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TUF Nations blog with Chad Laprise, episode 6 recap: ‘Apparently that’s what he does every fight. That’s crazy.’
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.
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.
David St. Martin: Right away we see you go back after Richard Walsh by writing up the fight contract.
Chad Laprise: Yea, what happened with the whole Rich situation was that I just really wanted that fight. Kajan and I are teammates outside of the show so I really didn’t want to have to fight him. I had complete faith in my other teammate, Olivier Aubin-Mercier, that he would win his fight so I just wanted to make sure Rich was who I got. I wouldn’t have cared if Rich was Jon Jones. I didn’t want to fight my teammates.
St. Martin: Rich must have figured that out, so why do you think he said he felt disrespected by you for calling him out?
Laprise: They’ll show more later but every day I was hounding that guy for the fight. It’s funny to see the behind the scenes stuff with Rich saying he wanted to fight Kajan Johnson. I had no idea. I never did anything disrespectfully. It was all done light heartedly. I was just hoping that was the fight the UFC would give me. Either I get the fight because I ask for it or I don’t. We’ll have to see what happens.
St. Martin: I guess I forgot about the semifinal matchmaking process with Dana White. It’s not about team control over picks anymore.
Laprise: Yea, we really didn’t get to pick. You sit down and Dana asks you who you want, but at the end of the day it’s really up to them. They pick who you fight. I just put my two cents in and hoped things would work out for me.
St. Martin: Both you and Kajan remarked that it was starting to get weird being around each other, knowing there’s a solid chance you could be fighting.
Laprise: Yea, Kajan is a good friend of mine and a teammate and I never wanted to think of him as an opponent. I kind of distanced myself a little bit because I didn’t even want to go there. I just wanted to focus on what I had to do to get ready. It was not an enjoyable situation. If he were just another Canadian on the show it wouldn’t have been that bad, but we’re teammates back home.
St. Martin: It was sort of fun to watch you guys cringe through Georges St-Pierre’s fight at UFC 167. Quite a few deep exhales after that decision.
Laprise: Watching any teammate fight is brutal. It’s worse than fighting, yourself. You feel helpless. It was definitely a close fight. Super tight. I could have gone either way. I was just happy to see GSP get the win.
St. Martin: Then moving on to the fight, both Daniel Kelly and Sheldon Westcott looked pretty banged up going in.
Laprise: Yea, I didn’t know really know Sheldon before the show and he was injured the entire time so we didn’t train together much. I knew he was super skilled on the ground, but his knee was really bothering him. When he came out like that it was a whirlwind. I asked Sheldon afterwards if blitzing him was the plan and he said, ‘Dude, all my fights are like that. I just get after it right away.’ It was very impressive.
St. Martin: I thought he might have been trying to get out quick because of his knee.
Laprise: That’s what I thought, too, but apparently that’s what he does every fight. That’s pretty crazy.
St. Martin: You’ve got to feel for Dan. It looked like he was injured at some point in the fight, but damn. Injured or not it didn’t look good for him in there.
Laprise: Dan’s a great competitor. He’s been around forever and his body was really banged up. It was tough just watching him walk up the stairs. All the years have taken a toll on his body. Did I think Sheldon would just go in there and suplex him, throw him on his head? Absolutely not.
St. Martin: Just when the Aussies think they’ve gotten back some respect, Dan takes a beating and now we’ve got more drama about celebrating the win.
Laprise: I wasn’t involved in that too much, but I can totally see their side of things. Their guy was down and out and really upset with himself. If his teammates thought we were saying ‘He’s done’ I could certainly see how that would upset them. I didn’t really catch all of what was said.
St. Martin: Next week we’ve got Olivier Aubin-Mercier vs. Jake Matthews. You train with Olivier at Tristar and Jake is another real young kid.
Laprise: Olivier is an absolute stud and he’s got an unbelievable ground game. He’s a judo black belt and has represented the country in competitions for a long time. They’re making him out to be the next GSP. I didn’t know too much about Jake but I think he’s probably their best welterweight. It’s a battle of two young guns.
St. Martin: Now to the mailbag.
Jamesglory: Was it in anyway strange to have Nordine like a fifth coach, yet see him lose his fight to the youngest guy at that time,Tyler?
Laprise: Even though he lost he still fought incredibly hard. He’s still very knowledgeable, especially in the standup. He has a great muay thai clinch. A real standup artist. Guys learned a lot from him.
Red eyes: Do you train with GSP and Zahabi directly, and regularly? Do you think GSP will return?
Laprise: Yea I go to Montreal for all my training camps and Firas is my head coach up there. He oversees everything. I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve actually sparred many rounds with Georges. I’ve done a lot of work with him and it’s a real honor.
I don’t know if he’ll return or not. He has nothing left to prove. He’s achieved everything he can in the sport. If he does want to come back it’ll be all up to him.
