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Brock Lesnar vs. JDS: TUF 13 Fighter Chuck O’Neil Blog for B/R, Episode No. 9

Welcome back for The Ultimate Fighter 13 Episode 9 blog with Chuck “Cold Steel” O’Neil. This episode had a lot of everything going on. There was an explosive KO, a entertaining two-round decision and a healthy serving of in-house drama. I’ll get everyone a behind the scenes look as well as a recap on everything that happened on this week’s episode.

On this episode, I weighed in and fought for the third time in only 11 days. My body was starting to feel more and more fatigue with each cut. It actually starts to become visibly noticeable as to what my body was going through as I began to look smaller with each weigh in/fight. My body started to want out, but my mind pushed on. It’s all mental though, nothing was going to stop me from my opportunity I had got within this competition.

As for the matchup of myself vs. Zach, we got to see Zach training before the fight. It was easy to see we both got along pretty well as neither of us had anything negative to say outside of the fact we both felt we were going to win. Zach is an awesome guy, and I was bummed out I had to fight him once, let alone twice. Not to mention what the overall outcome of this fight was made it a little less enjoyable for me.

Due to my first fight performance, Brock and the coaching staff put a lot of focus behind wrestling defense for me. I actually went into the show with having pretty good wrestling defense as my main training partner from back home, Jimmy Quinlan, is not only a beast in BJJ but also was a high level college wrestler. Nevertheless, you can never be too good at any one point in your game, so all the coaching only helped to make me better.

All of this specific focus showed pay off as Zach had a horrible time trying to take me down against the cage throughout the fight, thus keeping the fight standing where I landed a mix of hard punches along with some very solid kicks. Zach just looked frustrated, not being able to execute his game plan at all. You could see the fight slip away from him halfway through the first round, but he kept pushing forward. I kept the damage coming and came away with a huge unanimous decision in our rematch and was beyond pumped to show the world the real Chuck vs. Zach matchup.

Zach was rocked many times throughout this fight. I remember thinking to myself toward the end of the first round “well looks like I won’t be getting another 5k” because Zach is one tough bastard! A lesser man would’ve looked for a way out in these circumstances.

After the fight, learning of Zach’s run in with the eye specialist made me feel like absolute dog crap. I understand injuries are a part of this sport, but you never wish for an outcome like this for anyone. I felt I was partially responsible for taking away a good person’s dreams as well as his career, and that is never my intention going into a fight.

The next match-up showed Tony vs. Ryan. It’s very apparent how Brock feels about Tony and his skills going into the fight. Brock feels Tony is the best on the show and has what it takes to win the show. Ryan, on the other side, is a super tough fighter who has shown his toughness and how he is very well rounded. Unfortunately, what wasn’t shown was how Ryan received a concussion from his fight with Len. Ryan had been in and out of practice since that fight took place. I learned of this two days before the fight, but I didn’t feel it was something I needed to tell Tony about—especially since Ryan and myself began to become pretty close though our daily morning talks.

That being said, in the fight, Tony landed an uppercut from hell on Ryan at which point he went down like he got shot. Tony quickly jumped on him for the finish and has yet to see the second round within this competition. He is super tough and a gamer, especially when he gets the devil look in his eyes.

I definitely feel if Ryan would have been healthy and not coming off some pretty bad head trauma this fight would’ve been completely different. It could’ve played out a million different ways. But…I can’t play what if’s, although this would be a rematch I would love to see further down the line with a healthy version of Ryan!

After the fights were done, Dana took the coaches into his office to discuss the potential semifinals fights, and we four left in the competition had no say in the matter. In my mind, I felt my best matchups would be against either Chris or Ramsey. Unfortunately, I didn’t get my wish, and I was matched up against Tony and Chris vs. Ramsey.

