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The brand new season of The Ultimate Fighter® - The UFC’s long standing reality TV show – has just launched on BT Sport. This season The Ultimate Fighter: Team Joanna vs. Team Claudia – features a host of female fighters including English strawweight, Kate Jackson. Each week, throughout the course of the season, Kate will write exclusively for Mirror online, as she seeks to make her mark on the competition and break her way into the UFC.

I found out about the tryouts for season 23 of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) in the middle of a kickboxing lesson, as a load of people tagged me in some of the announcements. I freaked out slightly as I knew I had to take the opportunity to try out whilst it was there. I took few punches in that session as I wasn't focusing properly on holding the pads!

I wasn't expecting TUF to feature female athletes so soon after the last one. Coincidentally, I had actually agreed to fight Helen Harper (another of the contestants on the show) for another organisation for my strawweight debut that same day! I messaged her when I got home and said, "I guess I'll see you in Vegas!" My coaches and team mates all really encouraged me to go for it, as they knew I'd need pushing into it.

Read more: Womens champ crowned at TUF 20

I encouraged a friend - Kerry Hughes, who fights at bantamweight - to go to Las Vegas for the tryouts with me. We stayed out there for a week and did a bit of sightseeing, training and hiking in Red Rock Canyon. We also met Lanchana Green (the third British female fighter on this series of TUF) out there and hung out with her as well. It was great to get to know her a bit before the show.

(Image: Getty)

The tryouts were slightly nerve racking. The whole thing came down to a couple of minutes of grappling and padwork, but I did well enough to make it through to the interview stage. After that it was just a case of going home and training (and dieting over Christmas!) for a fight I wasn't even sure was going to happen until I was contacted a few days before I flew out.

I knew Irene Cabello Rivera, as we were both signed to Cage Warriors and I'd watched her fight on the European circuit. She'd already had 8 pro fights by the age of 22 and I knew she had a dangerous submission game and had never been finished. I had travelled out to Vegas on my own and not having my coaches there for the first time was really hard. But I had friends in the audience and I knew I just had to fight to the best of my ability and stay out of her guard.

I'm usually pretty critical of my performances, but I out grappled someone with good jiu jitsu and got a great stoppage. I think I could have finished the fight a lot earlier if I had focused on ground and pound rather than hunting for submissions, but I still got the job done.

(Image: Getty)

I really admire Claudia Gadelha’s (one of two coaches on this year’s The Ultimate Fighter) game and I love jiujitsu, so I was really pleased to be chosen to be on her team. Her coaches have been with her for her entire career and I love the way they really care about each other and about helping us all succeed. Having three English women on the show was also pretty exciting and I'm really glad that I ended up with one of them as team mates.

I actually fought and lost against Joanna Jedrzejczyk before she came to the UFC and think the subject will come up a fair bit. There's footage of me taking a lovely head kick from her on YouTube somewhere! It was a few years ago now and both our games have changed and evolved. I have no issues with being around her, though, and I'm pretty certain Joanna doesn't care in the slightest.

Catch episode two of The Ultimate Fighter: Team Joanna vs. Team Claudia at 3am BST on Thursday on BT Sport (repeated at 10pm later that same day)