Following each episode of The Ultimate Fighter Heavyweights, Team Rampage member Abe Wagner will share his thoughts on what happened on camera and behind the scenes.
This weeks episode starts out with more discussion about Matt and his brain. The editing isn’t playing up the drama at all on this matter, Matt and his head injury were the topic of much debate and conversation in the house around this time. I think the whole “Matt being forced into fighting” thing was probably more of a miscommunication than anything. I think the coaches (and everybody else) wanted him to make a decision one way or the other and soon, and Matt obviously wanted to fight, but took that pressing as being forced to do it. That’s just my take on things.
At this point Kimbo hadn’t been really training all that much and he spent most of the practice time icing his knee, so I could see where he was a bit hesitant to fight with that in mind.
The volleyball coach’s challenge was interesting to watch, at the time it gave a much needed diversion from MMA. In the house, and on the show, all there is to do or think about or talk about is MMA. I love MMA a lot, but 24/7 for weeks on end of anything and you’ll want a reprieve for a little bit. It’s like bacon; I love bacon, but if you made me eat it every meal for 3 weeks, I’d probably be ready for something different. Anyway, I digress.
The volleyball game was actually pretty interesting. I have to say Rampage and Rashad didn’t really have that much in terms of volleyball skill and it really came down to a match between Tiki and Coach Van. The match came down to the last point of the third game, so it was actually exciting to watch…especially with $1500 on the line for us. Side note, the $100 bills were only on the outside of the brick of money that Rashad won, inside was 20’s. I guess a stack of 100’s didn’t look big enough.
When Kimbo got in the ice tub back at the house, it was one of the funniest moments that happened while we were there. He had never done it before and his body just couldn’t handle that extreme of cold. The comments he was making the whole time like “I didn’t do anything wrong” and stuff like that were priceless.
Going into the fight, Brendan told me his plan was that he knew he couldn’t stop the take down, but he would make Madsen work for it to tire him out and then come back and KO him. He followed his game plan to a T and that’s exactly what happened. Although on the take downs Jon did get, he lifted Brendan high in the air and then it seemed like he set him down more so than slamming him, so I don’t know why that was. I was interested to see this fight, and as a fighter I obviously paid close attention to how Schaub dealt with a really good wrestler like Madsen (for obvious reasons.) Overall it was a good fight and I personally learned a lot from it.
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