Randy Harrison
The tenth season of The Ultimate Fighter reality show is set to begin on Wednesday night on Spike TV, and for the first time ever the readers of Nokaut.com will be able to get first-hand accounts of what went on in the house during the six weeks of filming. Nokaut.com has been able to secure the services of Heavyweight fighter Zak Jensen to serve as our blogger for the season. Every Thursday, Zak will check in with his thoughts on the show and give insight beyond what you see on TV for every episode.
Zak is a collegiate wrestler who also played football while spending two years at Northern Illinois University and two years at Augsburg College and has put together an 11-2 mark as a professional fighter in a career that began in 2007. Jensen's last fight prior to appearing on The Ultimate Fighter was a first-round KO win over Matt Hirsch at a Brutaal Fight Night event in February. Jensen is currently training out of Gorilla Combat in Minnesota.
In this exclusive interview with Zak on the eve of the debut episode, we get to know about his path that led him to The Ultimate Fighter, talk about his experience trying out for the show, what it was like inside the house, being part of the UFC Fan Expo and so much more. Enjoy the interview and be sure to check back every Thursday for Zak's take on the season!
Nokaut.com: I guess we'll start with what led to you originally pursuing the sport of MMA?
Zak Jensen: I started boxing when I was still in college when I was wrestling. I started doing Toughman tournaments and stuff like that and after that I went into Golden Gloves. I was at a Golden Gloves tournament and I ran into my trainer's friend who was an MMA promoter. They were talking and he knew I was a wrestler and he asked if I ever wanted to do an MMA fight. I said sure and a couple of months later he called me and asked me if I wanted to fight on his card. I said ok, went out there, picked up the win and I fell in love with it. Been doing it ever since.
Nokaut.com: When did you become a fan of MMA? Did you find it through your trainer and training, or was there something previous that had you hooked?
Zak Jensen: I was aware of MMA and I actually remember watching the first UFC with my dad. We love fights, boxing and everything and we saw this new thing on TV that was fighting so we ordered it and we watched it and it was interesting to us. You had the smaller guy, Royce Gracie, beating everyone with his jiu-jitsu. Obviously it went away for a while when there wasn't regulation, but I've always been aware of MMA since it began. My first experience with martial arts was actually tae kwon do. I started that when I was five and took that until I was thirteen and I started wrestling.
Nokaut.com: Had you been working to make yourself a lot more well-rounded prior to trying out for The Ultimate Fighter?
Zak Jensen: Absolutely. I've been working on my jiu-jitsu, submission defense. That's obviously my main weakness since my losses to Brad Imes and Mike Whitehead were both submissions so I've been working on that. Obviously still working my wrestling and stand-up, but trying to be as well-rounded as possible.
Nokaut.com: Take me through the tryout process and how you ended up getting through the auditions to become a castmember this season.
Zak Jensen: I found out on a Sunday night that they were having tryouts that Monday morning, so I hopped on the last plane out. I had to take a shot because I can't sit there and say "What if I would have went?". So I went and went through the whole thing. They had a grappling round and if you made it through that you got to do striking where they watch you hit mitts. Joe Silva and a couple of the producers would watch you hit mitts and if you made it through that they get you in the interview. After that interview they call you back about a week later, went out to Vegas for all of the medicals and the main interview with the Spike executives. They said thank you and then you just kind of waited. They kept calling and saying "your medical check came out" or "your background check came out" and then three or four weeks after that they said "we can't give you a 100%, but we'll let you know by Friday" and that was on a Tuesday. So I spent four days waiting and they finally called and said congratulations and set everything up for me to fly out and all of that. It was actually surreal to where I had to look back down at my phone to say "Did that just happen? Was that just real?"
Nokaut.com: Was there any feedback you were getting going through the different stages?
Zak Jensen: The grappling round was three minutes and they'd just let you roll and then at the end of it all when everyone had their turn, they'd call back and say that these certain people made it to the next round. Then with the striking, they'd have eight people do it at once and Joe Silva would walk up and down and tell people when they were done. He'd look and watch some people for a longer period of time, some people for a shorter period of time. Then after that, they call everyone back again for who made it through the interview round, then they called back three days later to get me out to Vegas.
Nokaut.com: Did it make you nervous at all performing in front of such important executives like Joe Silva in a make-or-break kind of situation?
Zak Jensen: It was nerve-wracking. I mean people watch you all the time and you fight in front of a lot of people in the crowd, so that wasn't anything different, it was more about who was watching you and what it was actually for that was the nerve-wracking part. Waiting and seeing if your name gets called.
Nokaut.com: Had you seen any of the other seasons prior to the tryout?
Zak Jensen: I've actually watched all of the seasons since it's kind of like my soap opera. (laughs) I've seen every episode.
Nokaut.com: Were you leery of some of the antics from previous seasons after having seen what some of these guys do to each other in the house?
