Here is some video I shot at the UFC Fan Expo. The SpikeTV booth was ridiculous and was two stories tall, so we waited around upstairs to do the signing. Place was nuts!

Before my last fight, I was trying to buy a house but my lease was expiring shortly before I fought. Instead of signing a new lease, I decided to move back to my parent’s house to avoid rushing to find a house. I put in an offer on a house but it was never accepted and then I fought Jeremy Stephens at Ultimate Fight Night. As everyone knows, I had ACL surgery a month later and have been recovering since. (continue reading…)

A bunch of the guys from my gym went to Dave and Busters last night. For those that don’t know, D&B is a bar/restaurant/arcade. We went and grabbed some dinner and then hit up games for a few hours. Early in the night April did the Spin-N-Win and won a thousand tickets. She was all pumped and we were too… because it was like her 5th play and she had so many tickets they had to reload the machine. (continue reading…)

The last few days have been a ridiculous turn of events.

To begin with, my brother Dan was set to fight on Saturday night in California. Wednesday night we received a call telling us that his opponent failed his physical and wouldn’t be allowed to fight. With less then 48 hours until weigh-ins, it was crunch time and they had to find a replacement opponent.

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Well, last week I talked about how I was flying home to be there for my guys at Untamed. It ended up being a great move and I think it was a nice surprise. With the exception of Gorilla Bob, I don’t think anyone had any idea I was coming home. We even had to guilt-trip my brother into showing up the day before the fight so I could see him as soon as I got home. He had no idea.

We ended up going 4-4 for the night. When you have eight guys fighting, half the guys winning isn’t so bad. I think next time out we will do better, but all of our guys had great fights and, win or lose, should be proud of how they did. As I told my guys, you can’t win them all.

In order to put it all into perspective, I found my very first amateur MMA fight from about six years ago and put it on my YouTube channel. I won’t give away the end, so you can watch it, but it shows that no matter how bad you start out there is always an opportunity to do well down the line.

Dan and I flew to Denver on Sunday night and the flight was luckily pretty uneventful. There was a little bit of turbulence and the flight got in a little late because of snow, but overall it wasn’t too bad. I think Dan watched Juno twice on the flight and was ready to kill himself by the time we landed. JetBlue is usually the way to fly, but the TV stations weren’t working… pretty weak.

Noah picked us up at the airport and we drove to his house in Fort Collins. Along the way all he was talking about was how everything was open until 3 a.m., including all the sub shops and everything else. Apparently Noah didn’t realize it was Sunday, and we deemed him to be a complete liar. Sadly, no subs for us at 1 a.m.. Noah’s house is pretty nice and he has three dogs… Gia, Lilly and Princess. And yes, don’t worry, I gave him a hard time about the names of his dogs.

We went to bed and went training the next morning at Infinite Mixed Martial Arts in Loveland. This is the gym Noah trains at and we met a bunch of the guys that train there and Noah’s trainer, Adam. They have been great to work with and more then accommodating.

We have been getting some great training in while out here and its definitely nice having Dan here to work with. The elevation is definitely different, which is what we expected. It’s not a big difference and shouldn’t be a problem, but I’m glad we got out here early.

Since I came here on Sunday night, I have done around 20 interviews and radio shows. Media for this fight has been ridiculous!

I will check back in next week, thanks for reading.

Send me some feedback on this article on my MySpace at http://myspace.com/lauzonrsd

Last week I got to train with not only Ultimate Fighting Championship 155-pound champ B.J. Penn, but also World Extreme Cagefighting 145-pound champ Urijah Faber. I’ve got to be honest, I really can’t complain about spending the week training with two of the best pound-for-pound fighters out there.

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We got a lot of great feedback when I posted we were looking for sponsors. Unfortunately we were looking for more than most people were willing to spend and we don’t want to leave anyone out. I talked with my agent and we came up with a package that should work for everyone and should get some good exposure for you.

We are going to put 15 or so sponsors on the back of my shirt like this…

We will be wearing this shirt at the weigh-ins, for my walk to the cage the night of the fight, and after the fight. We are offering to put your company name or logo on the back… and we will also ship you the same shirt that my corners and I are wearing. If you follow me on myspace, on my site or anywhere else, you know we take a ton of pictures and get a lot of exposure. This time being the main event, it will be even more ridiculous.