Tony and I were matched up in training a lot throughout the season and spent our rounds going to work, fighting back and forth at a very high pace. We both felt this would be a war where we beat the crap out of each other and would be let down if it was anything less than that. At the time it still sucked as Tony and myself got pretty close throughout our time in the house until the blowout…

The night after our fights was a wild night. Mostly everyone was drinking (except me I can’t drink due to a liver condition). A house full of drunken, testosterone-filled fighters will never end well. The night of fighting actually all started when Tony instigated a back-and-forth argument between Charlie and Len out by the fire. This fight got pretty intense with a lot of nasty things being said back and forth. Len finally removed himself from the scene before the situation turned physical, and looking back, their situation was a walk in the park compared to what came later.

Tony had drank throughout the season, and when he got pretty drunk, he would get his evil look in his eyes like he was possessed. I just brushed it off the first night I saw it, but this time, there was no brushing it off. Tony stepped way over the line by attacking Charlie about his kid which was beyond a low blow. This went on for well over an hour and went all over the house. I did my best to try and make sure Charlie didn’t do anything stupid.

Charlie showed a ton of maturity and self control by not punching Tony’s teeth down his throat because, realistically, he deserved it that night. He was on a complete rampage talking crap and attacking everyone in the house. He had looked Zach in the face and said his face was a joke and laughing at him after he found out that day he will never fight again. He even went as far as physically throwing Nordin to the ground and yelling at him, and Nordin might as well have been a Care Bear because he was just this cuddly little German.

We all finally went to bed and knew the next day to come would not be pretty because this would be an issue which needed to be dealt with. I, however, was no longer in search of a reason to try to go out and KO Tony in our fight. I was ready to put every bit of energy I had left in my body into this fight and try to take him out!

The preview for next week shows some of the aftermath of this blow out as well as the two semifinal fights. Who is going to be fighting in the live finale for the UFC contract Chris, Ramsey, Tony or myself? Make sure to tune in next week to find that out and come check out my The Ultimate Fighter 13 Episode 10 blog! Until next week, this is the “toughest guy on the show”, as stated by Dana, Chuck “Cold Steel” O’Neil.

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Brock Lesnar vs. JDS: TUF 13 Fighter Chuck O’Neil Blog for B/R, Episode No. 8

Whats up everyone and welcome back for The Ultimate Fighter 13 episode 8 blog with Chuck “Cold Steel” O’Neil. We got to see two fights, a quick finish, a little trash talk and an exciting preview. So I’ll get right into the action.The quarterfinal m…

The quarterfinal matchups were selected at the end of the last episode. It was interesting to see how they were a little out of place from the actual order they took place in, but it’s not that big of a deal. They didn’t show the process of each fighter getting brought in to talk to Dana White and the coaches before the picks were selected.

Apparently, everyone on Team Lesnar went in asking to fight Ryan, thinking he was the best matchup or the weakest left on Team JDS. I had asked for Ryan for a different reason, thinking we would match up well and it would make for a solid fight between us. I also asked for Ramsey more so to get redemption for the fight with my close friend Charlie. Team JDS was very vocal on all asking for Chris in the decision process as well as Clay.

The picks actually took a few days to be made after the wild card fight took place as Dana was out of town. This made for a non-stop, three-day long speculation of all our picks in our minds. This process was driving me crazy as well as Chris. We both were getting sick of hearing everyone’s thoughts on the matchups and just wanted them to be announced and happen. Finally, after the fights were announced, the game planning began.

The house was definitely starting to wear on a lot of guys and we were all starting to go a little crazy. Add in the fact that Brock and his coaching staff decided we needed to cut back to one practice a day and here comes the trouble. They felt we needed more time to rest and we didn’t need to train as much leading into the home stretch to prevent injuries. Whatever their reasoning was, I honestly felt they just didn’t want to be there as much and this was an easy out.

