Everyone has a daily routine that involves their personal life and work life and that routine for lightweight Eric Irvin begins every day at 5 in the morning.
Irvin (8-3) starts off his day by getting in his first workout of the day before heading to his day time job as a graphic designer. After he is done working, he heads right back to the gym to get in another training session before calling it a day.
With the daily schedule he maintains, it’s safe to say that one of the biggest strengths Irvin brings to the sport of mixed martial arts is work ethic.
“I always strive to be the best that I can be and the only way to do that is work hard,” Irvin told The MMA Report. “Not everybody is born with super raw talent and I do not think I was one of those guys that had really raw talent when I was born. I feel like I have worked hard enough and I made talent where there was not any. Hard work got me there so definitely work ethic is one of my top things.”
His professional mixed martial arts career began in 2010 and he is currently on a three fight winning streak. His last two wins have come by submission, but it was his last defeat that taught him a lot about this sport. That defeat came against former UFC welterweight/lightweight Charlie Brenneman in 2013 as he made a mistake in the second round of the fight and was defeated by submission.
“Besides just fighting a guy that has been on that level, I hung in there with him pretty good,” he said. “I made a mistake on the ground and got caught. It kind of let me know that I could compete with guys on that level. I took some time off after that fight and trained on what I thought were my little weaknesses. Every since then, I have been hitting it hard, not that I have not before. I have been hitting it even harder and things have been going good. I have had some pretty tough fights my last three fights. I been putting some finishes in there and fighting some tough guys.”
Coming up on March 21, he will look for his fourth win in a row when he meets Joshua Thorpe at Shamrock Promotions in St. Louis. This will be his first fight in 2015 and while Thorpe’s record is not the best, he knows he is facing a very experience opponent.
“Obviously, a very veteran guy and he has as many wins as I have fights. When you are going in there and fighting somebody like that, they are always dangerous. You can not say he isn’t but I feel like I am starting to peak in my career. His weakness is — I feel like is my biggest strength, which is the ground. I feel like I am well rounded so I am going to go in there and beat him at his own game. If anything goes haywire, I can always take him down and exploit his weakness.”
Irvin is a teammate of current UFC featherweight Alex White and after his fight with Thorpe, Irvin plans to tryout for The Ultimate Fighter 22 and hopefully join his teammate in the UFC in the near future.
“I have talked the mangers of mine and I think probably — its just like anything, it’s a shot in the dark. I think with my experience and I tried out. I forget what season it was but I was a 3-0 amateur. It was not to long after I met Alex, we went to Chicago. I tried out and of course, did not make it. It’s crazy to think that was like season four or something like. Now, I am 8-3 professional fighter so I feel like my changes have definitely raised to make it. We will see and I am sure going to try. I hope I will.”