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“Vegas is the hotspot,” said Villanueva, who now trains with the Xtreme Couture squad. “I’ve been to Cali and trained with some great people, but I talked to my manager, Jason House, and he’s like, ‘XC is the place.’ I really wanted to do it. Coach Eric Nicksick is a badass. I did my research on all the guys there, and I fit in real well. I’m liking it so far, and it’s kind of like being reborn. That’s the awesome part about making this change, and I still have my team back home when I do go back and that’s my family.”
Villanueva says the last time he felt this good before a fight was nearly a year ago, when he knocked out UFC vet Roger Narvaez in 28 seconds. Four months later he issued a similar fate to another former member of the UFC roster in Rashad Coulter. After 11 years in the sport, a stint filled with ups and downs as he juggled family life and a day job as a CNC machinist, the “Hurricane” was more than ready for the call to the big show. But it didn’t come until the world was in the middle of a pandemic and Sherman needed an opponent.
“That was just macho machismo hard-headedness,” he laughs when it comes to his decision to take the short-notice assignment. “I don’t back down for nothing. UFC called me, I ain’t saying no. And in the back of my mind, I said everybody’s got a puncher’s chance. I was working 60 hours a week, eating tacos for lunch, and you get the phone call. We didn’t expect that with everything we were going through. But when I got done with that fight, I learned from it.”
The main takeaway was, as Clint Eastwood once said, sometimes, “Tough ain’t enough.” The 36-year-old Texan was smart enough to realize that he needed to put himself in the best possible position to evolve his game to compete with the best 205-pounders in the world, and despite his wife being eight months pregnant with their daughter Gigi, she gave him the blessing to chase his dream, something his ex-wife wasn’t on board with.