With more downtime added into the mix, Team Lesnar was starting to run more pranks and mess with each other a lot more. Myself and Charlie would have a daily water fight at one point or another everyday. This would turn into us wrestling and eventually getting food thrown at each other. One day, both myself and Charlie actually teamed up and ambushed Len sending him out into the yard. Only to his surprise, he got hit by eggs and protein bombs which made a nice mess of him. Len obviously had to one-up us and take things too far as he grabbed an egg, tossed on his Nolan Ryan jersey, and proceeded to pitch it at Charlie as hard as he could.

Everyone was getting fed up with Len’s constant complaining, one-uping stories and, at times, ignorant statements. Charlie was aggravated more so than anyone else. Needless to say, they got into it a bit when the egg fiasco took place and, with the team’s current state of attitude toward Len, he became the outcast.

Over the next couple weeks, Charlie and Len would argue about everything from who is tougher to who has gotten more fat since their fight. It was getting ridiculous and we were starting to feel they may end up fighting in the house. But realistically, Charlie was just more vocal on how everyone was feeling in the house.

The one session we were having a day was actually going pretty well. Brock continued to step up big time with the amount of help he was bringing to the table. The coaching staff was putting together pretty solid individual game plans for Chris, Clay, Tony and myself. Brock was working a lot of wrestling defense for both Clay and Chris as they were getting ready for their fights with the two wrestlers from Team JDS—myself and Tony were working our stand up and BJJ with Compredo. The four of us left on Team Lesnar were going into our fights feeling pretty confident with our matchups and our skills.

Everything was going well for me besides having to approach making weight for the third time now in 11 days which was just getting silly to me. But to hell if I’m going to complain, I’m living my dream and I’m still in the competition.

Clay versus Ramsey. My initial thoughts on this matchup was torn. Part of me felt Clay, with a solid game plan, would be able to pull out this solid win. There was another part of me worried about Clay’s health, so to speak, with the state of his finger. Clay wasn’t the strongest wrestler on our team but he had some decent ground skills once the fight would go there—not to mention the obvious that he is tough as hell.

Throughout all his pre fight game plan and talk, Clay was told to just scramble back up right away if taken down. Honestly, I felt this wasn’t the best of ideas. Clay is more than competent working off his back and could’ve given Ramsey a lot more trouble if he just fought his fight. Unfortunately for Clay, he listened too well to the game plan and was overwhelmed while he was trying to out-scramble the wrestler and eventually choked out in a pretty quick fashion.

In the end, Clay has a lot of balls. He had stitches removed days before the fight happened and at no point did he consider not fighting, even with a super restricted range of motion in the finger. Yeah, it’s only his pinky, but how many people have ever thrown a punch before with a hurt finger? It sucks! Ramsey took care of business and takes out another tough competitor from our team and another close friend of mine. He’s now officially the enemy—ha.

As for the Chris vs. Shamar matchup, this was quite an interesting situation. Shamar completely called Chris out to fight him in the quarters to “shut that woo up” but was still super friendly with him in the house. During the filming of the show, Chris became a Jesus fan and brought an uncreased bible with him. He started asking Shamar which stories he should read next to help him along his way. So in one aspect, Shamar is Chris’ pastor—in the other, he wants to smash him. I found it pretty funny.

Going into the fight, as I said on the episode, Chris has a lot of heart and you have to break him early or else he’ll take your heart and fight away. He did exactly that…I think. This fight in my opinion was awful! I remember being there in person being super uncomfortable as I had to make weight after the fight was done. I gave the fight the benefit of the doubt and thought it might be better watching it under different circumstances but…it wasn’t.

Chris did a good job of frustrating Shamar and taking him out of his game plan. At the same time, Chris seemed super tentative to throw any punches to the point Dana even yelled at him. As the first round of nothingness ended, I remember telling Charlie I felt Shamar was super frustrated but Chris, at the same time, wasn’t doing anything offensive. So that round could’ve been a draw.

The second round started and Chris let his hands go a bit more, but at the same time still running away a bit from Shamar. They both seemed nervous about getting hit or touched by each other which made this the boring fight it was. Finally, the fight ends and we all think it’s going into a third round. When they said the fight was done after the second round, we didn’t know which way it would go.

