When Te Edwards walks to the cage Saturday, Oct. 27, at UFC Fight Night 138 in Moncton to face Don Madge, the UFC will roll the footage of his past fights. 

Being as new as he is to the company, they’ll only have his violent, highlight-reel knockout of Austin Tweedy at Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series to draw from. 

That clip is mildly misleading when it comes to Edwards’ base. Despite the highlight—or his record for that matter—Edwards got into MMA through his wrestling career, which included two trips to the NCAA tournament. Even though Edwards has the base that so many MMA fighters covet, he determined early to become the guy on the highlight reel rather than the typical wrestler-turned-fighter.

“I kind of determined when I started fighting… I was not going to be that kind of lay-and-pray or that type of wrestler who doesn’t sell tickets and nobody really likes to watch [him],” Edwards told the Top Turtle MMA Podcast on FloCombat.

This choice comes from his days as a fan coming up in the sport. Although he was a wrestler who understood the art, he didn’t enjoy watching it that much in an MMA fight. 

“I’ve always watched UFC and combat sports,” Edwards said. “I was never a big fan of watching the grind-out kind of wrestling matches or those kind of fights... I always liked the knockouts and the big, highlight-reel stuff.”

His love for knockouts and impressive striking started with guys who could not be further from where he was at the time. 

“I had a couple of guys I really liked watching coming up,” Edwards said. “[Lyoto] Machida was a big one. I liked his style—he had a very ‘hit-don’t-get-hit’ type of approach… but still wrestled really well.”

So after watching Machida for years and loving his style, Edwards began to get serious about the sport, and that decision to stop focusing on the grappling aspects was an easy one. 

“I wrestled enough over the years. I don’t need to do it [now],” Edwards said. “I definitely gear myself more towards striking and stand up. If I absolutely need it—just need to get a win for the night or if I’m not feeling great—sure, I’ll pick a guy up and throw him around, slam him on his head, stuff like that.”

And even though Edwards was not originally well versed in the striking arts, he found quickly that he was a natural when it came to punching power. 

“I’ve had heavy hands since I got into it,” Edwards said. “I’ve been hitting people pretty hard.”

He hopes to continue hitting people pretty hard this weekend at UFC Moncton. While he’ll be ready to wrestle if he needs it, he’s got another goal on his mind. 

“Ideally, we’ll walk off with some highlight-reel KO that we can play over and over again.”