John "Quick Guns" Gunderson (22-6) will make his UFC debut January 2nd, coming in as a replacement for Sean Sherk and taking on Rafaello "Tractor" Oliveira (9-2) at UFC 108: Evans vs Silva. Gunderson's road to the UFC started 7 years ago where he originally trained with the Desert Dog fight team in Bend, Oregon. He moved on to the New World Fighters in Medford, OR and then to making it on to the IFL Reno Lion's fight team under Ken Shamrock. Gunderson had an explosive run for the Lion's, culminating in getting the lightweight title shot against Team Quest fighter Ryan Shultz in Feb of 2008 where he battled for five rounds and lost via decision. After the IFL went under, Gunderson had surgery for a torn ACL and took almost a year off to heal. He returned to fighting in January of 2009 and has gone 5-1 on the year, with his upcoming fight at the UFC being his 7th in less than 12 months...

NW Fightscene: Fought 6 times this year, that's keeping busy! How'd you pull that off?
John Gunderson: I just wanted to fight. (laughs) I don't really know, I just kept asking for fights.

NWFS: And you were injury free the whole year?
Gunderson: I was a little banged up in some of the fights but, you know, when are you not banged up from fights?

NWFS: So it paid off for you, got your UFC debut coming up January 2nd. Were you planning on fighting that quickly again?
Gunderson: I was planning to fight at the end of January so it just pushed it forward a couple of weeks. No, it doesn't matter. I was ready to go on short notice. I knew that the position I was at, I could be one of those short notice guys and ready to go.

NWFS: Feeling nervous about going into your UFC debut?
Gunderson: Not nervousness but excitement. Ready to get in there and fight and show what I got.

NWFS: Tell us about your training. Who are the people getting you ready?
Gunderson: The whole time I've been training with Evan Dunham because he's got a fight coming up against Efrain Escudero January 11th on Ultimate Fight Night.. Whenever you train with Evan, Evan's such a hard worker that he pushes you to stay in shape 'cause if you're not in shape, he kicks your ass... get some strength and conditioning with my strength and conditioning coach, Jake Bonacci. And then of course my striking coach, Shawn Tompkins, and all my training partners at Xtreme Couture and at Tapout. I've trained with some of the top lightweights out there, like Tyson Griffin, Gray Maynard, Sam Stout, Chris Horodecki, Evan Dunham.. so many good guys. The welterweights, Mike Pyle, Jay Hieron, Martin Kampmann, and there's just so many of them. And guys that people don't know about that are really tough.

NWFS: With the plethora of guys like that to choose from, are you catering or choosing from the better BJJ guys since you're going up against a BJJ guy?
Gunderson: I train with two guys and we know what he's going to do. We know he's going to come in and be aggressive, look to take the fight to the ground and try to work his BJJ. My jiu-jitsu's not bad either, so I'm comfortable on the ground. I'm comfortable wherever the fight goes so I don't care. I'm training to train me, not really around him. If he doesn't come out there and do what I expect him to do then I'm going to be like oh, why isn't he doing this. So...

NWFS: How do you see this fight playing out?
Gunderson: I see him coming at me aggressive. I see me on my toes a lot in the first round. You know, kind of peppering him, moving. I gotta move. I can't be too overly aggressive. I messed up when I fought in the summer [against] Bryan Travers. A couple times I got overly aggressive with my striking coming at him, and he was able to drop level and take me down. I need to be on my toes more. I need to be more ready for the shot. And I believe that I will be... When it comes to the 2nd or 3rd round, that's when I'll start putting it on him and start taking over. 

NWFS: What has it been for you that's kept you ready, injury free, & going all year?
Gunderson: Well, I basically stay in shape. But, you don't stay injury free. You're always going to have little injuries, you know.

NWFS: Do you feel you're going into this fight 100%?
Gunderson: Oh yeah! For sure I feel 100 percent. Which is good, as I've gone into other fights not feeling 100 percent.

NWFS: Anyone to thank?
Gunderson: Yeah, I just want to thank all my training partners. All the guys from Xtreme Couture, and Team Tompkins at the Tapout Training Center. And if you get a chance to watch my fight, hopefully it'll be a good one, so go ahead and tune in.