Chris got the huge nod and Shamar, along with Team JDS, was heated! Shamar started telling us he hadn’t been practicing because of his back condition, however still felt there needed to be a third round. In this, Shamar took the high road, took his unhappiness on the fight out that day, then moved on from there so we didn’t have two bitching Lens on our hands.

Now we have two of the four semifinalists announced with two more quarterfinal matchups to go. The previews for the next episode show a lot of good stuff from fights in the house to actual regulated fights in the cage. I definitely think this next episode will bring the most entertainment out of all the episodes thus far this season. It will definitely make up for the lackluster episode this week. So make sure to tune in!

That will do it for this week’s The Ultimate Fighter 13 episode eight blog. Make sure to check back for next week’s blog with the best cook of this season, Chuck “Cold Steel” O’Neil!

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Brock Lesnar vs. JDS: TUF 13 Fighter Chuck O’Neil Blog for B/R, Episode No. 7

Welcome back for The Ultimate Fighter 13 episode seven blog with Chuck “Cold Steel” O’Neil. Once again this episode was more than entertaining. Delivering a good fight, funny jokes and horrible football skills. There wasn’t enough room after editing to even add in all the crazy stuff that was going on. But…….That’s why I’m here. To give the stories of what the episode didn’t show.

The wild card selection took place immediately after the fights between Tony and Justin and Myself vs Zach. After the selection was announced, Len instantly ran over to Dana and tried pleading his case. He followed this up with an entire van ride home going on and on about how upset he was. This was followed up with three weeks straight of him constantly complaining about the situation. He was constantly talking about how much better he felt he was than everyone in the house and how he was screwed from the wild card slot along with his third round with Ryan.

He would also constantly mention how he should be on the finale and how he hoped Ryan would lose so he could get that fight. I don’t think he fully understood the extent to which he was completely disrespecting everyone in the house. By stating you’re the best in the house to any and every ear available is not only annoying but also disrespectful. Ramsey’s quote on the episode explained it best, stating that Len thought he was the biggest, strongest and toughest guy in the room at all times and that nobody should mess with him.

The situation with Len got more and more entertaining and tense as the last couple of weeks played out. A lot of the guys in the house started to get annoyed with him. We would all still be able to hang out with him and have a good time. But when he started going on his rants it became time to fake sleep. The guys on Team Lesnar all had an inside joke of not only calling Len Captain America, we also would fake pass out into a deep sleep when his rants would begin. Nordin absolutely loved getting this going and even got Team JDS to get in on the fun. There will definitely be more of Len to come in the coming weeks!

We got a chance to see some interaction between Len and Ryan during this episode as well. Ryan absolutely could not stand Len before, during or after their fight. Ryan would take any and every opportunity to cause trouble with Len and sit back and laugh as it all unfolded. Outside of that Ryan would just avoid conversation with Len as if it were the plague. He’d go as far as just stopping a conversation he was having with people just to walk away from an incoming Len. This was all pretty funny because Ryan is a super nice guy who totally avoids confrontation.

At the house, outside of all the Len business, we had a B-day party for Tony. I had planned it out days in advance with Team Lesnar to make homemade pizza for our guys, along with a pinata and a cake. Certainly not the best nutritional choices but Tony was on the lighter side and most of the guys were either out of the competition or didn’t have a fight for almost two weeks. Tony also ordered himself a bottle of Patron, which was polished off within an hour span between Tony, Charlie and Clay.

Charlie and Tony continued on to destroy beers and started feeling pretty good. Clay on the other hand was getting pretty rambunctious and started destroying things in the house. This was awesome because that reminded me of my brother and our antics together back home. So I, being sober, quickly joined the fun.

