Matt Hughes, Mac Danzig, and John Kolosci have all posted blog entries today regarding last night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter. Here are some quotes from each blog. Every Thursday I will continue to post blog entires from the show’s fighters.

Matt Hughes as usual talks mostly about himself,

They’re making it look like I rolled with Tommy that hard just before he fought, which never would have happened. Plus, they keep keying in on me saying that I wanted “emotion, emotion.” I said a lot of other things, but they kept showing that for some reason. What I was getting at was that this sport is all mental. By “mental” I bring up the second Trigg fight when I was kneed in the groin and the second BJ fight when I was caught in that submission. I could have easily just given up in both of those fights, but it never crossed my mind.

Mac Danzig talks War Machine,

Ah yes, the “War Machine.“ You know, they say if you don’t have anything good to say about somebody, don’t say anything at all. For some reason, this guy has felt the need to spend hours of his own time in online chat rooms, trying to talk bad about me. I’ll let that speak for itself. I have a job to do. It’s called training full-time and fighting. If I spent all my time and money getting tattooed and spray-tanned, I might look more like your typical “So-Cal” meat-head, but I would suck horribly at fighting. Case in point.

John Koloschi on Tom Speer,

Tommy Speer was one of the quietest individuals in the house. He was one of the first guys I connected with, during the first days there, and I did spend more time talking with him than anyone else on Hughes’ team. I remember him stating that he kind of felt bad for leaving the farm for 6 weeks and leaving his family to cover all his work. He said if he lost, he’d really have to consider just going home at that point because if his family watched the show and seen that he was just sitting around with no fight in sight, they’d probably be upset.

Full blogs
Hughes
Danzig
Kolosci

Riding the wave of popularity from this season’s The Ultimate Fighter, coaches Matt Hughes and Matt Serra will grace the cover of Men’s Fitness magazine this December. Actually, the former UFC champ will be on the front cover while the current UFC champ gets stuck on the foldout portion. How pissed is Serra?

According to UFC.com, “the magazine went behind-the-scenes with Welterweight Champion Matt Serra and #1 Contender Matt Hughes to get an idea of how they live and how they train. Practical step-by-step exercises that help get Serra and Hughes into shape are accompanied by the real heat between these two arch-rivals. Check out this lengthy story about what makes these men great rivals and great fighters. “

Today is another weekly installment of Mac Danzig’s insights into The Ultimate Figher. Mac continues his full diary with OC Register, props to him for keeping up with it. Keep in mind that Danzig isn’t necessarily writing about his personal experiences on the show, but also providing a view of things that happened on the show that didn’t affect him personally. The reason why I read his blog is that he provides “behind the scenes” insight not found elsewhere. So here are some of his thoughts from week 7:

About coach Hughes: I understand Hughes’ anger to an extent, but when your coach tells you the he “doesn’t even want to be here” and says “I wish I wasn’t on the show,” how do you think that makes the fighter feel? Like crap. That’s how it made us feel.

The whole bit about how he gave up being around his 10-month-old daughter to be on the show was pretty weak, in my opinion. At least he could talk with his wife and kids every day on the phone, drive around Vegas, do whatever he wanted within reason (and get paid well to do it). If he wanted to blow off some steam, he could take a day off, or go somewhere without cameras in his face.

About family sacrafice: Billy Miles has a 2-year-old son at home that he had no contact with whatsoever. John Kolosci had a similar situation. We were all giving up a huge part of out lives to be there, and him trying to guilt-trip us didn’t come off well to me, especially because I felt our sacrifices during that time were greater than his. That being said, I still maintain that Hughes really cared deep down, and that was simply his way of dealing with it.

The conversation between Dana and Hughes: It was puzzling to watch. It’s not like Dana is always walking around that building with his suit on, and just happened to pass by Matt and have a talk. That was some “tv magic” in my opinion. I didn’t know Dana real well at this point, but I have spent enough time around him and sat and talked with him enough to know that the things he said to Hughes must have been strategic for the show. I really see no other explanation. I mean come on… “Have a F’n ‘come to Jesus’ meeting with them” … I seriously think that entire conversation was a bit contrived, and although in no way scripted, certainly “drama motivated.” I think on a personal level, Dana has a lot more respect for the fighters than what that particular scene would lead you to believe. (more…)

Due to all of the air time Dan received during this week’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter, Mac Danzig has dubbed it the ”Barrer-isode.” Mac’s blog is great because not only is he very opinionated, but he also reveals the inconsistency in production and gives the viewer an inside look at what really happened. Here are some highlight’s from Mac’s thoughts from this week:

On Training - “Ben and Dan get matched up and we get right into a training montage that includes footage from a whole load of different training sessions, all spliced together. This is especially apparent, because it shows Blake training with him, and Blake never did get back on the mats after his fight with Richie, because after all, his ACL was completely torn.”

