THE CANADIAN PRESS

While Jason (Dooms) Day is anything but an overnight success story, the UFC chapter of his mixed martial arts career continues to move at an impressive clip.

Watch Sportsnet Connected on Thursday night for a feature on Day and his rise in the UFC.

A late addition to UFC 83 in Montreal in April -- the UFC had a hard time finding a head shot of Day for its website after he was brought in to replace injured Montreal middleweight Patrick Cote - the 29-year-old fighter from Lethbridge, Alta., turned heads in his UFC debut by manhandling Alan (The Talent) Belcher.

Now, thanks to a brush with the law by Chris (The Crippler) Leben, Day finds himself occupying second billing on the UFC 85 card this Saturday in London at the 02 Arena where he will take on England's Michael (The Count) Bisping.

Not bad for someone who had originally bought tickets to watch UFC 83 from the stands at the Bell Centre. Then again, that's exactly where Day ended up after needing just three minutes 58 seconds in the cage to dispatch Belcher.

"I went into the crowd and my brother was there and my girlfriend so I hung out with them," Day told The Canadian Press prior to leaving for London on Monday. "I watched the rest of the fights. It was weird because I went and sat in the crowd, it was like I was watching the UFC and it was hard to believe I was just down there."

The fans helped him remember, however.

"The trip up there took a little while," he acknowledged.

Day's journey to the UFC also took time, lasting almost six years and 21 fights. He and his manager Lee Mein even drove to Las Vegas last summer in a $900 VW Jetta (which broke down in Butte, Mont., on the way back) to meet UFC matchmaker Joe Silva and see if a UFC fight was in the cards. The answer was yes, if you keep winning. Day did just that.

Day's routine back home remains the same despite the high-profile win in Montreal. He continues to build houses in the family business and conducted this interview while hanging drywall.

"You know, nothing's really changed," he said. "I've always been pretty well known in Lethbridge as a fighter. The same people just congratulate you. A lot more people are sending me messages on the Internet and that's kind of cool that way. But everyday life is the same. I go to work and I train and that's about it.

"Maybe after this fight, I can scale it (the day job) back. Hopefully I'll have that assurance that there'll be money there and that I won't have to worry about making it. I can get money from UFC and sponsors and scale it back a bit. I'll always build houses, always like to work with my hands and that. So I don't think it's something I'd really quit but I'd definitely like to scale back and be able to train more."

As for Bisping, Day says he had thought of the Brit as a possible opponent before the fight with Leben fell through. Leben was forced off the card after serving some jail time on Oregon on a parole violation that meant he had virtually no time to train.

"He's a pretty fun fighter to watch so I thought it might be a good next step for me to take him on since he just came down to the middleweight division (from light-heavyweight)." Day said of Bisping. "People started asking me and I said that's who I'd like to fight. It's just coincidence that everything worked out."

The 29-year-old Bisping (16-1) was also a late addition to the London card. He too fought in Montreal, having little problem disposing of (Chainsaw) Charles McCarthy.

The two opponents met in Montreal, although Days says he thought nothing of it at the time.

"I didn't even measure him up. At the time it wasn't even a thought in my head. I just said `Hey there's Michael Bisping' and that was about the extent of it."

.Bisping says Day is just as dangerous as Leben, but just doesn't carry the name recognition at this stage of his UFC career.

"It's only the hardcore MMA fans who know who he is," he told the Sun newspaper in Britain. "It's a difficult situation because if I beat him, people will be asking who the hell was he and if I lose, to some people it might look like I've been beaten up by a nobody, so it's kind of frustrating.

"But at the same time I'm a professional fighter and regardless of who the opponent is I'm there to fight."

Day understands where Bisping is coming from.

"I can see from his point of view, if you're worried about what the fans think then yeah, it's a dangerous fight for him," he said. "Because the mainstream crowd doesn't know who I am yet. Lots of the Canadians do, and hardcore MMA fans that have been following the sport.

"But as far as the UFC is concerned or anybody that knows what's going on, I think I'm just as legitimate opponent as Leben would have been. I feel I'm more dangerous than Leben is."

Indeed. Day, an imposing figure at 185 pounds, showed against Belcher that he can deliver punishment both on his feet and on the ground. The Canadian has also won five straight and is 15-2 since December 2005.

While Day is focused on Bisping, he still remembers the feeling of his first UFC win, on home soil. He celebrated the victory in the middle of the cage, arms upraised.

"Man that's up there, one of the best feelings in my life for sure. When you work so hard for so many years at something, like I didn't quite believe it would come true until that moment. You go inside the UFC Octagon and you win in your home country in that kind of fashion, it was a huge release for me. I didn't know what else to do but yell."

The crowd reaction during the fight is a bit fuzzy, however,

"I was just pretty focused and it happened so fast that I can't recall. It's blurry but I can remember hitting him a couple of times and the crowd got louder and louder. I don't know if it was in my head or that's the way it was happening. It seemed like every punch, it got more intense."

Day clearly remembers his entrance, however.

"That was crazy, that was a good feeling," he said. "I remember that because I took it all in. I was like this is only going to happen once, my first fight.

"Everyone's leaning over, high-fiving you. It was great. I mean even for my first fight, just being Canadian, they were cheering their ass off for me."