I was also coming up with funny stuff to do in the house as it was getting pretty repetitive day in and day out. Myself and Clay had food fights, antiqued Charlie twice and came up with the idea of re organizing the contents of the fridge. The fridge thing may sound pretty lame but knowing that Ryan and Javier spent hours a day organizing their food, it was pretty funny. We drew and wrote stuff all over the eggs we had in the house, basically trying to do anything we could to start some kind of situation in the house. As I said we got pretty bored.

This episode also highlighted a problem between Chris Cope and Shamar. I remember being in front of the confrontation in the house and thinking “man Chris just got punked”. Being away from it and seeing it on t.v I definitely view it the other way and find Chris pretty funny. Chris pretty much just yup’d Shamar to make him stop talking, told him he’s not going to stop woo’ing because its what he does. Meanwhile, Shamar had come running out into the kitchen in his cute pj pants while rocking his sleeping mask on his head which was pretty funny on it’s own.

At this point, a lot of the guys were getting a little tired of Shamar’s tough guy attitude. He was pretty much walking around the house holding his nose up in the air like he was better than all of us and was acting like he was the only one who deserved to be there. I recall a situation with Shamar that took place when myself and Charlie went into the training center to grab our things out of the gym. Shamar was infuriated as if we were there to steal his super special move he had or something. He tried to pull the tough guy card and I believe try to scare us away.

Asking us “do you guys know what time it is?”. Apparently the answer he was looking for wasn’t the “game time!” one I gave him and told me we were late and to leave their practice. Charlie and I just pretty much laughed the situation off thinking this guy couldn’t be serious.

We got to see the coach’s challenge on this episode which was a sloppy football drill. Brock and Junior looked very good within the agility aspect of the challenge but when the actual football skill came into play things got ugly! Neither of them could really kick or throw a football very well. But then again who really expected them to. I remember being within the competition seeing Junior catch the pass and break away down the field. I just became sad, knowing I just lost my chance at an extra $1500. In the end Junior being the good guy that he is gave all of the guys on Team Lesnar $100 which was very generous of him. All in all it was cool to get out of the house into a different scenery for a change of pace.

Onto the actual fighting part of this show. This episode shows me going slow on the aerodyne bike looking out of it. This leads to Brock being nervous about having me as his wild card pick. Thinking I didn’t actually want the fight. What was really going on was I was trying to re-focus myself in on this competition and what I needed to do to win this fight. I was also pretty nervous on having to make weight again for the second time in four days. My weight had already gotten back up to 187 after my fight with Zach. On a side note I have never made weight and fought twice in a month let alone twice in a week.

I decided it was time to get rid of my trash beard. It had definitely over stayed its welcome in the house. I felt with the trash beard gone I’d be able to focus much more. Well that and I was done looking like a complete piece of crap. During this time period, I looked to my two close friends in the house, Charlie Rader and Clay Harvison. They both helped me get my head on straight and understand what I needed to do to win this fight. Many times a day Charlie would remind me how he wasn’t getting a second chance and I needed to take mine and make the most of it. Charlie would make it clear telling me he was just as much in my fight as I was. Having two solid friends not only in this competition with me, but also on my team gave me a huge advantage.

It just so happened that when my focus in the competition arrived so did Brock’s coaching abilities. Brock started working with me directly which was something very new to our team and made us pretty optimistic for the remaining half of the competition. It was very noticeable, Brock really wanted me to win this fight. He was going over a lot of great wrestling techniques as well as having me work a lot with Compredo. Compredo, as stated before is a world famous BJJ black belt with an endless amount of skill and knowledge.

He worked a lot on my triangle defense as well as my passing the guard technique. It became pretty much a two hour private with a world class black belt. I was beginning to have more and more faith in my coaches through this process which brought on a higher level of confidence for the fight.

Fight day finally arrived and I was super focused at this point. As shown Tony asked if this was the upgrade of me but like I told him it was the real me. I left for the fight with Charlie and Clay. Once I got there I sat in the room in complete silence focused on the game plan we had put together. I just kept replaying it over and over again in my head and each time it happened it made me realize this WAS going to happen. Brock explains second chances don’t come often and I had to make the most of mine. I feel like I did, as I went out and fought a tough fight with a very game Javier Torres.