Pricing works like this…. it costs $750 for the top two rows and $595 for every row below that. Is it going to look a little bit like NASCAR? Yes. But you are getting in for a much cheaper price than we could normally afford and we are looking out for the smaller companies that couldn’t afford it otherwise.

If this is something you would be interested in, email Sponsors@JoeLauzon.com and my agent Dean will work out all of the details with you.

Thanks guys,
Joe

Before I get into the UFC74 fights, I want to talk real quick about the the fights that mattered most to me this weekend. I would have loved to make it out to Vegas for UFC74 this weekend, but I had a couple guys fighting back home on a local show. This was my last local show before heading off to Hawaii and my team didn’t disappoint.

Matt “Vitali” Vitale (pronounced “Vital”) made his amateur debut this weekend. Vitale is part of the “3rd Generation” of fighters that Team Aggression has turned out and started off his amateur career on a strong note. Matt came out and stuffed a few takedown attempts, before taking the back of his opponent. In a scramble he lost back control and ended up on bottom, but did a great job of getting back on top. He again worked for the back, and went right from the rear naked choke to the straight armlock and got the submission. Matt was the first fight of the night and set the tone and the pace for the fights to follow.

“Gorilla Bob” Balaschi made his pro debut this past April after a rocky 30 seconds to start his fight. He came out, got excited, and did an excellent job of stopping every punch thrown with his face (someone else said this, I forget who, but I stole it). He got it together though and came back strong and put on a grappling clinic for the next round and a half before sinking the rear naked choke for the submission win.

This weekend he started off much better for Gorilla Bob. Not only did he keep his hands up, but he set up his takedown beautifully and was in control from bell to bell. He worked from within the guard landing good punches and eventually worked to half guard where he TKOed his opponent. I am most proud that this time he remembered his name and knew his fight was over when I talked to him a few hours after the fight was over.

We are very proud of both guys.

Because we were at the local fights, we taped UFC 74 back at home and were just praying that we would get out early before hearing any results. We ignored text messages and phone calls trying to not let anything get ruined. It was going to be particularly tough tonight because Gabriel Gonzaga is from Massachusetts and he was fighting Randy Couture in the main event for the Heavyweight Title. Luckily, we made it out of the venue without having any of the fights spoiled.

Patrick Cote vs Kendall Grove
I thought this was a good fight. Patrick Cote actually trains some locally with Mark DellaGrotte up at Sityodtong in Somerville. I thought the fight was a great display of using all your “weapons” in an MMA fight. Those guys were throwing a variety of punches, elbows, knees and kicks. I thought Kendall was getting the better of a competitive fight before getting caught with an overhand right that knocked him silly. Cote followed up mounting him and hit him enough to get the TKO stoppage at the very end of the first round.

For those of you that don’t know, Cote was originally brought to the UFC as a last minute replacement to fight Tito Ortiz, who Kendall trains with, at Light Heavyweight. Cote said it was funny because he caught Tito with the same overhand right when they had fought. This was the first fight Cote was able to finish in the UFC and you could see how happy he was about it.

Joe Stevenson vs Pellegrino
This fight was interesting to me for a number of reason. Firstly, these guys are both in my weight class and I had a feeling the winner of the fight would be facing BJ Penn for the vacant lightweight title if Sean Sherk is indeed stripped.

More importantly, I had a “T-Shirt bet” on this fight. Its known I like to play poker and would bet on most anything… although I am not as bad as McMackin who would bet a coin toss. I knew this was going to be a good fight, but was pretty confident Joe was going to take it. I had a bet with Rick Caldwell that if Joe won he had to wear a shirt to the next local show that said “Lauzon’s B*tch”. If Kurt won, I had to wear a shirt that said “Rick Caldwell taught me everything I know”. And yes… pictures would be taken. Thats a given.

The fight went pretty much how I thought it would. Both guys were happy to throw until getting caught with a good punch and then showing how wrestling and Jiu-Jitsu should be blended. I thought it was a great fight from start to finish and absolutely loved when Stevenson suplexed Kurt while keeping the back control and then moving to back control from the turtle. Joe ended up winning a unanimous decision, despite having his jaw broken in the first round. Yes… he broke his jaw and still fought on to win a decision with a badass like Kurt Pellegrino. I think we will be seeing Joe and BJ fight very soon.

