Under the guidance of Tito Ortiz, Kendall Grove made his mark on the UFC during the third season of The Ultimate Fighter. He defeated Ed Herman in a closely contested finale to win a contract with the UFC. Since then he has gone 4-2 in the UFC with victories over Chris Price, Alan Belcher, Evan Tanner and Jason Day.
A native of Maui, Hawaii, Grove was originally a wrestler, but eventually moved to Las Vegas, where his MMA career really got started. Now that he's fought on the big stage, Grove has moved back to Maui where he started his own MMA gym, trains with BJ Penn, and raises his young daughter.
Grove will fight Ricardo Almeida at UFC 101 on August 8, 2009.
Q: How did you get into MMA?
Kendall Grove: I got into MMA from wrestling in high school. I did jiu-jitsu my freshman year and it was very expensive here in Maui at the time, like [in] the late 90’s, so I couldn't really afford it anymore. One of my good friends got me into wrestling. From that point on I fell in love with that one-on-one competition. I started getting more into the UFC, watching it and getting into a lot of fights. I started training, low-key, like with my friends. Then I moved to Vegas and hooked up with John Lewis and then started training with Mark Laimon at J-Sect and then from there, I fell into the sport.
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