The first round saw a pretty close match up as we were landing shots back and forth on each other. Javier kept trying to work the clinch with me but I would keep reversing him and or breaking away, as we worked on in the game plan. First round was super close but I feel like I landed more clean shots to edge out the first round. Second round we came out swinging again where I started landing more of the clean shots and made Javier start second guessing his attack. Javi got a nice sweep takedown but it was quickly reversed as I got up the cage and took him down.

Immediately passing his guard I got to half guard and started grinding on him taking his energy away. Eventually I sunk in the fight ending choke, letting team JDS know that I wasn’t some bum who didn’t belong on the show. I showed I belonged, wanted to be here and that whoever was next better be ready!

Dana later made the quarter final fight announcements. The episode didn’t show the selection process which actually took place. He took all eight of us into his office to ask who we wanted to fight. I told him I wanted to fight Junior at first, as I thought he was the weakest guy in the house. Clearly they knew I was joking, they could tell I wanted to keep my jaw in place. I then told Dana and the coaches I wanted to fight anybody who was left. When asked for two names I asked for either Ryan or Ramsey. I felt I would match up well with Ryan and it would be a fun fight.

With Ramsey I felt his style would clash with mine and I would give him some major trouble. Well that and the fact that he beat one of my best friends so it was somewhat of a revenge thing. Dana also asked who I thought was the toughest guy in the house. I told him I felt Tony was. Reason being he gave me the most trouble out of anyone in practice and we would have some absolute wars. I also felt he was very mentally tough.

So the picks were made and they were actually in a completely different order on the episode then they actually were in real time. In real time it was Chris vs Shamar, Clay vs. Ramsey, Tony vs Ryan and the rematch of myself vs Zach. I was definitely thinking I was going to get Ryan but oh well I get the chance to avenge my loss to Zach now instead. This was an Ultimate Fighter first as a prelim fight would be rematched in the quart finals. This should be exciting!

Thats all for this week on The Ultimate Fighter 13 episode seven blog. Check back next week to see what kind of nonsense Len is up to along with the house drinking and pranks taking place. Also we will get to see two fights in one episode again as Clay takes on Ramsey and Chris takes on Shamar. Until next time, this is the most ridiculous man on the show Chuck “Cold Steel” O’Neil and I want to thank everyone for their continued support!

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Brock Lesnar vs. JDS: TUF 13 Fighter Chuck O’Neil Blog for B/R, Episode No. 6

Welcome back for The Ultimate Fighter 13 episode six blog with Chuck “Cold Steel” O’Neil. I will get to my fight in detail a little bit later.However I wanted to start this blog off by saying I tip my hat to Zach for his performance. I fought like a…

Welcome back for The Ultimate Fighter 13 episode six blog with Chuck “Cold Steel” O’Neil. I will get to my fight in detail a little bit later.

However I wanted to start this blog off by saying I tip my hat to Zach for his performance. I fought like a meat head and eventually got caught up in my own game. I promise that what you are about to read won’t be filled with excuses, because excuses are for losers. Now, onto the episode.

This episode starts off showing the tensions building in the Team JDS locker room between assistant coach Lew Polley and JDS. It seems like this was a recurring issue on their side much like Brock’s constant nonsensical rants were on ours. The show later cuts to scenes of JDS eventually giving Lew the boot off of his team.

This was funny to me for more than one reason. First, it was interesting to see what was going on behind the scenes of their practices and the team’s overall chemistry. Being on Brock’s team we only knew our own practices and never knew any of their drama. Team JDS did a good job keeping their troubles away from us.

Second, I lost it listening to Junior give Lew the boot. For anyone who has ever met JDS they know he is one of the nicest and polite guys you will come across in life. As shown, he was even polite in telling Lew it was time to leave by making sure that his decision was okay with him.

