Sanchez said. “Most are strictly boxers. I’m very well rounded because I didn’t focus on just one thing. Wrestling is sort of my base, but I’ve done jiu-jitsu almost as long as I’ve wrestled.”

The UFC held open tryouts for TUF23 in December of last year. Competitors had to be at least 21 years old and have at least two wins in three professional fights. Eight light-heavyweight men, Sanchez included, and eight strawweight women were subsequently selected to compete in the show.

It was the second time Sanchez auditioned for The Ultimate Fighter, a Fox1 reality show that divides the competitors into two teams, then films them as they live and train together. The contestants compete against each other in a tournament to determine who wins the UFC contract.

Sanchez avoided the kind of drama that reality television is known for, instead focusing his efforts on his training and on winning the contract.

“I saw MMA when I was in high school and I thought it was the coolest thing,” Sanchez said. “It was like the most extreme form of competition. I loved it. I grew up watching kung fu movies. Every kid wants to grow up and be a super hero, like Rambo or something.”

At 6-foot-1 and 199 pounds, Sanchez normally competes as a middle weight. He gave up a 30-pound advantage to Roundtree, a true light-heavyweight, in the championship match.

Sanchez dominated by holding controlling position in the fight for nearly 12 minutes, compared to 11 seconds for his opponent. He also landed 118 short-but-effective strikes and six takedowns to Roundtree’s 58 strikes and zero takedowns. It was the first loss of Roundtree’s pro career.

“Khalil is a striker. He just wants to stand there and bang you so he’s dangerous,” Sanchez said. “That’s the thing about this kind of a fight, you can destroy a guy for 14 minutes straight and he can strike one big blow and it’s over. I feel like I could have stood there and matched up with him, but I’m really good on the ground, so why not exploit it?”

The ground-game strategy drew boos from the live spectators and complaints on UFC message boards that Sanchez was “too boring.”

“Promoters want to see everybody slug it out,” he said. “But even one of the judges told me after the fight that no credible coach would have told me to do anything different than what I did. I had to get him on his back and keep him there.”

Sanchez moved to New Jersey after college, he said, because of the wealth of gyms and trainers it has compared to St. Louis. He’ll take his next two weeks off there to heal and rest. Meanwhile, he and manager Hector Castro will begin entertaining UFC fight offers.

UFC, meanwhile, sold Monday for $4 billion, the largest sale in professional sports history, according to ESPN.

“I think every fight I’ve had was in somebody else’s hometown. Khalil even lives in Las Vegas,” Sanchez said. “I don’t believe the UFC ever came to St. Louis, but I’d rather have my first home fight there than in New Jersey. I can’t imaging anything better than fighting in front of all those people back home who have supported me. That would be a great next step.”

This story was originally published July 13, 2016 at 1:26 PM with the headline "Shiloh’s Sanchez wins TV show finale and contract with UFC."