Roger Huerta vs Alberto Crane
This is another fight I was interested in seeing. Again, both guys are lightweights. And again, I had a bet on the fight. While I won the first bet, I lost this one. Alberto Crane was +300. For those of you that don’t understand how odds work… that means Crane was a 3:1 underdog and every dollar I spent would pay me 3 times that if he had won. I think I bet like $70 bucks to win $210. I thought it would be a close fight as Crane is a wizard on the ground, as he showed. I will take 3:1 odds on a close fight any day.

Roger proved to be just too much for Crane showing excellent submission defense, great striking both on the feet and on the ground, superior cardio and the best use of the large video screen I have ever seen. Roger was on his knees and used the screen to see where Crane’s head was, and delivering elbows. It was like watching someone play a video game and staring at the TV screen. Once again, Roger has one of the most entertaining fights of the night.

Georges St. Pierre vs Josh Koscheck
I bet on this fight too (which I did win). Are you starting to see a pattern here?

We all know it, but it has to be said: GSP is a freak. Koscheck is a ridiculous wrestler and was taken down by someone that never wrestled in high school or college. Like GSP, I never wrestled in either… but I am always working on my wrestling. I know its going to be tough to catch up to guys that have been wrestling since they were 6… but GSP gives me hope.

I thought going into the fight that GSP was going to take Kos down, as he took down Sean Sherk, Frank Trigg and BJ Penn in their fights. GSP also beat in ADCC (which is basically the Olympics of Submission Grappling) a guy that beat Kos in wrestling his senior year in college. Add in the fact that GSP moved really well on his feet and sets up his takedowns well and you have a tough fight for Kos. Kos was swinging for the fences and was taken down in the first round with a double leg. It could maybe be chalked up to carelessness in the first round, and Kos adjusted in the 2nd round. This time, GSP got in again and took him down with a single leg. For the third round, you could hear Kos corner telling him to take GSP down. When he tried, GSP was able to get his legs wide and work out of a deep single leg (much like he did against Matt Hughes while in a deep body lock). This kind of marked the end for Kos as he had GSP on top of him for the 3rd straight round. It was a good fight, but GSP just showed how he is an absolute animal.

Randy Couture vs Gabriel “Napao” Gonzaga

Guess what… I didn’t bet on this one. I really couldn’t. I was a little bit torn for this fight. On one hand, I got to meet Randy while on the Ultimate Fighter and worked out with him and he showed me some great things. On the other hand, Gabriel and his team are from Massachusetts. In the end, I had to pull for the Heavyweight title coming back to Mass.

I was hoping this fight would go from bell to bell the way the opening minutes went. Both guys were throwing punches and rocking each other, working takedowns and just putting in on one another. Randy showed why he is the champ and lifted 250 pound Napao over his head with a high crotch and landed on top of him. During the takedown, it looked like their heads collided a little bit and caused the cut on Napao’s nose. This was the beginning of the end for Napao. Napao needed all the cardio he could get to keep pace with Randy who is known for outworking guys in the cage. Add a broken nose and having to deal with swallowing blood and its only making things more difficult, never mind when you are fighting Captain America.

Randy kept working hard and after 3 rounds was able to overwhelm Napao. To me, it looked like Napao was just mentally and emotionally drained. When you train that hard for a fight and it starts going south and you are seeing your own blood and knowing you are losing, its tough on you. Randy was the gentleman as always and in his post fight interview came right out and said without being asked he felt Napao’s nose break when they landed for the takedown. It’s a fight… things happen. Great fight for Randy, who I hear said in the post fight press conference that he wanted Fedor. With the acquisition of Pride, I am sure the UFC could do a great job of introducing the american audience to the closest thing MMA has to the terminator.

Great weekend overall.

This week on the Ultimate Fighter we have two fights. One is the first of the second round of the tournament, while the other is between two guys who have just lost, and are frustrated being in the house.

Fights picks are a little different this time around. Rather than teams winning and getting momentum, all the matchups were determined at once in the beginning. Dana, Jens and BJ had a meeting and decided on the best fights. That much you saw. What you didn’t see was when each fighter that won their first fight had a very brief sit down with Dana and the coaches on who they wanted to fight. Going into the second round, I wanted to fight Brandon or Manny. I thought both fights were good pairings for me. Brandon is a striker without a lot on the ground, while Manny is good on the ground, but I thought I could get the takedown and put him on the fence. I wanted to avoid Corey, because he is so tall and can make anyone look bad. I would rather not fight Diaz because he is a real bad style matchup for me… being real tall, a southpaw with great boxing and he is very good on the ground once I get it there. I think we all saw Nate as the top guy on Team Pulver, so I don’t think anyone really wanted to fight him, but I don’t think anyone was scared of him either.