After Dr. Clay’s (Clay Harvison) win, our team went on an instant roller coster. We were all pumped that Clay had just won and got us the control back, but at the same time he had earned himself a free trip to the ER with his remodeling job on his pinky. We immediately got into practice after Clay’s fight, where Brock had heavyweights Chris Toucher and Comprido (Rodrigo Mederios) come into the cage to work some MMA training with us.

At this point both myself and Tony felt this would be a good time to exit the cage, keeping ourselves safe from any heavyweight bodies crashing down on top of us. Good thing we did, as moments later Mr. Wildcard, Len Bentley went down with a knee injury. At this point practice was called off and all our spirits were down.

Back home we got the results of Len and Clay’s evaluations. They weren’t horrible but they weren’t good either. Due to the injury Len was prescribed pain pills which was an awful combo to go along with his already cagey attitude. He continued to grow more and more frustrated with not getting a third round in his fight and it was eating away at him. Len really isn’t a bad guy in the sense that he wouldn’t ever do anything wrong to someone or willfully hurt them.

He just honestly was going crazy from the house. Some days we could sit back and laugh at it and others he would make us nervous as to what he would do next. Nobody can understand what it’s like to be locked up in a house with 13 other guys until they have done it themselves, so I should cut him some slack.

The following day the final two fight picks were announced with Tony Ferguson taking on super tough alternate Justin Edwards, and myself vs Zach Davis. The coaches decided these would be the best two match ups style wise as they did research on both of our opponents. Brock came to myself and Tony to give us some “insight” which was that Justin has a good guillotine and Zach has a good thai clinch. Thanks Brock!

Something that might go over most people’s heads but is worth mentioning is my “what is this strong guys or somethin’?” comment during the stare-down. It all started when one of my main training partners, Josh Grispi, sent me this hilarious video

It quickly became a big hit at one of my gyms, South Shore Sportfighting, to the point where we started calling ourselves “Team Strong Guys.” I felt like I had to pay homage to it on the show somehow.

The coaches were on me and nervous about my weight. Anyone who knows me or has ever cut weight with me back home knows I’m accustomed to having rather big weight cuts. On the show I was being forced to keep my weight a lot lower than normal. I got to a point where I was under 175lbs within 12 hrs of the weigh-in, which absolutely left me in the spirit world. I cut the remaining weight after getting a little sleep and Tony did two jumping jacks, sneezed and made weight. What I would’ve given to have that weight cut….

After we weighed in Unky Brock and the coaching staff surprised us with a trip to the park out at Red Cliffs. Before we left he asked us in his best WWE voice possible “You guys feel like eating some S***??!!” and informed us that he’s going to bring us all In ‘n Out Burger. Of course I declined the offer. The vans drove us a half hour to a pretty basic park, which was a very nice change of scenery and brought us to outside people. At this point we were really starting to feel like inmates because seeing people from the outside world excited us.

I will never forget the scene of Brock pulling up to the park. He sped up, almost ran over a few members of the production crew, and parked his truck in a no parking zone. He then yells out “You guys wanna hear some F***ing music??!!”, which was not allowed during production of the show. This still cracks me up thinking of it to this day.

Following Brock’s grand entrance coach Erik Paulson showed up with a sling shot for us to play with. Of course I was the first person to get my hands on this bad boy. Unfortunately the producers were starting to get a hang of me and came running over, pleading me to not hit anyone with rocks. So…..I followed the rules and shot street signs and light posts like the little hooligan that I am.

Luckily enough not everything from this time span made its way to the episode. The hot sun along with being rehydrated and fed didn’t sit too well with me. This led to me violently puking before getting back into the van. What a great way to start my recovery process from making weight!

Onto the fight day. This was the first time this season there was a double header fight schedule as well as early afternoon fights. The schedule had Tony fighting at 12 PM and my fight was right after his. Watching this episode was the first time that I saw Tony and Justin’s fight and man did I ever miss a good fight! Those two went at it from the start of the fight. By far the most impressive first round fight.

