Welcome to my TUF 14 Episode 2 blog!
So after they gather all the guys together that won to get in the house they lecture us about the rules in house which was a pretty short list! No talking to any camera men, absolutely no touching the camera crew, or talking about the camera crew, no singing, and no asking the coaches outside information at all, and that was pretty much it!
So we get to the house and its a huge mansion in northwest Vegas and I’m the first one in along with Dennis Bremudez and Dustin Pague! We immediately rush to look for a room and bed to claim like a bunch of little kids!
We first check the room under the stairs and it had three beds in it and looked pretty sic so Dustin P. and Dennis snatch up two beds but I wanted to be in a room with my homies John Albert and T.J. Dillashaw if I’m going to have to share a room with people.
So I run down the hall way to the other side of the house and find a sweet room with three bunk beds and claim the first bottom bunk and save two other beds for John and T.J.! John was above me and T.J. was to the left on the bottom bunk with Marcus on the top.
Yes, it was a little weird sleeping 10 feet from the guy when I knew I was going to fight him! Then Stephen Bass and Dustin Neace were on the bottom and top bunk, respectively, of the last bunk! The upstairs had a big open room and had seven beds in it.
Man, that sucks for the guys in there!
So the guys that got stuck upstairs were Johnny Bedford, John Dodson, Roland Delorme, Josh Ferguson, Louis Guidinot, Steven Siler, and Diego Brandao! Downstairs in the room right under the stairs were Dennis Bremudez, Dustin Pague and Akira Corassani. After getting the beds situated it was off to explore the house which was sicko.
Well, at first!
The house was stocked up with so much food it was ridiculous, if you thought of something within reason, it was there!! There was a ton of Miller Lite and hard A and I thought great haha this is gonna get crazy! Then we had a huge feast it was insane and chilled by the pool!
The next day was team picks and at first I 100% wanted to be on Mayhem’s team but Bisping guys cornered me for the fight to get in the house! Bisping’s coaches razor Rob,Tiki, Sean, Z , and his crazy jiu-jitsu coach Brady were all cool but I hadn’t yet met Mayhem’s coaches yet and I liked Mayhem personality a lot better!
Team picks was probably the most stressful time for me because the most important thing was that I made it on one of my buddies team. Also I know I looked like crap due to almost dying from lack of oxygen haha (no-cardio) in my first fight! I Figured there’s two of my friends so the odds are I’ll make it on one of there teams hopefully Mayhems!
Wow Nope I was wrong both T.J. and John Albert aka Prince got put on Bisping’s team and I got put on Mayhem’s and my stress levels went thought the roof!!!
Now I know I’m not gonna be able to train with them and being on the opposite team could cause tension between us and our teams bc we’re friends! I came to the conclusion of oh well these are my real friends outside of this reality show and I didn’t care if we were on different teams or not there still my boys!
Right after team picks our team stays and we train first! He introduces us to his coaches and I really like them, they seem down to earth and very humble!
So a day goes by and since we got first fight choice we have to decide who fighting first from our team! Bedford and I went running together in the back yard and started talking about match ups and that he possibly wanted to fight first. Well the next day he hurts his hand an decided he doesn’t want to fight first and no one else really wants to fight first from our team.
I know I’m out of shape and the next fight is literally only six days later after our fight to get in the house so I STILL wont have any training really or cardio. I know the longer I wait the more my anxiety will just get worse and no one else wants to really fight first so i say heck with it why not.
At least we have control right now and our team will get to pick who I get to fight, so I stepped up and said I wanna fight first! I thought either Marcus or Stephen would be the best match up, preferably Stephen because he had a 10-0 record and I feel he’s a more technical fighter than Marcus and would be easier to control because he would engage with me. I thought it would be more of an overall technical match and i felt he couldn’t hang w me technically and he also wasn’t in the greatest shape either although still more than I was!
I knew Marcus was big strong and in Great shape but he didn’t know what he was doing on the ground and would be like a wild bull trying to get up and out or just come at me which means CARDIO haha! But then Mayhem and the team decided on Marcus which I was fine with I was there to fight!
So at weigh ins during the face off the other team came up w a little song and at first it was funny but then they made it personal by calling me a B#$$# and then when Marcus screamed out this girly yell in my face which was actually pretty hilarious, I thought to myself oh now its on!! So that night I just stared up at Marcus’s bed just visualizing how I was going to choke him unconscious the next day!
So fight day is chill just rest up head to the venue and bring Siler and Bedford with me to warm up with. For 30 fights straight I always threw up right before the fight due to the nerves, excitement, and adrenaline, but the last two fights and this one I didn’t throw up so I’m making improvements!!
So first round I take him down easy move to his back and he scrambling around and I’m thinking damn this dude’s strong haha. I’m trying to working the long choke and the short choke but he’s so dang slippery I can’t really work for the choke with both arms and I realize man Marcus has pretty much no neck lol and he’s more slippery than a wet fish so i throw on a body triangle which is like a vice grip and just try and tire him out a lil.
He does what your typically not suppose to really do and throw punches from a disadvantages position and actually lands a good one to my orbital bone and swells my eye up! Next round I come out and I’m tired as hell haha I end up taking him down a couple times we get in a scramble he gets up stuffs some of my terrible gassed shots but I end up getting a Thai clinch and landed a hard knee to his chin (which they switch cameras so its hard to see well on TV) and that rocks him good and allows me to get a knee tap and land a nice elbow as soon as we hit the ground.
After the knee and elbow I could feel him break and he just gave me the choke! I thought who fighting out of shape sucks thank God I won! After the fight I kept thinking about how slippery he was and remembered Marcus putting on a ton of cocoa butter the day before and the morning of the fight not saying he was trying to cheat it could of been a normal part of his daily regimen but maybe it just caught my attention that day cuz I knew I was fighting him later. Anyways doesn’t matter now cuz I’m in the semi-finals Wooo hoo!
I just want to thank again every one who helped me get to this point in my career, Thank GOD, my family, Yakima MMA, Victory Athletics, AlphaMale, ViciousFight Gear, Bad Reputation Clothing, Fight University, PunchTown, all my training partners and last but not least BleacherReport!
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