TUF Nations blog with Chad Laprise, episode 8 recap: ‘I hated every minute of it’

Team Canada’s Chad Laprise joins us in our weekly Thursday morning Q&A, where he’ll break down all the action that took place inside the TUF house, both in front of the cameras and behind the scenes. Chad’s training in Chicago with Jeff Curran so it’s a quick one this week.

If you have any questions you’d like to ask Chad please let us know in the comments below and he’ll answer you next week. Rec’d comments will get first priority. Now with that said, let’s get things started.

Star-divide

David St. Martin: It was nice to see the Aussies get behind Jake Matthews a little bit after the loss. They really seem to have a good veteran corps between Dan Kelly and Vik Grujic.

Chad Laprise: Yea it was great to see Dan and Vic get behind him. Jake is so young and talented he has nothing to be ashamed of.

St. Martin: Any jealously seeing the Aussies training with Jon Jones? Was it cool to meet him?

Laprise: I wasn’t jealous at all. It’s pretty hard to learn things in one or two sessions. I actually talked a lot with Jon In between sessions and he was a really nice guy!

St. Martin: How was Cung Le? Pick up any spinning techniques?

Laprise: Cung Le is the man and I really enjoyed training with him. I do a lot of the similar things so it was very easy for me to pick up on it.

St. Martin: ‘Everyone wants to fight Rich.’ How was that little pow wow session between the coaches, Olivier Aubin-Mercier, Kajan Johnson and yourself?

Laprise: Yea Rich Walsh was for sure everyone’s target. We all didn’t want to fight each other so everyone was really trying to get that fight. We had a little team meeting about fighting each other and that was kinda weird. At the end of the day we all knew what we had signed up for. The meeting was also to discuss training because we knew two of us were going to fight each other. I personally isolated myself a bit from the rest of the welterweights because I knew that’s what I needed to prepare myself mentally. My main training partner then became middleweight Elias Theodorou because I knew we wouldn’t have to fight. This whole situation for me was very stressful and I hated every minute of it.

St. Martin: Scary stuff to see Sheldon Westcott wearing the neck brace.

Laprise: I was very worried for Sheldon especially after seeing him in the neck brace. I know the type of person he is and no matter what he would still want to fight. Neck injuries are very scary and can end your whole career and I didn’t want that for him.

St. Martin: Patrick Cote said it, Luke Harris just looked flat against Vic. Were you pretty surprised by his performance?

Laprise: Great job by Vic in that fight. He hurt Luke early then was able to capitalize. Luke is very talented and I was 100% confident that he would win that fight. I felt really bad for him because I know he is much better than that and never had a chance to show it.

St. Martin: Luke really isn’t the typical TUF hopeful, owning a very successful and well know MMA brand and gym like Hayabusa. Did he seem better adjusted to the loss given his level of security? Or take it worse because he was finally able to focus 100% on training?

Laprise: Luke is very successful and does not fight because he needs the money he fights because he loves it. He was very upset and I think it’s just because he wasn’t able to show how good he really is in the biggest fight of his life.

St. Martin: Now for the mailbag:

Jamesglory: Chad, could you go into a little detail, on how your team dynamic changed with each fighter, as the chances of team Canada fighter’s having to face each other, draws even closer.

Laprise: I can’t speak for the other guys but I know how I felt. It was very uncomfortable knowing that there was a good chance you were going to fight one of your friends. These guys knew your strengths and weaknesses and everything about you. I really didn’t even like thinking about it. To keep my mind off things I focused on fighting Rich and visualizing, just hoping for the best.

Do you have a question for Chad Laprise? Ask it in the comments below and he’ll answer you next week. The Ultimate Fighter: Nations airs every Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1. Portions of this interview have been edited for concision.

Team Canada’s Chad Laprise joins us in our weekly Thursday morning Q&A, where he’ll break down all the action that took place inside the TUF house, both in front of the cameras and behind the scenes. Chad’s training in Chicago with Jeff Curran so it’s a quick one this week.

If you have any questions you’d like to ask Chad please let us know in the comments below and he’ll answer you next week. Rec’d comments will get first priority. Now with that said, let’s get things started.

Star-divide

David St. Martin: It was nice to see the Aussies get behind Jake Matthews a little bit after the loss. They really seem to have a good veteran corps between Dan Kelly and Vik Grujic.

Chad Laprise: Yea it was great to see Dan and Vic get behind him. Jake is so young and talented he has nothing to be ashamed of.

St. Martin: Any jealously seeing the Aussies training with Jon Jones? Was it cool to meet him?

Laprise: I wasn’t jealous at all. It’s pretty hard to learn things in one or two sessions. I actually talked a lot with Jon In between sessions and he was a really nice guy!

St. Martin: How was Cung Le? Pick up any spinning techniques?

Laprise: Cung Le is the man and I really enjoyed training with him. I do a lot of the similar things so it was very easy for me to pick up on it.

St. Martin: ‘Everyone wants to fight Rich.’ How was that little pow wow session between the coaches, Olivier Aubin-Mercier, Kajan Johnson and yourself?

Laprise: Yea Rich Walsh was for sure everyone’s target. We all didn’t want to fight each other so everyone was really trying to get that fight. We had a little team meeting about fighting each other and that was kinda weird. At the end of the day we all knew what we had signed up for. The meeting was also to discuss training because we knew two of us were going to fight each other. I personally isolated myself a bit from the rest of the welterweights because I knew that’s what I needed to prepare myself mentally. My main training partner then became middleweight Elias Theodorou because I knew we wouldn’t have to fight. This whole situation for me was very stressful and I hated every minute of it.

St. Martin: Scary stuff to see Sheldon Westcott wearing the neck brace.

Laprise: I was very worried for Sheldon especially after seeing him in the neck brace. I know the type of person he is and no matter what he would still want to fight. Neck injuries are very scary and can end your whole career and I didn’t want that for him.

St. Martin: Patrick Cote said it, Luke Harris just looked flat against Vic. Were you pretty surprised by his performance?

Laprise: Great job by Vic in that fight. He hurt Luke early then was able to capitalize. Luke is very talented and I was 100% confident that he would win that fight. I felt really bad for him because I know he is much better than that and never had a chance to show it.

St. Martin: Luke really isn’t the typical TUF hopeful, owning a very successful and well know MMA brand and gym like Hayabusa. Did he seem better adjusted to the loss given his level of security? Or take it worse because he was finally able to focus 100% on training?

Laprise: Luke is very successful and does not fight because he needs the money he fights because he loves it. He was very upset and I think it’s just because he wasn’t able to show how good he really is in the biggest fight of his life.

St. Martin: Now for the mailbag:

Jamesglory: Chad, could you go into a little detail, on how your team dynamic changed with each fighter, as the chances of team Canada fighter’s having to face each other, draws even closer.

Laprise: I can’t speak for the other guys but I know how I felt. It was very uncomfortable knowing that there was a good chance you were going to fight one of your friends. These guys knew your strengths and weaknesses and everything about you. I really didn’t even like thinking about it. To keep my mind off things I focused on fighting Rich and visualizing, just hoping for the best.

Do you have a question for Chad Laprise? Ask it in the comments below and he’ll answer you next week. The Ultimate Fighter: Nations airs every Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1. Portions of this interview have been edited for concision.