The first fight they announced was me and Cole. I was happy with this fight, because I thought I could control the pace of the fight, because Cole’s biggest weakness is his wrestling. I worked with Cole a little bit on evaluation day doing some grappling, and he felt as I had thought he would. He had long legs, but wasn’t very strong. He had good hip movement, so submissions and sweeps were constantly coming, but I felt comfortable that I could stay out of sweeps and submissions while beating him up on the ground and making it a fight and not a grappling match. Team Pulver knew that one of them would have to face their own and BJ had said that everyone on both sides were saying they wanted to fight Cole. I was happy to have the fight because a fight between Cole and I had been talked about since long before either of us even thought of getting on the show. A lot of people would get to see a fight that had been talked about in depth.

I thought Gray fighting Brandon was a great thing for us. Brandon was the biggest guy in the house, but Gray would be able to take him down and keep him there. Brandon has better standup but it doesn’t matter when you have a 3x Div I All-American trying to get you down. I thought Brandon was a good matchup for any of our guys, because we were all good on the ground and would all hopefully be able to get the fight down and keep it there.

I was happy to see Nate and Corey fighting, because it meant we wouldn’t have to deal with either of them this round. One would knock the other out, and it was a win-win situation for us. Nate said he knew that none of us wanted to fight him or Corey, and he was right. In a tournament like this, you would rather have an easier fight so you can go into the next round rested and healthy. Matching up two of their best guys was great for us.

Matt and Manny was almost set in stone before the coaches sat down with Dana. Manny was very clear that he didn’t like Wiman, and he told them that was the only fight he wanted. They just rubbed one another the wrong way and it was apparent in the house. Matt is kind the type to tell you how you should do things, while Manny is the type to tell you to do everything how you want and forget about everyone else. I like both guys, but I can see how they could annoy each other a little bit. I thought this was another good fight for Team Penn because Matt has a lot of height an reach on Manny, and he has no problem standing. So he could keep Manny away with punches, and then stop the takedowns. He would have to stay clear of the clinch stuff so Manny didn’t throw him on his head, but it gave us a clear gameplan which is always good.

We are at a point now where there are 8 still focused on fighting, while the other 7 are just trying to deal with life in the house and having a good time. A lot of the guys were drinking and as it usually does happen, guys get a little confrontational and bad things happen. In this case, it was a brawl between Marlon and Noah. I am never one to give someone a hard time about losing a fight, because we all lose and its going to happen sooner or later. There is no point in kicking someone when they are down and its usually uncalled for. However, I usually don’t talk myself up and make all of these ridiculous claims either, to have the time come to perform and lose in one sided fashion in under a minute. Marlon made a lot of claims about how hard hitting he was, and how he will knock people out, and talking about this and that… and then he got dropped with the first punch of the fight while hanging his chin out, and was choked unconscious in no time. When you make big claims and fall drastically short, you are going to hear about it on the back end. Thats basically what happened at the house sitting around the fire.

Less than two days after being crushed by Matt, Marlon was already trying to build himself up and talk about how he and Weems (who had their fights stopped by the referee) were better than Noah and Allen (who tapped out). Marlon for some reason things its better to lose by TKO or being choked unconscious, than to tap out because you know you are caught. I have always had an internal debate on whats better: tapping out to a choke when you know you are caught, or going to sleep in the middle of the cage, and being woken up in front of everyone. Getting choked unconscious can be embarassing, but I think its worth holding out and trying to get out with your last bit of effort because it could be the difference between getting out and possibly winning or losing outright. However, Marlon is now trying to make his loss out to be better than Noah’s, who would have been a serious world of hurt and rehab had he not tapped, and had serious damage done to his shoulder. It was a transparent ploy, and the guys weren’t hearing it. Marlon says he will never tap in a fight. His career in MMA will be short lived because sooner or later he will be caught in something that will do serious damage and he will be badly hurt, or he will be shown to be a liar like the rest of his stories and tap out. Either way, he looks like an idiot for not knowing when he has lost.

