Jalin Turner

America’s Jalin Turner is a UFC Mixed Martial Arts fighter from San Bernardino, California. Known as “The Tarantula” because of his collection pet spiders, he has fought in the legendary promotion’s lightweight, welterweight, and catchweight categories since 2018, winning the majority of his matches by knockout. He has also competed in a number of other MMA competitions, including Bellator MMA, King of the Cage, Tachi Palace, and the World Series of Fighting.

Turner was born in 1995. At high school, he became interested in wrestling and joined the school team. Unfortunately (or perhaps not given his subsequent career) a broken finger put his wrestling aspirations on hold. Sat at home, he began watching UFC tournaments on TV, and decided that was what he wanted to do. Living in a house without much money, he couldn’t afford the proper equipment, but he took to shadowboxing whilst running and began using the sofa as a rudimentary punchbag as well as something to sit on watching MMA fights. His dedication paid off, and when he joined the local Team Adrenaline, his career began to take off.

He made his lightweight debut in February 2016 at WSOF 28 in California, where he won by KO in 32 seconds. By the time of his UFC debut, at UFC 229 in Las Vegas in October 2018, he had a win record of 7-3. He lost his first match for the promotion but won his second within a minute. In September 2020, he made his debut in the catchweight category, forcing opponent Brok Weaver into a submission hold.