A veteran of the sport for over a dozen years, Julien Leblanc finally got the call to the big show. Having tried to just about every avenue to get that call, Leblanc had been close a time or two, but it ultimately hadn’t happened for him.
“I’ve been trying to get on contenders for two, three years now – and it didn’t happen. I was actually cut from the Ultimate Fighter, the season that Robert [Valentin] was on it, and he went in final. I was like in the one of the last, I was not in the last alternate, but I was like waiting,” LeBlanc explained. “I had signed the contract waiting to know if I was flying out to Vegas to go and unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance.”
After nearly being on the season with Valentin, it was a wild moment when his manager got a hold of him and told him his debut would be against the TUF 32 finalist.
“It was like a full life circle. It was crazy. My manager just told me like you got a fight and I’m okay with the opponent. I didn’t really know and then he sent me his topology,” he said. “I was like, wow, that’s crazy. Some things are like they look like coincidence, but I believe it’s not a coincidence. I believe like I said, sometimes life is doing weird things. I was laughing in my head.”
While he recognizes the skill that Valentin brings to the game, he’s been waiting too long to squander this moment. He’s ready for all the heat early and ready to go in there to get the ‘W’.
“I respect him a lot… I do believe that he’s going to come out really hard in the first round. So I’m going to be ready for the fire,” LeBlanc said. “The only way I see it and ending is with my hand raised. So that’s the ultimate goal regardless how it is – that’s really the ultimate goal and that’s what’s going to happen.”
You can catch Julien Leblanc’s fight with Robert Valentin as part of the UFC Winnipeg prelims. The fight card begins at 5pm EST this Saturday and airs on Paramount+.