Jamahal Hill: UFC not hyping me like they do other up-and-comers

It was an eye-opening performance: At December’s UFC on ESPN 19, Jamahal Hill took a huge step up in both platform and caliber of opposition, and he delivered on his opportunity in spectacular fashion.

Hill (8-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC) made a statement as to where he stands in the UFC light heavyweight ranks when he took out one of the division’s most respected veterans, Ovince Saint Preux, via second-round TKO, and did so in the evening’s co-feature bout.

That’s the type of result that can announce to the world that you’re a real factor going forward. But Hill doesn’t think the UFC brass is yet on board with him the way he feels they should get behind him.

Hill has seen how the UFC’s hype machine gets put behind certain fighters, and he feels like it’s his turn.

“Here’s how I look at it: I see how the attention of how they shine the spotlight on certain things fighters do,” Hill recently told MMA Junkie Radio. “Things like that and that turn people up and blow them up and get the attention of the whole MMA world, that hasn’t happened to me. Even with the win over ‘OSP,’ that didn’t happen for me.”

“And so the ‘OSP’ fight, I didn’t, I wasn’t promoted at all. I’ve seen this video, ‘prospects to watch,’ and I wasn’t even on that, co-main event and undefeated. You know what I mean? Little things like that. The spotlight isn’t shining on me like it is on other people. Which is cool. You know what I mean? ‘Cause at the end of the day, what I can do, my abilities, you can’t ignore it.”

Indeed, Hill, who meets Paul Craig in his next fight at a March 20 UFC Fight Night card, says he OK with the state of things because in his mind, he’s quite simply on another level than his opposition, and that his day is coming very soon, regardless whether he gets a big promotional push.

“I surprise myself a lot sometimes with the things I can do, honestly,” he said. “I surprised myself other day when I was at the gym and I was a little sore, so I didn’t do the sparring session, so kind of ran the sparring session and like mentoring the younger guys in the program on that. And from what I was seeing and the things I was talking about, my knowledge of the game is next-level.

“People don’t really understand, I understand fighting on a whole ‘nother level,” he continued. “I see things, just little things, even unique, unorthodox things that you might not even think matter, but I can make them matter. It all just started with me and a small thing: All right, how do I throw this punch right? What can I mix with that? All right that punch won’t do that, let me get up to speed with this one, work on this one. And I’ve been doing this for years, and people say I’m new to this. I’ve been doing this for 11 years. I’ve been doing it, every little thing, every little tweak, for 11 years, and now it’s all coming together.”