Call it determination if you want. But, when it comes to a teenage boy who gave up everything and moved into the gym just so he could focus on being a fighter, that word just doesn’t quite cut it.

UFC bantamweight Ricardo Ramos (11-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) had just turned 14 when he started doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu. His dad, who drove a cab, had a client whose son was a black belt and got Ramos into the gym. Ramos couldn’t afford the classes, so he helped out with the cleaning and did what he could in exchange for training.

Then, at 15, he decided to move in.

“I ended up dropping out of school, dropping everything, to live off of fighting,” Ramos told MMAjunkie. “I gave up everything I had because I felt I needed to train to reach a high level. At the time, it’s what I felt was right to do in order to reach those goals of being a world champion in jiu-jitsu and in the UFC.”

His parents, at first, weren’t enthused with the idea. Both of them wanted Ramos to study and go on to college – his mom, in particular. But fighting spoke to Ramos in a way that other things hadn’t. While he had a knack for drawing, he couldn’t picture himself just sitting in chair and doing that all day.

Fighting ultimately gave something he believed he could succeed at based on the work he put into it, and not on the assessment of others.

And then pride gave him an added jolt.

“When I did my first jiu-jitsu championship, about nine months after I started training, I got my ass kicked,” Ramos said. “So I said, ‘Hell, no. I’ll be back and I’ll win.’ So it was a matter of honor, really. I said, ‘I’ll be back, I’ll win one and we’ll see what happens.’

“I started winning and winning and said, ‘This is what I’m going to do with my life. I’ll be champion at this.'”

At 16, Ramos had his MMA debut. At 17 came his second fight. But the turning point came at 18, when he met well-known and much more experienced Allan Nascimento, whose sole loss till then had taken place in Legacy FC. Ramos won by unanimous decision.

Ramos’ own Legacy FC contract didn’t take long, but it took him a year between signing and actually getting to fight.

While the MMA fights still were infrequent, it was the jiu-jitsu tournaments Ramos fought in on weekends that helped him make ends meet. Sponsorship deals were scarce in the early days, but generous enough that he’d find a way to turn that around, too.

“I sold fight gear, sold supplements that I got,” Ramos said. “I sold stuff, hustled, did raffles, sold gis. I made do.”

Offers to teach classes came along – and people around him would ask him why he wouldn’t just take them. But, as tempting as they got when things got particularly rough, Ramos just didn’t want to be a teacher. He wanted to be a fighter.

“I’d rather struggle, be broke and stay focused than to stop it to teach,'” Ramos said. “People thought it was crazy. They said I was tripping, that I lived on too little. I’d go without food. I’d eat pacoca (Brazilian candy made from peanuts and sugar). I’d have 2 Reais, buy four pacocas and that’s what I had to eat for an entire day.

“Sometimes people had a supplement; we’d take a spoon of maltodextrin in order to train. That’s how it started until things started improving and I was able to support myself better.”

Three to four years went by before Ramos got support from a local restaurant. There, the bantamweight was able to have lunch for free – but the meal also served as dinner and “everything else, too.” Still, when he recalls those days, it isn’t with a hint of self-pity.

“I don’t see it as struggle – I see it as preparation,” Ramos said. “If I went through it, that’s because that’s what it took for me to be ready to get here. It had to happen like this and I’m grateful it did.”

“I told my coaches, ‘I’m done.'”

Hearing Ramos recount his past with such serenity and eloquence, one can almost forget he’s only 22. He’s now two fights and two wins into his UFC run – including a recent bonus-winning one, courtesy of a beautifully violent elbow that dismantled fellow bantamweight Aiemann Zahabi at UFC 217.

From the pacoca-eating days to fighting in Madison Square Garden, Ramos is certainly a shining example of how focus can pay off. But as it turns out, even the most seemingly unwavering determination can be shaken if you apply enough pressure.

That was the case in February 2016, when then-undefeated Ramos had the biggest chance of his career yet. If he beat Manny Vasquez at Legacy FC 51, Ramos would not only conquer the now-defunct promotion’s vacant bantamweight belt – but he’d get to do in front of a particularly important player.

“I’d made it in front of (UFC president) Dana White,” Ramos said. “He had gone there with (reality series ‘Dana White: Lookin’ for a Fight’). He’d set this entire thing up just to watch me fight. They’d told me he was there to see me. I was the main event, a title fight.

“Then I got submitted in less than two minutes.”

Simply put, he choked. Looking back, Ramos realizes he wasn’t mature enough to handle the magnitude of what was happening. But at the time, the blow felt too tough to absorb.

“I told my coaches, ‘I’m done. This is it. I think I’ll never have a shot like this again. I think I made it to where I could,'” Ramos said.

His coaches said they would support him regardless. But they encouraged Ramos to stick it out for another fight – even if it was only for the money, considering he didn’t really have many alternative plans to fall back on.

For six or seven months, Ramos went to the gym with no desire to be there. Fights were set and then fell through at the last minute. Ramos got injured. For the first time in his life, he got a nasty boil.

Things kept piling up. Yet, he kept showing up.

And then former Legacy FC president and current UFC matchmaker Mick Maynard made him an offer.

“He said there was an event in Bangor (Maine) – I didn’t even know where that was,” Ramos said. “It was the same situation I’d been in with ‘Lookin’ for a Fight’ before, but this time Dana White was going to watch the other guy.

“I went into it as the guy for him to beat. Maynard said he trusted me, that he knew I could win and that it’d be a huge opportunity.”

“I want to be champion at 23”

Ramos delivered, choking Alfred Khashakyan at “NEF: Dana White Lookin’ for a Fight.” And his following showing already took place in the octagon. But rising to the occasion involved a lot more than just putting in the hours at the gym. As disillusioned as he was at the time, Ramos started investing heavily in mental coaching.

In one of the sessions, Ramos was asked to draw a timeline of when he wanted to reach his goal of being in the UFC. After the loss that tarnished his record, he envisioned it taking five years or so. But, pressed for a more urgent deadline, he turned it into a one-year wait.

“It was cool because I’d lost my fight on Feb. 5 of 2015 and then on Feb. 4, 2016, I had my UFC debut with a win,” Ramos said. “It was hard work. I had to put in sweat in order to get there. I did everything right to get there.”

It took overcoming a number of practical and financial barriers, of course. But, more than that, it took a lot of mental changes, too. Even in his first UFC fight, Ramos brought in an aggressive mindset that had him fueled by how hard he’d had it.

“But now I see that everyone struggles, everyone suffers,” Ramos said. “If he made it to the UFC, I’m sure it wasn’t easy for him either.”

In his second octagon outing, Ramos says, the mindset was different. He was calm. He no longer hammered into his head that he had to win, that he had to impress. After such a painful, hard journey to get to that octagon, why make being up there tough, as well?

“When I look back, it’s not something that inspires me in a bad way,” Ramos said. “I don’t see it like, ‘I’ve been through all of this and I won’t let them take it away from me.’

“I see it more as, ‘Look at everything I’ve been through, look at my baggage, the experience I’ve had in life and in training.’ If I’m living this, it’s because I’m ready for it.”

Ramos is still training in the U.S. and remains unbooked. While he has no callouts in mind for his next fight, he’d certainly welcome ranked opposition. As for the road further ahead? Well, since goal-setting has worked out so well for him, might as well aim high.

“I want to be champion at 23,” Ramos said. “So I have until July 2019 – well, Aug. 1, actually.”

For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, visit the UFC Rumors section of the site.