Inside the construction of the Tai Tuivasa mansion

Tai Tuivasa and coach Shaun Sullivan go back a long way. Growing up playing rugby league in western Sydney — Sullivan played with one of Tuivasa's older brothers — their sporting endeavors have long been intertwined.

Now, more than a decade on from when a 15-year-old Tuivasa was the second heaviest player at Penrith Panthers — of any grade — at 116kg (255 pounds), the duo stands alongside one another on the cusp of a shot at the UFC heavyweight title.

The journey to build a metaphorical Tai Tuivasa «mansion» is nearing completion, albeit with a few bumps and difference of constructional opinion along the way.

«Tai was just this big kid with a big personality, and this was even before we knew that we were going to be involved in the MMA scene or he would pursue it as career,» Sullivan told ESPN. «And then Tai got involved in a little bit of fight training and I joined in for a bit of rugby league training in the offseason to stay fit and I fell in love with it.

»Tai was just naturally gifted and did really well at it — myself not so much. I had to work hard at it to get some tips and tricks to get a couple of wins on the board. But I had a teaching background and that made it an easy progression to fall into a coaching role and you could tell from an early age that Tai had something special. That's when I took more of a role in making sure he could reach his full potential.

«We had our first fights together and went on a bit of a run, and then he had his first fight under me as his sole head coach when he was about 120kgs, before that he was knocking everyone out and walking around at about 150kg. He won the AFC title and fought James McSweeney [in 2016] and then we got the call-up to the UFC.»

Tuivasa's rise up the UFC's