By Nick Ring
Nick Versus Court
Thanks for your kind words, Chuck.
I didn’t walk into the Ultimate Fighter house with an ego and I was quite respectful to Chuck, his coaches and the members of the blue team. I came into the house to work hard and do the best I could do.
I wasn’t bragging about myself, and I wasn’t acting like I was better than I was. I can see that my humbleness inside the house did not spare me from the negative comments of the coaches on the blue team, though. All I can see as I watch the show is Chuck and his coaches ripping into me as if I need to be knocked down a peg – WTF.
I was being completely disrespected by the coaches on the blue team. They were nice to my face, but so far, whenever they talk about me behind my back, all I have seen the blue coaches say is how much I suck and what a horrible fighter I am.
I also think for as much as Tito is portrayed as a bad guy and how Chuck is a portrayed as the good guy, I still haven’t seen Tito actually trash any of the fighters on the blue team (like Chuck and his coaches are doing with me). Win or lose, from what I have seen Tito has been classy with the fighters on the blue team and I haven’t seen him run any of them into the dirt.
In one of his confessionals Chuck says he wasn’t impressed with my striking and that my takedown attempts were terrible. Firstly, I just want to say that Chuck’s feelings towards my striking ability are 100% mutual. I have never been impressed with Chuck’s striking either — so I guess that makes two of us.
Secondly, I don’t know what the fuck Chuck is talking about when he says my takedown attempts were terrible. I didn’t go for any takedowns, you dummy.
I did not make even one takedown attempt in my fight against Court and it kind of makes me wonder what fight Chuck was watching. What I did was upper body tie-ups and clinches off of punch exchanges when Court threw punches at me, but no takedowns. When it came to initiating a clinch I was just about 100% successful in doing so…
I am glad you are a fighter and not a judge, Chuck, because from your comments I’m not sure you know what you are watching enough to actually judge a match correctly. Let me know if you want any tips.
Seth Baczynski Versus Joe Henle
We got Seth (Camozzi’s replacement) fighting the last preliminary fight and it is Joe who is his opponent. Seth is a tough and scrappy guy, and Henle is somebody I don’t know a heck of a lot about at this point.
Joe doesn’t really say a lot about his martial arts background when asked but then again, in a house full of potential opponents it is probably a good decision to not say too much.
And with Seth I found him to be a friendly guy immediately upon meeting him. Over a few short days I also discovered that he is actually really intelligent (despite his self-deprecating sense of humor and his inability to spell).
I had the pleasure to watch him interact with the others in the house and I noticed that he is very good with people and he has a very fun personality – the guy is almost never serious and he can win almost anyone over. He also has some really hilarious stories about some of the things that he has experienced in his past that will have you laughing your ass off. As a person, I found him easy to talk to and as a training partner he was really easy to work with. I was really looking forward cheering my new friend on in his fight against Henle.
Staredown
I found it more than a little weird that Henle wouldn’t put his fists up to face off with Seth. He just stood there and smiled at Seth…
Inside the house Joe had the nicknames of “Jesus” and also “Geico” for his resemblance to the both the “son of God” and also the caveman in the Geico commercials on television. To us they both seemed pretty fitting names for him and were both pretty funny.
After seeing Henle in the stare-down against Seth it looked to me like he had decided to put his Jesus face on because he only smiled. I honestly wondered if he was going to fight Seth or just turn the other cheek. I had this vision in my head of Seth hitting Joe in the face and then seeing Joe tell Seth that he would be forgiven for it.
Knee Injury
I was boxing with Seth in training and my knee blew out when I pushed off of it. This is not the first time I have blown my knee and at that moment I had a feeling I may have done it again –- my leg was not stable anymore after that training session.
I have been struggling to get my MMA career back on track since August 2006, due to my first knee injury which I sustained in a wrestling practice. The first one seemed like it would be pretty uncomplicated and I would be back to fighting within 9 months. I did 9 months of rehab and during a training session I tore my 2nd ACL and had to go back under the knife.
This time, however, it was not to replace the ACL, it was to do a bone graft (taking bone from my hip and jamming it in my femur). I had to get this surgery to allow them to do a follow up surgery to replace my ACL again.
Unfortunately after getting that surgery I had to wait a minimum of 6 months. Due to scheduling problems with the surgeon, it worked out to be 9 months of waiting around for the ACL surgery with another 9 month recovery and rehab. I am not the kind of guy who likes to wait around and it truly pissed me off to watch all of my fighter friends get all these well-paying and big fight opportunities while I am stuck on the bench barely being able to pay my bills.
The worst part about this experience was after my 3rd knee surgery, my knee surgeon said that the surgery didn’t take and I would not be able to fight anymore and that I would need to retire. He even tried consoling me saying that I might be able to teach martial arts classes but my life as a competitor was effectively over.
I was pretty upset at the time because I had put a lot of time and energy into martial arts and it looked like I would get no recognition for the work I had put in. For me to get this far it had taken me many, many hours a day for several years. I am not the most physically gifted athlete to walk the planet, so I had to put some serious time and work into it to get the results I have gotten. At this point in time it looked like I would not be able to make a living as a fighter now. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do now because I didn’t really know anything else.
My surgeon said that he doubted that I would be able to fight on my leg in the state that it was in but after thinking about it for a few days I just thought “who cares what he thinks, I love to fight and if I rip my knee again I rip my knee again – I will just go till it rips again.”
And all this brings me here now, as I am in the Ultimate Fighter house and I am not sure what I have done yet but it looked like my surgeon may have been right about the knee. It simply wasn’t going to hold up.
Weigh-in
Henle looking really cut-up in the weigh in (OWWWW – hubba hubba). You would never even suspect that he used to be overweight most of his life. He told me that as a child he was always the “fat kid.” I think it’s cool to see a person take action and lose the weight.
I think it says a lot of good things about your character to be able to buckle down and do what you need to for your health, and I think that anyone who is overweight can attest to how hard it is to get rid of the pounds.
Seth Versus Joe
This fight was pretty back and forth and there was a lot of good grappling techniques executed (yeah, I know you want to boo. Fucking hit him!) I thought that Henle looked good in this fight. He showed a lot of dominance in the grappling positions and went for a lot of stuff.
I gave the first round to Seth (but only barely), I gave the second round to Henle (but Seth was completely dominant in the last 30 seconds and looked like he might finish Henle with the rear choke), and I gave round 3 to Seth.
Good fight, guys.
Wild Card: Kyacey Uscola versus Kris McCray
McKinney is out because of his injured shoulder, Hammortree is out because of his injured back and that leaves only Kyacey, who got disqualified in his match against Rich. He takes on McCray, who lost his match to Bryant. Kyacey is a very experienced veteran who is fearless to take any fight and McCray is one of the most physically strong guys I have ever had the pleasure to grapple with (once he gets a hold of you he can pretty much do what he wants.)
Dana also brought Court back into the competition to take Rich Attonito’s spot. Honestly, I had mixed feelings about this situation. In one way I was happy for Court because he is a good person and I admire his dedication to becoming the best he can be. But…he is also on the other team and he is really tough. I felt like I had to take a lot of abuse to put him out of the tournament and it was all for nothing. Oh well –- back to the drawing board.
