ADCC absolute and IBJJF World champion Robert Drysdale’s UFC debut was a smashing success.

He faced Keith Berish in the opening bout of The Ultimate Fighter 19 Finale card, Drysdale got a early double leg takedown, took the back and finished with a rear naked choke.

Drysdale talked to UFC.com about his reasons for going for an MMA career when he is already a world and ADCC champion and runs a bunch of successful scho0ls worldwide:

“From the beginning, it never was the money or what I could get out of MMA, and it still isn’t,” he said. “For me, it really is a challenge. To me, fighting is hard, and when I think of MMA, I have a hard time thinking of anything more intense than stepping into a cage against another human being who has been training his whole life to destroy you, to knock you out. I don’t think there’s any other activity in life that takes more courage. And I’m the kind of person that if something frightens me in any way, it’s a matter of honor for me to do it, and fighting’s always been something I consider extremely difficult. Because it’s highly strategic and so physical and mental and emotional, all at the same time, I set the bar really high for myself in the sense that I wasn’t content just watching. If I had just gone on to have a successful career in jiu-jitsu, I would have been very disappointed in myself. I could never live with myself unless I tried. It’s because it’s hard that I want to do it.”

“My mom wasn’t too happy,” he admits. “My mom was okay with jiu-jitsu, but as a kid I was always attracted to combat in one way or another, so I guess she kind of knew that I was going to drift in that direction. But MMA, for such a long time it had such a bad rep in Brazil. It was associated with death. You were going to walk in there, you’re going to be a gladiator; she probably thought we would be fighting with swords and axes. (Laughs) But now she’s okay with it. My dad wasn’t supportive in the beginning, but once I started doing better in jiu-jitsu and he realized I was making a living from it, he became more supportive.”

“Competing was always something hard for me,” he said. “I kind of forced myself to do it, I pushed myself, and I got better at it. But I remember sometimes, you wake up and you’re in the semifinals of the world championship and being so anxious. I was on the verge of vomiting before I went out. But my last few fights, I was fine. It was much better than I thought it would be. My first MMA fight, I created such big expectations, but when it was time, I was fine and I felt I belonged there. Although MMA is a more aggressive sport than jiu-jitsu, without a doubt, in theory you should be more nervous, but I’m actually less nervous. Mentally, I don’t remember ever being so calm and relaxed about fighting.”

“I see a lot of flaws in my own jiu-jitsu, and I really don’t want to put myself above other practitioners in any way,” he said. “I don’t see myself that way. But if I can point to any difference (in jiu-jitsu), I’ve always had a game that was aggressive. If anything, it hurt me in jiu-jitsu because jiu-jitsu is so strategic it can make it boring. A UFC fan would watch a jiu-jitsu match and go, ‘oh, that’s boring.’ And I can see why he’d say that compared to MMA because MMA is so dynamic. And while I consider myself a good strategist, I’ve always had an urge to finish people. I didn’t want to wait 10 minutes to win. I wanted to tap you within two minutes, and in a way, I think that translates well into MMA. I developed a game that is more submission-oriented than most guys.”