While Hawaiian Brad Tavares (4-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) never had any formal martial arts training as a child, it probably shouldn't have been a surprise that he would one day turn to MMA.

After all, if you're going to fight, you might as well get paid for it.

"I first started fighting on the streets," Tavares told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "Being in Hawaiii you fight a lot. I used to get into a lot of street fights, and I knew soon I would get into trouble, arrested, or really hurt somebody. I figured, 'I love fighting; I might as well get paid for it, train hard and make something of it.'"

So after a high school athletic career that saw him play football, throw the discus and shot put, and even do a little bit of rowing, Tavares elected to turn to mixed martial arts.

"I started training formally in 2007," Tavares said. "I think I started in January. It was like my New Year's resolution. I really picked it up, too.

"I wasn't like real sloppy fat or anything, but I was huge. I was 240 pounds, and I felt like I needed to lose weight, plus I like fighting. So this was perfect."

From those humble roots, Tavares made his way to where he is now: one of the 14 competitors to fight his way into the house on "The Ultimate Fighter 11."

Of course, it wasn't a rocket ride to superstardom.

"At first when I started training, I was just training out of this dude's garage and doing it all on my own – just making sure I was in shape and just taking whatever knowledge I got from watching and whoever knew something more than me," Tavares said. "I was just soaking it up. I never had any real instruction at first – until after my second amateur fight. That's when I trained with Team Mixed Martial Arts Development. Their structure is solid – good trainers, good training partners."

Tavares took his first amateur fight just one month after he began training – though he hadn't cut down to middleweight just yet.

"So I started training in January 2007, and then I took my first amateur fight in February 2007," Tavares said. "I dropped from 240, and I took a fight at light heavyweight. I fought that weight, and I knew I could go down more. So my next fight wasn't until June of 2007, and then I fought at 185 pounds."

After that Tavares turned pro. While he enjoyed training in Hawaii, a chance encounter with the co-owner of Las Vegas' TapouT Gym, Kekoa Quipotla, led Tavares to relocate to Las Vegas.

"I met [Quipotla] when I went out to Las Vegas to watch the Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida fight," Tavares said. "My friend Brandon Wolff fought on that card, as well.

"We were out eating sushi, and he approached me. He was like, 'Oh, you fight?' I was like, 'Yeah.' He asked where I was training, and I told him I was training back home. He gave me his card and said, 'Hey, I run this gym out here, Tapout. I take care of the local guys.' He understands us."

So Tavares packed up and moved to the desert and began training as a member of Team Tompkins as well as working out at Xtreme Couture.

"When I moved out to Las Vegas, I kept [Quipotla's] card," Tavares said. "I called him, and actually the day that I moved out here, I didn't even have a ride yet. He actually came to my house from the gym, he picked me up, and he brought me to train. So I started training there, and then I met some guys over at Xtreme Couture.

"Couture's is a well-known gym, so I train over there, too. They've got a lot of good sparring partners and whatnot."

Tavares kept his job a Hawaiian Airlines and started pursuing his dream of fighting professionally. He thought he had hit paydirt in season 10, but he had it taken all away when the UFC elected to go with a heavyweights-only season.

"I tried out for it last season, and they gave me that '99 percent' call, and then three days later, they [expletive]-canned us," Tavares said. "They only did heavyweights."

Nevertheless, Tavares went through the process a second time in anticipation of season 11, and this time it paid off.

"I did it again just because they said, 'Oh, you don't need to do it, but it would be good because (UFC president) Dana White will be there,'" Tavares said. "I was like, 'I don't want to take any chances. I'll do what I got to do.' So I did. I drove out to Los Angeles, and I did everything again."

At 22, Tavares is the youngest fighter on this season of "The Ultimate Fighter." But as his stunning first-round knockout win shows, he's certainly got promise – even if he didn't grow up preparing himself for this moment.

"At one point, I remember sitting at home and watching Matt Lindland fight somebody, and they were talking about how he was a silver medalist and all his wrestling credentials," Tavares said. "I was like, 'How am I ever going to do this? I didn't wrestle. I didn't go to a Division I college.'

"I was getting down about it, and I called up my coach, and I was like, 'How am I going to get there?' He just told me, 'Those guys, yeah, they have this and that, but what you have is fresh molding to be able to build it all in together. It's going to take time, but you'll get there.'

"That just made me want to push more."