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.
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.
David St. Martin: Right away we see you go back after Richard Walsh by writing up the fight contract.
Chad Laprise: Yea, what happened with the whole Rich situation was that I just really wanted that fight. Kajan and I are teammates outside of the show so I really didn’t want to have to fight him. I had complete faith in my other teammate, Olivier Aubin-Mercier, that he would win his fight so I just wanted to make sure Rich was who I got. I wouldn’t have cared if Rich was Jon Jones. I didn’t want to fight my teammates.
St. Martin: Rich must have figured that out, so why do you think he said he felt disrespected by you for calling him out?
Laprise: They’ll show more later but every day I was hounding that guy for the fight. It’s funny to see the behind the scenes stuff with Rich saying he wanted to fight Kajan Johnson. I had no idea. I never did anything disrespectfully. It was all done light heartedly. I was just hoping that was the fight the UFC would give me. Either I get the fight because I ask for it or I don’t. We’ll have to see what happens.
St. Martin: I guess I forgot about the semifinal matchmaking process with Dana White. It’s not about team control over picks anymore.
Laprise: Yea, we really didn’t get to pick. You sit down and Dana asks you who you want, but at the end of the day it’s really up to them. They pick who you fight. I just put my two cents in and hoped things would work out for me.
St. Martin: Both you and Kajan remarked that it was starting to get weird being around each other, knowing there’s a solid chance you could be fighting.
Laprise: Yea, Kajan is a good friend of mine and a teammate and I never wanted to think of him as an opponent. I kind of distanced myself a little bit because I didn’t even want to go there. I just wanted to focus on what I had to do to get ready. It was not an enjoyable situation. If he were just another Canadian on the show it wouldn’t have been that bad, but we’re teammates back home.
St. Martin: It was sort of fun to watch you guys cringe through Georges St-Pierre’s fight at UFC 167. Quite a few deep exhales after that decision.
Laprise: Watching any teammate fight is brutal. It’s worse than fighting, yourself. You feel helpless. It was definitely a close fight. Super tight. I could have gone either way. I was just happy to see GSP get the win.
St. Martin: Then moving on to the fight, both Daniel Kelly and Sheldon Westcott looked pretty banged up going in.
Laprise: Yea, I didn’t know really know Sheldon before the show and he was injured the entire time so we didn’t train together much. I knew he was super skilled on the ground, but his knee was really bothering him. When he came out like that it was a whirlwind. I asked Sheldon afterwards if blitzing him was the plan and he said, ‘Dude, all my fights are like that. I just get after it right away.’ It was very impressive.
St. Martin: I thought he might have been trying to get out quick because of his knee.
Laprise: That’s what I thought, too, but apparently that’s what he does every fight. That’s pretty crazy.
St. Martin: You’ve got to feel for Dan. It looked like he was injured at some point in the fight, but damn. Injured or not it didn’t look good for him in there.
Laprise: Dan’s a great competitor. He’s been around forever and his body was really banged up. It was tough just watching him walk up the stairs. All the years have taken a toll on his body. Did I think Sheldon would just go in there and suplex him, throw him on his head? Absolutely not.
St. Martin: Just when the Aussies think they’ve gotten back some respect, Dan takes a beating and now we’ve got more drama about celebrating the win.
Laprise: I wasn’t involved in that too much, but I can totally see their side of things. Their guy was down and out and really upset with himself. If his teammates thought we were saying ‘He’s done’ I could certainly see how that would upset them. I didn’t really catch all of what was said.
St. Martin: Next week we’ve got Olivier Aubin-Mercier vs. Jake Matthews. You train with Olivier at Tristar and Jake is another real young kid.
Laprise: Olivier is an absolute stud and he’s got an unbelievable ground game. He’s a judo black belt and has represented the country in competitions for a long time. They’re making him out to be the next GSP. I didn’t know too much about Jake but I think he’s probably their best welterweight. It’s a battle of two young guns.
St. Martin: Now to the mailbag.
Jamesglory: Was it in anyway strange to have Nordine like a fifth coach, yet see him lose his fight to the youngest guy at that time,Tyler?
Laprise: Even though he lost he still fought incredibly hard. He’s still very knowledgeable, especially in the standup. He has a great muay thai clinch. A real standup artist. Guys learned a lot from him.
Red eyes: Do you train with GSP and Zahabi directly, and regularly? Do you think GSP will return?
Laprise: Yea I go to Montreal for all my training camps and Firas is my head coach up there. He oversees everything. I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve actually sparred many rounds with Georges. I’ve done a lot of work with him and it’s a real honor.
I don’t know if he’ll return or not. He has nothing left to prove. He’s achieved everything he can in the sport. If he does want to come back it’ll be all up to him.
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.