As talking went on… Noah brought up how Marlon lasted 50 seconds and Marlon didn’t like it, and flipped the chair Noah was sitting in. Both guys started taking off clothes and microphones and were ready to throw down. I think everyone was so bored that this was just something new and exciting to do in the house, so no one really cared what happened. Allen was a huge instigator in the whole thing and was really pushing for them to fight, saying things like "Are you ready?" and "Lets get it on" really isnt the best idea… when you are directly drawing comparisons between the UFC and mindless brawling. The UFC has tried to separate itself from these stereotypes for years and as the show starts getting mainstream attention, Marlon, Noah and Monstah steer the show right into that direction.

The actual fight has been called the "most technical streetfight ever" by one Cole Miller. We had takedowns, ground and pound, submissions, slams, punching and kicking combinations…. but it was still a stupid street fight. Noah got a decent sized cut on the back of his head, but he was lucky thats all that happened. After they fought both guys were cool to one another, and even went he the point of signing Noah’s shirt which was covered in his fresh blood.

I knew Noah and Marlon were going home… because they had to set a precedent. The only rules we really had were don’t leave the house, and don’t fight in the house. If people had left the house they would have gotten the boot… and the UFC can’t have people fighting in the house. Setting a precedent, both guys were rightfully sent home. Going one step further, Dana sent Allen home too, which I didn’t expect but I had to agree with after the fact. Allen had as much if not more to do with it than the guys that fought, because if he wasn’t so actively egging it on, both guys would have most likely gone their own ways and left each other alone.

I was very excited for my fight with Cole. As I said, I had worked out with Cole in evaluations, and was actually friends with him before the show. We had talked prior and he told me about how he doesn’t come up with a unique strategy for any fight. He goes out there and tries to kill them with standup, as they try to take him down he tries to guillotine, and then if he ends up on his back he has a great guard and an even better triangle. I don’t think he has the best standup, but I wanted to take him down because I didn’t want to deal with his long arms and legs, but wanted to be careful of the guillotine as I went in for the takedown. Once on the ground, I would be okay… but the guillotine was my biggest threat on the way in. I worked a lot with Tony on posture and keeping my head safe, and working out of guillotines.

Everything we had done in fight preperation paid off. We worked on covering up as closed the distance, we worked on takedowns keeping my head safe, and we worked on a lot of ground and pound from the open guard. The fight started and Cole threw a kick right off the beginning. This was one of our "indicators" to shoot, because his base would be weaker with only one foot on the ground. Unfortunately for me, I shot in at a weird angle and gave Cole my back as the fight started. Immediately I am thinking "wow that was dumb". He has my back and is trying to work the choke, but I never felt in danger. I wasn’t being hit, and it wasn’t the first time someone had my back. I made progress when I got my back to the mat and Cole took mount. You never want to be mounted, unless it means getting someone off your back. I went for his leg the first time, and thought I had the lock, but he managed to work out and remained on top from the scramble. I went for his leg again and this time used it to get on top. Once on top, I was constantly dodging triangle chokes and armlocks, while landing good punches and elbows. I felt in control throughout the rest of the round, but had trouble passing his guard. Cole moves his hips VERY well and gave me some trouble, but I was happy to sit in his guard and land shots. At one point Cole and I were actually talking… he said something like "This is so much fun" and I threw a couple quick punches and said "I could do this all day long".

In the second round, Cole tries to kick again, and as its an "indicator" we take him down. I spend a few minutes on top trying to pass. I eventually start to pass his guard and he turns up for a single leg. I stop him from getting up to base, and I am thinking about a story BJ was telling us. He was telling us about when fought Caol Uno, he was in half guard and got hit with a really good elbow to the side of the head and it made him snap into it and realise he was really in a fight. For some reason, that was all I was thinking about, and I saw an opening and threw an elbow at Cole. When I threw this elbow, it hit Cole right in the back of the head and took the life out of him. He let out a whimper, and I knew he was hurt. I wasn’t trying to hit him in the back of the head, but it happened. I would never try to break the rules… you can actually hear me get warned about hitting Cole in the back of the head with a punch and I adjust and throw another punch and ask "is that okay?" and he ref tells me its okay. It sucks that it happened, but it did, and I was penalized a point. Cole was given time to recover, but it gave me time to rest too. I knew his head would be bothering him and he wouldn’t be feeling well, so when we restarted I went after him with everything. The five minute break was actually a help to me too, because I got a 2nd wind and was able to go after him harder. I ran across the ring chasing him down throwing punches and took him down again. Once down this time, Cole was weak and was hardly fighting back. He was hanging on and trying to tough it out, but there was very little he could do. I looked up at the ref once or twice to end it, but he let it go a little longer before calling an end to the fight.

