John Kolosci TUF 6 Blog
BUY DESI FIGHTER
BUY DESI FIGHTER
Photo Credit: UFC.com
John Kolosci wrote up the following in his blog from the Chicago Sun-Times:
We have now been in the house for a while and are finally getting into a rhythm. The training is tough, but Matt Serra, Ray Longo and Pete Sell are PHENOMENAL coaches! I’ve never trained so hard in my life (I’m just happy I didn’t puke)! After 7 straight days of two a days, we finally got a break to try and heal up a bit. Everyone on the team had numerous aches and pains. After all the hard work in the gym, you do feel real good about what you just accomplished. Serra, Longo and Sell continued to remind us that if you want to compete at this level, you have to train at this level. It made it easier having 7 other guys pushing you along with the coaches, and no one wanting to give up. We also talked the staff into getting us a massage therapist and chiropractor to come in one or two days a week. We looked forward to those days. I don’t believe I’ve ever iced up or put so much muscle rub on in my life! I was dreaming of a bathtub full of muscle rub to just lie in, although that wouldn’t be too pleasant on the lower extremities (ouch, the burn!)J Not sure if anyone noticed all the wrappings around everyone’s feet, but we did some footwork drills on the “non-fight” canvas and everyone on the team had HUGE blisters on the bottoms of their feet. Now, I know it sounds like a sissy type issue, but they were horrible, especially when you need to pivot for boxing or shoot for wrestling. Ben Saunders had about a quarter of the skin on the bottom of his foot just hanging loose. His was the worst, and it was quite disgusting. But, of course we dealt with it and moved on…
Training and Bible Study?!?! What was Hughes thinking? I must speak a bit on my “I’m offended as an Atheist” quote since most people do not understand the term. Also, since Hughes and Barrera get their air time on “God this” and “God that” and all I get is one quote, I must elaborate. I don’t try to push my beliefs, but since it aired, I’ll explain. For Hughes to push Christian bible study on people was absolutely ridiculous. What if someone was Jewish, Islamist, Buddhist, Agnostic, Atheist or any one of the numerous other religions out there? It’s completely offensive. I guess I can best be described as a Secular Humanist, which amongst many other affirmations includes no supernatural beliefs. Please remember that Hughes and many others are Atheists to Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithra, Krishna, Baal, Thor, Horus and the plethora of other gods throughout history, but for some reason they are content on believing in their own god. I’m not content, as I believe they are ALL figments of the human imagination. Many religionists will tell me that we need religion for morality? Sorry, but Ancient Egyptians have literature, dated over 4000 years ago, outlining the ethic of reciprocity or the “Golden Rule”, and countless other traditions taught the same thing without supernatural beliefs. This ethic on morality is simply a human and social law of conduct and yes, I do live by it. Religionists continually point to “faith” as their answer when cornered with facts they cannot refute, but to me faith is nothing but the acceptance of a fearless certainty in the absence of all rational evidence, which is antithetical to wisdom. At one time, I was a Christian and I was even a Deacon of a church before I actually started questioning these beliefs, and it did take me a while to break the spell. I will admit that a good brainwashing is hard to break. This is obviously just a short blurb, as I could actually write a book on this topic, but we can save that for a later discussion. Bottom line is that I’m a good moral individual with love for others, but without any supernatural dogmatic beliefs. Thanks for listening, now on to the next topic… Outside of training, there was still “the house”. It was already getting on peoples nerves. Again, watching this show from home is MUCH easier than living it. With no access to phones, internet, books or music, we were all getting a little stir crazy. I could already feel my IQ lowering, as I was dropping the F Bomb in just about every sentence I used. I like to read a lot and this was just strange. We also had just one washer and dryer to share amongst 16 guys that were training twice a day each. It was hard to get a spot, but we managed, and separating whites from colors was not an option. No way can you take up two cycles for such a petty reason! I haven’t done laundry in over 5 years (since I met my fiancé), and embarrassingly had a bit of trouble my first time. I had to get a little instruction…
Joey Scarola was simply a cry baby. Yes, as a person he was a nice guy, but he was mentally weak. I couldn’t even talk to him anymore, as he was driving me crazy. All the negativity and ceaseless crying was very annoying. I was sitting there wishing he would just go home because he was bringing me down. He should have just kept to himself until he got over it, or at least that’s what I would have done. How many times could you hear “You just don’t get it” or “I don’t think I can take this”? Yes Joey, we do get it! Perhaps he wasn’t aware that we were all in this house together and we are all going through the same garbage as he was. Nobody likes losing and nobody likes the house, but guess what, we signed up for this and now we must deal with it. Serra shared a story with us about when he and Joey were in the airport on the way to the show. Joey turns to Serra and asks: “Do you think they’ll let me wear Abercrombie and Fitch on the show”? Now what type of question is that? Is that what a fighter (or anyone for that matter) should be worrying about on their way to the biggest opportunity of their life? Annoying, just plain annoying…
Fight pick time was actually quite amusing, as Dorian was pacing the house as if he was fighting that day. He was absolutely convinced that we were picking him to fight Ben Saunders. Watching the show was the first time I really got to see how Dorian was acting and, quite honestly, he seemed a little nuts. I found it amusing how JRoc was trying to talk him down. I know getting in “fight mode” is something most fighters do, but this bordered on the edge of insanity. I do know that he was very surprised when we chose Matt Arroyo to fight him. We all thought that was a good match up, as Dorian was a stand-up fighter and Matt was slick on the ground. We felt that Matt could get it to the ground and submit Dorian. Honestly, many guys on our team were ground fighters and could have matched up well with Dorian (as long as he didn’t knock us out), but Serra chose Arroyo.
The fight went pretty much as we expected. Matt did eat a big knee at the beginning and he did share with us that he saw stars for a second. But, Matt sucked it up, got the fight to the ground and continued his game plan. He was showing some very nice ground-n-pound and when the ref told Dorian he had to do something or the fight would be stopped, Dorian tried rolling over and was caught in a rear naked choke. End of fight. Matt looked quite impressive and moved himself into the quarterfinals…
I’d like to add a little note about the actual fights. We’ve now had 4 guys fight on this show and all of them agree that the surroundings are just plain “weird”. No one has ever fought in a situation where there are no fans and just a handful of people, you fight in a small gym and you fight with someone you live with. You are eating breakfast and walking around the house with the guy you are going to fight! Not to mention, every fight is now the biggest fight of your life, you know that if you lose you are out of the competition and that millions of people are going to be watching this soon. It’s just plain crazy, and mentally draining, but of course that’s part of the show and we cope with it… Just thought everyone should get an idea of how we are thinking…
Until next time my friends…
BUY DESI FIGHTER
BUY DESI FIGHTER
