Last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with UFC star Matt Arroyo and do an in-depth interview. Arroyo made it to the semifinals in The Ultimate Fighter Season 6 but had to withdraw due to a rib injury. Arroyo then won his first UFC fight against John Kolosci at the Ultimate Fighter 6 Finale in December 2007.

MMAFightLine.com: Matt, I’d like to thank you for taking time out of your training to speak to me. Tell me about how you ended up at Gracie Tampa. You started training jiu-jitsu in 2003, right?

Arroyo: In March of 03, so we are coming on five years now.

MMAFightLine.com: And Gracie Tampa opened in 04, so where did you train before you got here?

Arroyo: Yeah, 04, something like that. I started in New York under a blue belt named Gary Gobel. It was after I stopped playing baseball. I was able to focus on something else, and I always wanted to try jiu-jitsu from watching UFCs and stuff so I found the nearest Royce Gracie school and it was scary. March of 2003 was the first official day of jiu-jitsu -- it was actually a Royce Gracie seminar, so I just fell in love with it after that and I’ve been doing it ever since. I trained with him all summer and then I had to go back to school.

I went to school at University of Tampa, and I needed a place to train so I found a black belt in Clearwater, Eduardo de Lima, but I didn’t have a car in college so I couldn’t get out there, and I’m glad I didn’t now. I found this purple belt named Craig who was right by my school and was teaching, so I trained under him for about a year. So I had about a year and a half of training before I met Rob Kahn. I got an email from Gary in New York who said there was a black belt coming to Tampa and that I should e-mail him because he is really good.

So I e-mailed Rob and visited him. He didn’t have a school yet. He was actually training out of like an office building. I just got destroyed -- I just rolled with him and he was tapping me left and right and he had like 3 or 4 students there that were doing the same. So I was like, I’ve got to learn from these guys, you know. I have been training with him ever since then, so I guess since he opened, since even before he opened the school.

MMAFightLine.com: That’s great. You said you graduated from University of Tampa. What was your major?

Arroyo: Business Management.

MMAFightLine.com: I read in some other interviews that you were selling insurance for a while.