Sunday, November 6, 2011

The Ultimate Fighter 14 Episode 7 Blog - John Albert on final quarterfinal bout, lame pranks and semifinal picks

By: John Albert, TUF 14 Competitor

John_Albert_180_7.jpg
So the final quarterfinal fight has finally come. Roland Delorme vs. my teammate T.J. Dillashaw. Man oh man how unlucky can you be to get a cellulitis infection right before the fight? Not only was Roland's foot gonna be hurting and not super healthy, but he was put on some super strong antibiotics which absolutely kills your cardio.

The thing is also, people are hating on T.J. for the fight pick, but he and I were probably the closest in the house - again he probably doesn't consider me a real teammate cause realistically we are not - but we clicked together better than anyone else clicked with him, and he was actually pretty distraught about Roland's foot; people can say he was a draft dodger but he was actually upset because he didn't want to fight an injured or not 100% Roland, he wanted to fight him at his best, not have an advantage cause of an injury or sickness.

The special guest for our team, Tito Ortiz, came in, and it was cool but I wasn't overwhelmed by his presence. Still, it was awesome to see a legend, he had some good technique for some ground and pound, but T.J. was actually showing me stuff he learned from Team Alpha Male that was actually better. Funny thing was first thing after he asks if anyone has any questions after his great speech, Marcus Brimage says 'Wow you got a huge head,' straight to Tito's face hahaha, so that little guy you see walking with Tito actually gave Marcus a 100 dollar bill for saying that. It was pretty hilarious.

Training ensues, and I had no idea what was going on with the rest of our team, and seeing the footage was pretty crazy. I had no idea anyone had such a grudge against T.J., hahaha I guess everyone was pretty upset about his comments and actions. It makes me feel pretty good how the rest of the team actually supported me and felt bad for my loss and everything, and I truly grew to love everyone on my team. But, I'm such a kind hearted person, that I wouldn't condone any of those acts towards T.J. no matter how much of a prick or whatever anyone saw him as.

Prior to his fight, he kinda worked with me mostly since everyone was kind of shunning him. But we finally cleared things up I believe with Bisping, because even though we are all from different places around the country we can't train unless everyone was willing to work together.

Miller then had another super lame prank, can't come up with anything original, whatever Bisping does he copies in some way; it was kinda funny, but it was super easy for Tiki to get out, as it wasn't like he was blocked in or we had to get a fork lift, so again, kinda lame.

Bisping then commented later about how I should have taken T.J. into the cage and proven who was the best, but it was the coaches who pushed so hard to do the fight picks that we got and we all accepted it, but it's all good, gotta look good on TV.

Since I didn't get to see the fight because I was in the back warming up, I just now got to watch it, and I was actually pretty impressed with Roland; he had good stand up, and he worked from the ground to his feet pretty well. He shouldn't have thrown those kicks knowing T.J. was such a good wrestler. What surprised me was how wild T.J.'s striking is, but he's super aggressive and moves after he throws which works for him; it threw Roland off cause it's not traditional boxing or kickboxing. But, his wrestling was superb, nothing looked sloppy there, and his GNP is definitely Alpha Male style, but Roland is super, super tough, man, and pushed through all of it.

The problem is as you could see in the second round he was gassed from those antibiotics, and T.J. was too fast for him. Roland was stagnant because he was tired and T.J. put Roland's ass to the mat. Roland was done from the ground and pound, gave up the back and T.J.a got the choke.

Now the semifinal picks come around, and everyone seemed to be dodging T.J. They played the 'I hate Dodson role and I'm upset about it,' but I think that's crap; they didn't want to fight T.J. and they were afraid of him. For the 45s picks went like I thought, but it did feel like Caraway was dodging Diego. But he is right, in retrospect they could have been the finale fight, because Caraway told me how he tools everyone in training on the ground, but also he didn't have the confidence to prove that. The fight picks were all good match-ups for sure, really stellar fights for everyone, and no one seemed like they could make it a one sided fight. So the semis are going to be super exciting.

Catch John on The Ultimate Fighter every Wednesday on Spike TV, and check back here on MMATorch on Thursdays for his thoughts on each week's episode.

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/Guest_Editorials_20/article_11088.shtml

Luke Stewart

No comments:

Post a Comment