re: TUF: Season 9 thread...

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I love how he was trying to call out the Shaun White looking guy. Telling him to jump weight.

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2. Jason Pierce flat out lied to you guys. What did you think after seeing it on TV?

Richie Whitson – Pierce is an idiot and on tomorrow's episode things come to a head between the two of us. I would like to officially call out Jason Pierce! He is a big welterweight but I will move up in weight to fight him, I don't give a shite. I want this fight because I think he is a traitor, I think he is a liar and overall he is just a piece of shite. The thing is that I usually get along with just about everybody I meet and I gave him chances and I tried to reach out to him when everybody else hated him. But you can only take so much from one person and I really have a lot of dislike for him. So if anybody wants to put this fight together, I would take it in a heartbeat. I just really want to Punch him in the face!

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Week Nine: Right, let’s cut to it and talk about my reaction to Dan Henderson and Team USA switching

the training times on the last episode. In real life, this happened about 14 weeks ago, and to this day I am proud of the way I stood up for myself and my team and I don’t regret a word I said.

Hopefully, some of the people giving me heat will change their minds when they learn what actually went down, because to say I am angry about the editing would be an accurate statement.

To my mind – and I know Team UK and my coaches agree 100% - we were given the shaft time and again over the issue of training times and I feel completely justified in standing up for my team.

Here’s the full story: when we first got to Las Vegas, Dan and I and both teams were told by Dana White – it was on camera – that Las Vegas was neutral ground. But Dana wasn’t always around and no, Vegas wasn’t neutral ground and every single member of Team UK will back me to the hilt on this point. They were all pretty sick of it towards the end.

After I got to Vegas, Dan and I were asked which training times we preferred, and I shouted out first I wanted the earlier slots, which were early morning and then early evening. The reason I wanted the early time in the morning was because I didn’t want the late night slot in the evening, leaving my team up until at least 10:30pm every night.

But Dan also wanted the morning slot and, at it happened, even though I said ‘first’, Dan got the slot. The producers compromised and said that we would alternate the nights every other week, so my team would have the early slots in the second, fourth and final weeks of filming.

However, come the second week, and Henderson refused to move and the producers said he could have the best training slots all through the series. I was a bit miffed, especially as we’d been promised these times would alternate, but we got on with it and started incorporating early morning road work into our routine.

But then, during the final week of filming, here comes Henderson suddenly deciding he doesn’t like early mornings after all and wants to change.

And worse, the producers had ALREADY agreed to this without even consulting myself, my coaches or my team. I guess maybe they thought that if only he had a couple hours extra sleep, Henderson would wake up from his month long slumber and actually say something on camera.

I said to the producers “Can’t you see why my Team feel they are getting disrespected here?” but it was clear they just thought the other team should get their own way all the time.

I understand sometime situations are created to create drama in reality TV, which is why I offered to have the winner of the next fight to win the right to the later training time. That was in the spirit of the show but, instead, yet again, Henderson got his own way.

This was the final straw in a series of incidents where Henderson’s group got better treatment than Team UK and I’d had enough and so had every single Brit on the show. I wish that a better editing job had been done here, because the way the show was put together it made it look like I got all excited over nothing and Henderson was perfectly entitled to have his own way all the way.

There was no mention that Henderson had already had his own way with the training times and now wanted to change again, all that was conveniently left out.

Ask yourself this: how come the British fighters walked to the Octagon first in every single fight all season? It didn’t matter if Team UK was coming off a win or a loss, or were ahead or behind in the team standings, the American fighter always came into the Octagon last.

Seeing as I am getting this off my chest, I would also like to point out Henderson has done very little to promote this show. And if you think he’s boring on the show, you should hear him on the media conference calls.

Let’s move on to the other big incident involving yours truly in this episode: me throwing some water into DeMarcus Johnson’s face.

Unlike standing up for my team regarding the training times, I do regret this, as it was out of order. Even though Johnson and I don’t see eye to eye, I shouldn’t have done it, despite him piping up and continuing to push my buttons yet again while I was trying to have a conversation with Henderson.

But I apologised, and come on, a grown man storming off and literally CRYING in the car park for 15 minutes because he’d had a bit of water thrown at him? What is this, American’s Next Top Model? It was the most pathetic, self-indulgent performance I’ve seen since Gwyneth Paltrow won the Oscar.

Basically, the guy had been smirking and sniping at me from day one, right from when I saw through his ingenious plan to psych me out in the kitchen when I first got to Vegas.

He would continue to snipe and smirk at me throughout the entire series and I know if one of my team was disrespecting Henderson, I’d have told him to tone it down a bit.

Moving on to the fight, how much respect did Frank Lester earn by stepping up – smashed up teeth and all – and fighting Dave Faulkner? I don’t know what the deal with Jason Pierce was, but full credit to Lester.

As for the fight, I was and am very disappointed. I’ve known Dave a long time, and this was the chance he’d always talked about getting one day. Yet he let it come and go without giving 100%. Basically, he quit because he was tired, although not too tired he couldn’t have a row with me in the corner telling me that he couldn’t breathe.

As I said, I’ve known Dave a long time but to this day I don’t think he realises what he’s done. Afterwards, he kept saying that he “enjoyed it” and how that was “the most important thing” and I didn’t want to tear a strip off him, but I couldn’t stand there listening to that. I took my four semi-finalists out of there and made sure they didn’t think giving anything less than 100% is okay.

We went into the semi-finals with four Brits v four of Henderson’s team, which I was disappointed with to be honest. Even though we’d never been behind, I felt we could have had an all British semi-final series and the other team could have been just spectators by now.

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But Dan also wanted the morning slot and, at it happened, even though I said ‘first’, Dan got the slot.

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