On the Bathroom Cameras - “As cast-members, we were all under the impression that those [bathroom] cameras weren’t being fed to video tape, and that they were for surveillance only.

On Dan Hitting J-Roc in the Nuts- “Dan’s knee-drop on J-Roc’s baby-makers gets aired. I remember every time Dan would train, somebody would get hurt. The guy was physically and mentally a little bit out of control. J-Roc was convinced that Dan did it to buy time because he was tired. That may be the case, but I think Dan is simply out of control. Kind of like a toddler on high amounts of sugar, just running around with reckless abandon, unaware of other people’s testicles. Unaware of anything at all, really.”

On Dan Running Every Morning - “Barrera was the only guy in the house who had the freedom of being able to go on monitored runs throughout the neighborhood, simply due to the fact that he was the only one crazy enough to be up at 4 a.m. to do it.”

On Hughes Rolling with Barrera- “Hughes actually beat up on Barrera like that multiple times during the show. I really think thats just his way of asserting his dominance over someone who has a lot of spunk. Never once did he act that way in training to me. I think he wanted to “break” Dan, so to speak. It’s more of a college wrestling mentality, I think. He really picked on Dan during training, but it was all in good fun, I guess.”

On Ben Saunders- “Ben Saunders has alot of potential as a fighter. That body-type along with his athleticism could make for a really excellent fighter in the future.”

Of course, all reality TV is edited to bring about the most entertaining product that can be produced.  However, Mac Danzig is giving MMA fans a little bit of insider info regarding The Ultimate Fighter.  Currently Danzig is writing a weekly blog for the Orange County Registers newspaper where he recaps the last episode of each TUF show.  Here are a couple of editing manipulations we learned via Mac that we would have never have known based on the way the show was presented. 

1. Blake’s injury actually happened 1 week prior to even being picked to fight Hightower (the editing made it look like it happened a day before his fight).

2. After Dorian smacked the boom mic, all of the fighters were brought into a meeting with the producers and Price swore up and down that it wouldn’t happen again. The incident of him walking towards the cameraman happened days after the boom mic incident, not the same day as it appeared on the TV show.

The preview of next week’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter will have most people thinking that fighter Dorian Price absolutely flips out. Well, looks like Dorian is one step ahead of the game and has already gone into defensive mode, a pre-emptive strike of sorts.  Not only is he trying to defend his actions, he also lays out some big challenges to anyone who has criticised his MMA skills.  Here is a message Price posted on his MySpace page:

I understand that they are gonna make me out to be a crazy nigga on next weeks episode. Well for the record i want to apologize ahead of time for my behavior there was a reason i kirked out and I’m sure they won’t show it. I’ll explain later. What i did was wrong I shouldn’t have rushed the camera man. Everybody around me told me don’t do the show for several reasons two being that i had a obvious weakness on the ground which every body saw and the other will air next week. America loves nothing more than to make a nigga appear to be crazy. At this point it is what it is but i’d just like to but that out there. In closing i’d just like to say that instead of rushing the camera man i should of rushed the cocksuckas who edited the show. Fuck you cowards who get on those forums and talk shit on me and other fighters. I read your shit some of you posted on me and guess what ya some dumb muthafuckas yeh I ain’t got no ground game but I dare anyone of you fags to stand with me. (Pussies) For the record maybe you get me on the feet but ain’t nobody ever beat me on the feet without paying a heavy price. If you see me on the streets man up muthafuckas test the waters homos ain’t no keyboard to hide behind. Or better yet introduce yourself to me and i’ll set it off for you you chicken shits. I got nothing to lose faggots I’m a man and live or die i fear no one.

P.S. I guess maybe I am crazy but you know what I really don’t give a fuck.

You’re a class act Dorian Price, a great representative for mixed martial arts.