Less than four months after submitting David Michaud at UFC 186, Olivier Aubin-Mercier returns to the Octagon Sunday to face Tony Sims at UFC Fight Night 74.

While it’s only Aubin-Mercier’s fourth match in the UFC, his fight roots are deep, set firmly in his hometown of Montreal, Quebec.

I first met Olivier in 2013, not a week or two into my Brazilian jiujitsu foray at Gracie Barra in Montreal.

Olivier would walk around the Saturday morning Judo class, giving instructions in French. Recognizing my look of confusion, he offered a lifeline.

“Eh, tu ne peux pas parler Francais? English?” he said. Olivier seamlessly switched to English.

The conversations around the mats and in the locker room brought more of the same. The guys started sentences in French and finished in English. There were questions in English, answered in French.

I don’t know if I was more confused on or off the mats.

“C’est Montrealaise . . . Franglaise,” … I had a lot to learn about Montreal, Quebec, jiujitsu and judo.

Despite my bewilderment, Olivier’s classes were great. We trained hard, and Olivier coached thoughtfully. He was friends with most in the school, having trained with them for years.

After class I remember Olivier shadow boxing, focusing on footwork, gliding forward to release a jab, high, as if bound for the chin of an invisible giant.

“He’s a fighter. And he’s fucking good,” one of the guys told me. “He is the nicest guy, but he is so tough.”

Another compared grappling with Olivier to wrestling a chimp.

“He is just so strong and once he gets your back, you’re done.”

A few weeks later Olivier was gone.

One of his teammates at H2O, a man called “Judo John” who was often alongside Olivier while he taught, took over full time. Olivier had been selected for the The Ultimate Fighter Nations: Canada vs. Australia.

In the days that followed we awaited word of Olivier’s fate.

The show’s results were kept under wraps, but clues piled up. We counted the weeks since his departure. Then one day there was a camera crew filming in the gym.

We began to speculate that Olivier made the finals. And he had.

Fast forward a few more months and Olivier is being interviewed on Fox Sports after taking home a submission of the night victory over Jake Lindsey at UFC Fight Night in Halifax with an inverted triangle/kimura. Our Olivier was starting to make a name for himself in the UFC.

It has been almost two years since I first met Olivier at Gracie Barra. And now here we are sitting down at Tristar Gym, just a few days before his Aug. 23 date with Tony Sims in Saskatoon.

Walking into the world famous Tristar Gym is an experience in itself. The industrial building has no sign. Sounds and smells assure you this is not a traditional office.

On the side of the mat near the cage in the center of the gym Georges St-Pierre and owner-operator/head coach Faras Zahabi address Olivier and a dozen other sweaty fighters as they remove headgear and stretch.

Standing off in the corner there is a lot to take in. Walls covered with an amazing collection of historic pictures and posters. Coaches, fighters, parents and kids walk on and off the mats, hit bags, lift weights and chat. Tristar fosters the same friendly environment as my gym — and of course it was all very bilingual. C’est la vie de Montreal.

Olivier joins me, sitting on the side of the boxing ring in the front of the gym. We catch up, talking about the judo class and training at Gracie Barra. Olivier tells me how busy he is since winning his last fight at UFC 186.

It’s a good time for Olivier. He is fit, and nearly ready for his next fight.

At the time of our interview, Olivier’s opponent had just been changed from Chris Wade to Sims. Wade, coming off a couple big wins, has a wrestling style that matches up well with Olivier.

But Sims is another story. Sims is a boxer who likes to switch from southpaw to orthodox and mix it up on the feet. He has some solid wrestling, but his hands make him dangerous. The fight will be sold as the classic striker versus grappler matchup.

Olivier has come to be known as the Quebec Kid, a moniker his TUF Canadian teammates gave him, likely to avoid stumbling through his distinctly French name.

While Olivier says the name doesn’t mean much, it fits him well. He radiates the “joie de vivre” typical of Quebecois.

Olivier has been marketed as the one to emerge from the shadow of Saint-Pierre, but he isn’t so sure about the portrayal.

“I don’t know if it’s something GSP thinks is best for him,” he said, laughing.

At 14, Olivier started attending the École secondaire De Mortagne just outside Montreal. Notable for producing young hockey prospects, the school featured classes from 8 a.m. until noon, followed by sport-specific training in the afternoon and evening.

Olivier took quickly to judo, becoming a junior national champion after only two years. With the prospect of the Olympic Games a few more years away, Olivier and his teammates competed in judo competitions around the world.

“The only place we did not go was Asia,” Olivier said.

He finished his judo career as an alternate for the Canadian National Team.

Olivier decided to forgo the politics of competitive judo and try his hand at mixed martial arts.

He started training at H2O in Montreal, and after just a few months booked and won his first amateur fight.

“I had four amateur fights during that (first) year and a half,” he said. All four were victories.

Olivier’s first professional fight was in Montreal on Oct. 21, 2011. He submitted his opponent in just 58 seconds.

He went on to win his next three pro fights, all by rear naked choke, and each in less than two minutes. It was then that he was selected to compete for Team Canada on The Ultimate Fighter.

Under pressure from his mother not to let himself be portrayed as a fool on TV, Olivier recoiled from the spotlight.

“The guys filming were nervous at first because I would block my face from the camera and not want to be filmed,” Olivier said.

That camera shyness worked for him on the show, giving him the look of a serious professional competing for a difficult job.

He finished all but one of his fights by submission, and after losing a split decision to teammate Chad Laprise in the final, Olivier bounced back to take home the performance of the night in his lightweight debut at UFC Fight Night in Halifax on Oct. 4, 2014.

Just six months later, Olivier submitted David Michaud in the third round at UFC 186 in Montreal.

On similar paths, Olivier and Laprise, who also fights Aug. 23 in Saskatoon, are driving hard toward the top 10 in the 155-pound division.

But it is Olivier’s knack for finishing fights spectacularly that made him one of the youngest fighters to receive an exclusive Reebok sponsorship.

And since his win in April, Olivier has attended UFC events in Phoenix, Las Vegas and New York.

“I was there in New York (for the Reebok kit launch) with all these great fighters, and was thinking, ‘Man this is serious, this is real.'”

Olivier’s ultimate goal is to be the best in the world, but you won’t hear him slagging off Rafael dos Anjos and begging for a title fight. He is practical about his career, and recognizes he is still sharpening his skills.

“I am very focused on improving and perfecting my technique. I am not yet in my prime. Maybe, I would say in about two years I will be in my prime,” Olivier said.

Translating that gym work to the Octagon hasn’t come easily.

“Maybe it’s the feeling of getting in there … I am still working on being able to do what I know I can do in the gym in the Octagon. I am getting there. I am getting more comfortable each time. And as I become more comfortable, I am able to perform better.”

Oli, as we called him, has come a long way since Gracie Barra, but his level head and humility are unchanged.

“It would take a lot of energy to be someone I am not,” he explained.

Olivier isn’t cutting promos and calling out those at the top of his division just yet, but you can be sure the rest of the UFC lightweight division, and his partners at Tristar, and yes, even a few old friends from his Saturday morning Judo class will be tuning in Sunday to see the Quebec Kid do what we all know he can.

Soon the rest of the world will be tuning in, too.

Steven Dawson

Correspondent

