Episode 1 came to abrupt end 40 or so seconds into the second round with my fight against Valentino, the outcome definitely set off a few of the Poms and while the ref was raising my hand in the middle of the cage our boy Xavier seemed to be pumped about the whole thing which caused a bit of confrontation with Norman from the UK team.  The 2nd major event was Mike being sent home due to a torn bicep, he was a heavy favorite to win the competition in the LW division and heartbreaking for the entire house to see his dreams crushed before the fights began.

Now if you didn't pick up on it the entire UK team was hating on Ben Wall, we couldn't work out the reason for it and I just put it down to the UK being down 1-0 and the amount of testosterone getting around in that house. It didn't take very long at all before Norman and Freakshow came up with a few names and the one that stuck was ‘fox piss’.  It was at this point that the entire UK lightweights were hoping that they would be matched with Wall.

Myself, Manny and Whitaker had the chance to chat to Freakshow a little and he seemed to be a cool guy, a little bit eccentric but pretty cool so we weren’t to sure if the whole persona thing was an act or actually him.  He was a little frustrated with the UFC taking his ‘ bag of goodies’ from him prior to entering the house and I kind of got the feeling he was ready to fight a.s.a.p.

After George looked at putting Wall or myself up first depending on what weight class was nominated Wall had basically double the time I had to prepare.  Freakshow was the chosen Pom to face Mr. Wall and really seemed quite confident in the faceoff.  Our take on the whole thing was the same as the previous fight in the UK showing confidence to mask the nerves and doubt they were still carrying from the ‘shock ‘ loss from the last fight.

Something that hasn't been shown to much so far during the first 2 episodes was the weight cuts, obviously from the first fight Valentino was a much bigger guy than myself and rumor had it he had cut down from around the 95kg mark for our fight at 77kg, Wall and Freakshow are two fairly big LW fighters and I know for a fact Wall cut 10+ kgs for his fight.  I was amazed at how deciplined he was during the weight cut which in turn made the cut seem somewhat easy, I was impressed at his ability to get down to weight and still go balls out for the whole fight.  The fans don't realize how much work goes into making weight and I do think a little more emphasis should be put on what we go through every day in the gym and cutting weight to give the public a better idea of this game we play.

Wall went down in the second fight, which clearly should have gone to a third round.  Credit to Freakshow though he fought a smart fight and did what he had to do to win.  Morale was still high and I think Wall was a little frustrated as he left it to late to chase the fight down and seemed to fight a little different than the Ben Wall we have seen in previous fights. Next week stayed tuned for TUF smashes 1st house challenge WASABI vs PERRI PERRI!

So first things first, being Aussie and a sportsman means that no matter what time of the day it is, what type of activity it is (be it a sport or roc throwing) we cant stand losing let alone losing to the English.  Going into the house this was the mindset the whole Aussie team had.

We arrived to the house a little earlier than the Poms and got to settle in and check everything out. Man we really lucked out with the house and I thought to myself immediately I could get used to this.  Meeting the Poms was a little awkward and my first thoughts were like “ did the UFC send the wrong guys over here because these guys looked huge” I guess you could say they strolled around with a little bit of arrogance but then again which fighter doesn't have a little bit in them.  The person that really got our attention was Colin aka ‘the freak show’ as he was wearing some kind of British flag body suit thing and we knew right away that this house was going to get interesting.

We only had roughly 24 hours in the house before the first fight pick and then another 48 hours before the first fight, with so much to take in so soon it felt like the first fight took no time at all to come around, we all know by now that I was matched up for the first fight against Valentino Petrescu at welterweight.  Now Valentino isn’t the typical welterweight as he had had many fights in quite a few different weight classes, the fact that he was 3 inches taller than me really made him seem huge when we faced off.  Things got a little heated during the weigh ins, I’m not sure why but we ended up nose to nose with our hands by our sides waiting to see who would back down first.

Fight day came around very very quickly and it started to actually sink I that the last 2.5 years of training, of busting my ass in the gym, of sacrifices I’ve made all comes down to 10 or less minutes in the cage.  Now this was something running through my head the whole time leading up the fight and again I question myself “ are you ready for this “.    Stepping into the cage and standing across from Valentino was the exact time I felt this is where I belong right now, right at this point in time.  The fight was full of nervous energy and I think that showed the first round, once my range and timing came together I was able to land a solid left and drop my opponent and follow up with the finish on the floor.  I know a lot of Aussies had their heart in their mouth during the fight but we got the job done!

To finish off I just wanted to talk about the X-mans out burst after my fight, he is a great guy and a very colorful person and very patriotic, which in turn really got under Normans skin. This lead Norman to continuously call for him to be picked next to fight and Xavier was happy to oblige anytime.  The only problem was they are not in the same weight class.  So there is my view on a few events that happened in the first episode.

A quick shout out to my MMA family that has been a huge help to me being where I am  in this fight game today – Fiore mma, Planet max, Axis jiu Jitsu Academy, PUMMA, Punch Equipment, Tiger Muay Thai,  Nutrition Underground,  Suburban Armour,  Sculpt training centre and Flex Pose and Fight. Be sure to keep watching every Wednesday at 7:30pm on FX channel 123 and catch my blog for episode 2 same place same time next week.  

The aussie gangsta benny blanco says ‘don't talk about it be about it ‘