There were so many hard punches landed clean to each of their faces and they just kept it coming. Justin came out early and was taking the fight to Tony, even scoring two take downs on the higher level wrestler. Justin seemed to be controlling the fight before Tony landed the most ridiculous strike ever landed in TUF history, thus giving Tony the most ridiculous knockout in TUF history! Dana was super impressed with both fighter’s performances and they both had good showings.

During the actual fight I was kept in the back room with Charlie Rader and Comprido. Charlie would keep coming back and forth checking in on the fight until the KO happen. Charlie came running back giving me the details of the outcome and after that everything moved really fast. Next thing I knew I was in the cage staring across from a very game Gary Busey….ughhh I mean Zach Davis.

I remember going into the fight, I had the vision of the fight being a very exciting stand up war. Zach had told me he had been to thailand, not to mention had a Vale Tudo tattoo on his leg. I was obviously left thinking this guy is going to come out swinging. Unfortunately for me I planted my feet too much, trying to dig in for a hard punch and wound up on my back within the first five seconds. I worked my way back up the cage only to continue to get pinned there, while I tried to out muscle everything and use zero technique.

Zach worked to get me back to the ground into my guard. This is usually where I feel pretty confident, however Justin gave Zach some insight on me before the fight, letting him know I have a tricky triangle. I eventually worked my way back up and through a scramble ended up on top. This is the only point where I did anything offensive and productive in the fight landing a few decent shots. They were all in vain however, as Zach jumped my shoulder and caught me up in my own game, snapping on a super fast and tight triangle. This brought on a fast tap as much long legged BJJ fighters do.

After the fight I was left pissed off and beside myself in the cage. I’m sure most could gather that through the constant bleeping out taking place. Brock was let down and Dana was impressed with Zach but surprisingly with me as well. He liked that we were going back and forth trying to finish each other on the ground. As seen, when heading back into the locker room, Dana tried telling me “good fight kid” which I wanted no part of.

I’m a very proud person and I work very hard at what I do and I don’t think I deserve praise for getting submitted in the first round. In my mind I’d just had my opportunity stripped away from me for the second time and again I had no control over the matter.

Minutes after the last two fights, the producers took the seven losing fighters into Dana’s office one by one. In his office both Brock, JDS and Dana were waiting to hear us all out. Now on the episode Dana said nobody really showed they wanted the wild card slot all that much. I know from my end I had told Dana, after he told me I had a good performance again, that if given the opportunity to fight again I won’t let him down. I will show him how I really fight and he will then be truly impressed.

After the meeting with Dana I 100% thought it would be alternate vs alternate for the wild card spot because Dana was pumped about myself and Justin’s fight . Unfortunately for Justin he was having the worst luck ever that day and was suspended for the KO.

Brock brought up the match up of myself vs Len Bentley for the wild card fight. He made it sound like if we were to fight Len would beat me quite easily. I was a lot bigger than Len and there wasn’t much he was able to do to me in practice, but I suppose Brock had to support his number one pick.

Talking to Len afterwards he admitted that his knee wasn’t ready to go at that point. It was pretty funny watching Len talk to Dana. He just seemed completely out of it, living on a different planet. He was pretty nonchalant about wanting the wild card spot. Not especially enthusiastic, and if anything cocky because he thought he had it in the bag.

Luckily enough for me both coaches along with Dana saw something in me that they wanted to see more of. I was granted my now third chance at this competition going from alternate, to losing, to getting the wild card slot. I will be fighting the very tough Javier Torres on next weeks episode to see who moves onto the quarterfinals. This is all great news besides the fact I had to make weight and fight four days after my fight that I just had with Zach.

That does it for this weeks blog. Make sure to tune in and buckle up for next weeks episode as the rest of the season is going to be very entertaining! Make sure to check back next week for the episode seven blog with the new look Chuck “Cold Steel” O’Neil!

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