Author: Riley Kontek

This is it…the final episode! They saved the ladies fight for the last episode (even though it was actually the first semifinal fight that happened, so seeing things go down in this order on the show was kind of weird). And we were rewarded with technical striking match between two great fighters. 

My thoughts going into this fight were very mixed. Raquel and I had fought barely two weeks prior, and for both of us, the damage of that battle was only just starting to heal. I knew that Raquel was banged up from our fight, She was struggling with some injuries, and they were affecting her training. I also knew that Jessica Rakoczy was still nursing an injury she received in her fight to get in the house that had affected her training from Day 1.

This made things interesting when it comes to the fight. It made it more of a mental thing.

Almost every fighter that steps into the cage on fight day is dealing with some sort of injury. Sometimes, injuries are minor; sometimes, they are major, but it’s part of the sport. With experience, you learn how to deal with those obstacles and train to your full potential. 

Physically, I felt that Raquel had the advantage in this fight. On the ground, I felt that she had the advantage. Standing, I felt that Rakoczy had the advantage. She may be one of the smaller 135ers, but she’s a professional boxer with almost 40 fights and eight world titles. She hits hard, hits fast and has superb accuracy.

However, this advantage can be taken away by a fighter who has superior wrestling and ground work, and I was sure that Raquel’s strategy going into this fight would be to take it to the ground right away and just smother Rakoczy. We worked a lot with Jessica on getting back to her feet, defending the takedown and using her superior speed and footwork to keep the fight in the range she wanted.

That’s exactly what she did. 

Jessica made Raquel fight in her range and on her rhythm. She was calm and composed and never lost focus. Despite having a serious shoulder injury, she went out there and fought exactly the fight she needed to to win. She never let the fact that she could barely throw her right hand affect her strategy and her composure going into the match.

This is where I felt like Raquel struggled. She was injured and hesitant, which affected her performance. This isn’t to say that if Raquel hadn’t been injured that she would have necessarily won the fight, but it certainly played into the fact that she clearly wasn’t fighting like herself that day. 

I couldn’t have been more proud or happy for Jessica. She truly deserves this, and Ronda Rousey wasn’t kidding when she said that Rakoczy was the most improved fighter on the show. It was an amazing thing to see a fighter with so much experience and seasoning still find ways to grow and evolve. 

So that leaves us with the first overall pick fighting the last overall pick for the title of the first female Ultimate Fighter. Call me biased, but I believe 100 percent that Jessica Rakoczy is going to beat Julianna Pena and take that title on Saturday night.

She’s a better striker than Pena in all aspects. I also think that her ground game is severely underrated. She’s scrappy and never stops moving, and she’s had many months to prepare for this fight in optimum conditions. Her experience will help her here. She knows exactly what she needs to do to win this fight and what it takes to be a champion.

So you heard it here first—get on the #TeamRakoczy train right now and be prepared to see history in the making as she becomes the first female Ultimate Fighter. 

Not only that, but you will get to see yours truly make an official UFC debut! It was announced on Monday that I’m fighting Peggy Morgan on the main card of the finale.

This is a matchup that I’m extremely excited for. I actually thought I was going to have to fight Peggy to get into the house. When we both won our elimination fights, I thought, “We will definitely fight on the show,” and then we ended up on the same team. After Peggy and I lost our preliminary fights in the house, we actually had a conversation one morning over coffee about how we both had a strong feeling we would be fighting each other on the finale. 

Peggy and I are homies. We trained together every day. Because of our size, it was convenient for us to be regular training partners. We lived together for six weeks. Cut weight together. Slept in beds right next to each other. As I’ve said before, everyone on Team Rousey bonded during our experience on the show.

We were a family.

When we all talked about getting the “Every Single Second” tattoo after the show, Peggy and I were the first to get them as soon as we got home. We even got them in the same spot: a script band around our forearms.

However, we are also both fighters. We have the same dream and goals in this sport. I would rather fight people I like. I feel like it brings out the best in you. Anger and hate don’t cloud your performance. Peggy and I were friends before this fight, and we will be friends after, and I have nothing but respect for dear Pegatron.

I know that she’s going to bring her very best against me, and I’m going to do the same. But make no mistake: We are both coming for blood on Saturday night.

Note: All quotes and material were obtained firsthand by Bleacher Report through a one-on-one between Jessamyn Duke and Bleacher Report’s Riley Kontek.

**Tune in Saturday to watch the live conclusion of The Ultimate Fighter 18. Also, we at Bleacher Report would like to thank Jessamyn Duke for partnering with us to produce this excellent series of reflections on the show!

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Note: All quotes and material were obtained firsthand by Bleacher Report through a one-on-one between Jessamyn Duke and Bleacher Report’s Riley Kontek.

This week’s episode has several highlights, most of them involving food. Some good, some bad. Let’s start with Armenian barbecue at the house, because for me personally this was one of the best nights of the whole TUF experience for me. Not just because of the amazing food, but because it was actually my birthday!

The coaches had told us that they were gonna do an Armenian barbecue for us from the very beginning of the show, but they were waiting for the right time to do it so that the most people could enjoy it and not be cutting weight. It just so happened that my birthday fell on the perfect day for this. The only people that had fights left were the semifinalists, and even they had a full week before their fights, so timing was perfect. 