It really sucks winning a fight when its not clean, but not as much as it sucks to lose when its not clean. I have been on the losing end of a few fights when the fight wasn’t clean, and all you think about is "Well if that didn’t happen, could I have won?" It will haunt you for a long time, and I am sorry it happened to Cole. Things happen sometimes that are out of your control, and this was one of those cases. I talk with Cole all the time and he is cool with it, but I’m sure it bothers him a little bit. Thats how it goes sometimes though.

Thanks for reading.

The theme of this episode was "Say what you mean and mean what you say". In this week’s episode, we have all kinds of people making claims that they really don’t back up.

Wang would give a good effort in training, but a lot of times he wouldn’t be listening to instructions while training. We would be drilling, and he would not listen to advice from coaches on what to do. He would be rolling and training with people, and BJ would tell him thats good stop and he would constantly be saying "one more round, one more round, I am good". These are the things that really pissed BJ off, and that started to wear on him. Gabe told us from the first day that Andy would not listen, and would brawl. So we tried to make him more receptive in training sessions, giving him advice and telling him what to do, but it all fell on deaf ears.

BJ said "Everyone likes a winner, nobody likes a loser. Its done, I don’t care how you did". As a team we felt that Wang gave his fight away. He is great on the ground but refused to take the fight there, where Brandon is weakest. We were particularly upset because we drilled him into Wang how important it was that he take the fight to the ground, and that he needed to follow the game plan. Going into the fight, we were hopeful that he would work to get the fight on the ground, but we all knew he wouldn’t. This left a real sour taste in everyone mouth, particularly the coaches. Wang was apologizing to us, and then in the next breath talking about how it was a great fight and he "left it all in the cage". At one point, one of the producers was talking to us in the back room, and all Andy cared about was what the producer thought of the fight, and if Dana liked the fight. "I hope Dana liked my fight." "It was a good fight." "I left it all in the cage." This is all we heard out of Wang when he wasn’t apologizing. BJ respects guys winning fights… not guys giving the fight away in an attempt to be ballsy. If Wang had listened, the fight would have gone much differently.

I think my fight was kind of a tipping point on everything with Wang. We had two guys that should win their fights…. one didn’t listen and he lost his fight, while the other listened and won convincingly. I think my fight showed BJ what Wang’s fight could have been, and it was salt in the wound to sit there and watch Wang talk about his fight and how "good" it was. There was nothing good about it… he lost. Winning is all that matters, and he didn’t win. End of story.

BJ acted like the general that Dana wanted, and took control of the team. He saw Wang as a problem within the team, and he got rid of him. I thought it was a little harsh, but the way things were going, something needed to change. At first, I thought it was a joke. I was sitting on the mat taping up my ankle and laughing to myself about the whole thing. I started working out with Reagan and I kept telling him "I put nothing past you guys" and then he started laughing at me, telling me it was real. I really didn’t believe it until Dana showed up, and then I was like "Oh shit… its not a joke".

I can understand why Wang didn’t want to go to Team Pulver, because the two teams really did start to click at this point. Everyone got along, but team spirit was very apparent. In particular, our team had really started to come together now that Gabe was gone. Practices were much better, and everyone just got behind each other a lot more.

The ironic part of the whole thing was Rob Emerson. Rob had lost two fights, but gave his 100% in everything from training to his fights. At the same time, he had been taking it easy because he was out for sure…. there was no way he would get a third chance before someone else got a second. So while Andy was getting kicked out for not giving 100%, Rob was riding a scooter around the gym, with a beer in hand and a cup duct taped to his scooter filled with Reese’s Pieces. You just had to laugh at the whole situation.