They don’t show any of the birthday festivities on the episode, though, which is a real shame! Rakoczy baked me a delicious red velvet cake, Ronda brought over about 15 different types of ice cream and Shayna orchestrated an amazing magic trick for my entertainment. That magic trick actually explains the ridiculous top hat she was wearing, too. She comes out on the back patio after dinner wearing a top hat and a cape and blindfolds me in a chair. After some monologuing about magic, I hear everyone start beat boxing and they take the blindfold off. Shayna drops the curtain blocking the doorway and suddenly confetti explodes everywhere and two male “strippers” that look a whole lot like Anthony and Josh and are wearing nothing but fedora hats, bow ties, and speedos come bursting out of the kitchen and give me a proper birthday lap dance.

It was one of the most hilarious and entertaining things I’ve ever seen. Not only that, it was incredibly thoughtful. Apparently for weeks Shayna had been planning this and ordering in stuff like speedos and recruiting the others to help with the show. In the TUF house there isn’t much to do for entertainment, so the fact that the others went through all that trouble just for a one-minute lap dance that made me laugh on my birthday really meant a lot. Throwing that on top of the absolutely amazing food from the Armenian barbecue and that made for one of the most memorable birthdays I’ve ever had. 

Now that all that’s out of the way, let’s talk about Davey and Anthony’s fight… Or lack thereof.

Anthony had made weight for his fight with Cody exactly one week prior to his fight with Davey. They didn’t show it, but I saw him step on the scale at 136 for that fight. After that weight cut, though, he kind of went crazy with the food. That whole week he kept treating himself and making exceptions. One week was the longest any of us had to prepare for a weight cut. One of the toughest parts of the show was having to always be so close to weight because if you were picked to fight, you only had 24 hours to make weight… And since you had no guarantee you were gonna fight, you had to cut weight just in case. 

So the fact that he had a whole week to prepare really was a luxury, and he had no excuse not to make the weight. He just lost discipline and lost focus during that time, and it cost him the opportunity of a lifetime. It had nothing to do with him not being physically able to cut the weight either. This is why Ronda made the decision to make weight in 24 hours. The editing of the show makes it seem like Dana talked her out of it, but let me tell you what really happened…

Anthony tried to say that it just wasn’t possible for him to cut the weight because he had screwed up on his diet. But here’s the thing, he could have made it. He left the gym the night before at 144, which is well within a range to make the weight. There is a science to cutting weight and lots of things that we as fighters can do to make it easier on ourselves, but the BIGGEST factor in the weight cut is your mental fortitude…and this is what Ronda wanted to prove.

She jumped on the scale after Anthony missed weight and was 152 pounds. Without any sort of prep (diet, water loading, sodium loading/cutting, etc.) jumped in the sauna and was in there for FIVE hours before it was time to go to the coaches challenge. Yes, Ronda Rousey cut weight in the sauna for five hours, went to a rock climbing challenge, won, and then went BACK to the sauna that night and cut some more.

The next day when it was time for Jessica and Raquel to fight, she was at the gym before anyone else arrived and was back in the sauna cutting weight. When the rest of us arrived she was sitting at 136 pounds in the locker room. I watched her warm up Rakoczy for her fight while on weight and then step on the scale in front of Dana and be 135 pounds. She did this to prove a point.

Cutting weight is mental. You can’t use screwing up your diet or your water loading as an excuse. If you miss weight, it’s because you mentally broke. The fact that she pulled this off really showed that Ronda is on another level mentally. It was inspiring and motivating to see this happen in front of me. It made me realize that I never have to be afraid of missing weight… you just have to be mentally strong and never give up. 

Unfortunately, Anthony gave up. He gave up, and he robbed Davey of his chance to earn his place in the finale what he wanted.

Davey trained harder than anyone else on the team and he was so motivated and excited to fight in front of Dana White and put on a show. He just wanted to make everyone proud for all the hard work and time they put into him. This is why he was so upset. Some people may not understand why he was so upset, but as a fighter, I totally understood. You put in all this work for weeks. You cut the weight. You dream about your shot…and then it’s stolen away from you. It’s such a letdown and so discouraging. We dream about that moment when we get to step in the cage to fight, and without that moment, all of the hard work we put in feels wasted. 

So, onto next week and the ladies fight. Jessica vs. Raquel. I remember when Jessica got this fight and I saw that gleam in her eyes and heard the excitement in her voice when she talked about it, and I couldn’t help but get pumped for her. Both fighters were dealing with injuries, which adds some X-factors, but this was absolutely the semifinal fight I was most looking forward to.

Jessica was a teammate and a good friend and I was confident she had the tools to win the fight…but I had also fought Raquel, and I knew fully what she brings into the cage and respected her skills and determination as a fighter. So tune in next week to see how it all unfolds. You don’t want to miss it. 

**Tune in next week to hear Jessamyn’s thoughts on the continued tension between coaching staffs, more in-depth stories from the house and her thoughts on the fight between Jessica Rakoczy and Raquel Pennington.

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