Then we have Wayne Weems. Not to take a shot at Weems, but I think of everyone in the house, he was the most technically behind. Wayne came from a wrestling background, but had pretty much zero Jiu-Jitsu or striking. I didn’t get a chance to work out with him because we were in different groups for evaluations, and he was on Team Pulver. From talking with a few of the other guys though, his wrestling wasn’t the best either. If you only have one strength, it has to be really good. You can’t be one dimensional and not have it be really strong. We all saw Weems as one of the weakest from Team Pulver and Gray was one of the strongest from Team Penn. We were super confident about Gray’s fight, and you can see why. Weems had this confidence about him that you don’t see a lot. When someone shows that kind of confidence they either know something you don’t, or are delusional. For Weems, he was delusional. He lost the fight, but he fought hard and never gave up. He was just outclassed. The only thing that bothered me about Weems was after his fight when he was in the kitchen, and he started ranting. "He never hurt me." "I would kill that guy, this is bullshit!" It went on for a while, and you couldn’t help but laugh. When its a real close fight, you can complain. When its a borderline early stoppage, you can complain. When you are dropped with the first punch, out positioned, pounded endlessly and show no sign of accomplishing anything… you really don’t have any room to complain about a stoppage. Wayne said he would still be fighting if it were up to him. Fortunately for him, it was stopped, because otherwise he would still be in that same position and eating punches with no sign of getting out. Everyone gets emotional after a loss though, so its not a big deal. The technical ability wasn’t there, but the heart surely was. You can’t teach heart, but you can always work on technique.

And of course… Mr. Indestructible Marlon Sims. Marlon claimed a lot of things. Of everything he said, I saw two things that were true. He said he was a great cook, which he was. The guy can cook! The best meals made in that house was stuff Marlon made. He said he was a chef in some restaurant, and I wouldn’t find that hard to believe. He backed that "story" up. Thats 1 real story.

Another feat Marlon claimed he could do, was eat a spoon full of cinnamon. Everyone was saying no way, so Gabe bet him 100 dollars, but Marlon did it. We didn’t have any money in the house, but Gabe was supposed to pay up at the finale. Whether he will or not, I have no idea. But Marlon did it, even when we all thought he was full of shit. Thats 2 real stories.

After that… it ends for Mr. Indestructible. Lets start with the nickname. He claimed he had never been knocked out by a human being. That was false, and was actually proven while on the show. I’m not sure if you can tell, but there is a peg board in the gym, that had large wooden dowel pegs. You could climb up the wall by putting the pegs in holes that were higher and higher. During one of the Team Pulver practices, Marlon was using the pegboard and started talking to someone and looking over his shoulder. When his shoulder leaned back, the peg came out and he nailed himself in the face with the peg board, knocking him out, and he had to go and get stitches. It was actually questionable if he would even be cleared to fight because of the cut. Fortunately, he it didn’t affect him being able to fight. I am calling shenanigans though… so we have 2-1 in favor of real stories.

Baseball. Marlon claimed that he would have gone on to play professional baseball, if he hadn’t thrown out his shoulder. He supposedly threw a baseball 93 miles per hour. I am calling bullshit on this one.

Street Fights. Marlon had a million stories on street fights, and how he would face 7 guys at once, and would beat them all and would never be hurt. Now if this were true, he would have to be fighting hordes of 5 year olds. Unfortunately for him, he was talking grown adults. To have 300 or more street fights and not once get hit with a blind shot, or have someone pull a gun or knife? I am calling bullshit on this one too.

His chipped tooth. He had two explanation for the same chip in his tooth. At one point he told us it was from a fight, and another time it was from crashing his motorcycle. Contradicting stories for the same chipped tooth… has to be a fake. Thats 2 real stories, and 4 fakes for those of you keeping count.

Motorcycle races. Andy Wang brought up how he had a bike that he rode at home, so in true Marlon fashion about having to outdo any story, he started talking about how he rode motorcycles professionally. I’m calling fake on this one too.

Thats 2 real stories, and 5 fake ones so far. But the best is about how is the most "lethal striker" and the hardest hitting guy in the house. He did a lot of talking about how he knocks people out and noone could stand with him. Then what happens when he fights? He comes out with a ridiculous stance, and is dropped with the first punch that Matt throws. Matt jumps on his back and chokes him out. Marlon talks about how it was a lucky punch. There is no such thing as a lucky punch, unless luck is Matt waiting for Marlon to drop his right hand and then hitting him on the chin.

My count is now 6 fake and 2 real… so maybe Marlon shouldn’t tell so many stories.