Zak Jensen: Well you're obviously a little worried, you know there's going to be some pranks. Obviously with what happened in I think it was season eight with the sushi episode. They urinated in the guy's fruit and kinda put something else in his sushi and that was the first thing that everyone talked about. It was like, "we're all heavyweights, we all like food, no one messes with anyone's food".
Nokaut.com: So that was like an unwritten rule of the house then?
Zak Jensen: That was the rule of the house. You don't mess with anybody's food. We were a more mature group agewise I think. I was the third youngest out of the sixteen and I'm 26. We had two 35-year olds, a couple of 32-year olds, and mostly guys that did other sports before too. We all started a little later so we're a little more mature than some of the younger guys from the past seasons. We were worried and we knew there would be pranks, but when we said no food stuff, we all kinda knew it wasn't going to be too disgusting.
Nokaut.com: The first day, was there anyone you felt drawn to or moving away from or was it more of trying to get a feel for everyone's personality?
Zak Jensen: Well you get there and right away, everyone started counting. We saw that there was fifteen so we knew that we weren't fighting, we figured that out. Everyone was kind of wondering if we were fighting or what was going on so we figured out that we weren't fighting because they didn't tell us that and then we were trying to figure out who the sixteenth person is. There's two names running through everyone's head. Is Fedor going to be the sixteenth guy or is Kimbo going to be the sixteenth guy? Those are the two names that everyone were thinking about and then they announced Kimbo. It was kind of interesting that you have that whole aura of Kimbo being a street fighter and a thug and Street Certified and all of that, but he was actually a really nice, down-to-earth guy. Once you get to know him, he's a cool guy to hang out with. Everyone was a decent person and everyone was cool to hang out with, so it wasn't like there were people I was drawn to or pushed away from.
Nokaut.com: So there wasn't anyone that got on your bad side over the course of the taping?
Zak Jensen: No, not really. You know, the house just gets small and everyone got on everyone's nerves eventually, but we all knew that we were there for the same reason. We could be cordial in the house, but when it came down to business it was all business. There's always drama, but it wasn't like Junie Browning or anything like that.
Nokaut.com: There wasn't anyone that was a main instigator like in other seasons?
Zak Jensen: No, it was basically just that everyone got on everyone else's nerves and it was kind of a thing where everyone took turns annoying somebody, but it wasn't like someone just set out to start things.
Nokaut.com: Without giving away too much, what was the interaction like between Quinton Jackson and Rashad Evans as coaches?
Zak Jensen: I can honestly say that from watching it and being there first-hand, they honestly do not like each other. If they're acting, they both deserve the Academy Award because we were there and we were like "are they going to punch each other?" I mean, they really got in each other's faces and you can really tell that there's animosity there. From watching seasons like with Matt Hughes and Matt Serra getting in each other's faces, this is like ten times worse. There's definitely going to be some good TV there and when they finally fight, they're going to have a great fight because they really don't like each other.
Nokaut.com: So it could even surpass Ortiz/Shamrock in season three in terms of animosity?
Zak Jensen: I think so because they both went at each other and they both can talk crap. With Shamrock and Ortiz it was like they were both kind of bad at it. I mean Ortiz would say something and Ken would get mad at anything, but here they were both kind of baiting each other and going one-for-one on each other. They play pranks on each other during the show, so they don't like each other and you'll see it on the season.
Nokaut.com: So there were a couple of times that you felt like you might have to step in to keep them from throwing down?
Zak Jensen: Yeah, right when we first got there. We walked into it. It was like Dana had to run out and ask them to calm down and he was telling them that there was five minutes before it started so if they could not kill each other. We had them about half an inch away from each other's faces. There was a lot of that going on.
Nokaut.com: What was it like being followed around by the cameras and microphones all the time? Is it something where after a while you can block them out and forget about them, or do you always know they're there?
Zak Jensen: You're always aware that they're around. It gets a little easier as time goes on, but they're everywhere. If you go to bed and you have your mics off and the cameras are gone and everything, they still have mics in the bedroom so if you start talking about what went on during the day or something, the door opens, the light comes on and the camera is right there. I mean they're doing a job so you can't get angry at them, but it was definitely hard to get used to. There's cameras in the bathroom so they can always see where you're going or what you're doing. I mean there's cameras everywhere. It was definitely like Big Brother, like they're watching you, and sometimes you forget for a second that there's microphones everywhere, but then you look around and boom, there they are. I'm kind of glad I don't have a camera following me around everywhere. It took me about a month to get back into the normal swing of reality.
Nokaut.com: It gave you a newfound appreciation for the sense of privacy then?
Zak Jensen: Absolutely. There was no privacy in that house. I found myself just wanting to go into a room, turn all the lights off and just be by myself when I got back. Just complete silence. It was nice to just be alone and enjoy it after not having it for six weeks. It was definitely sensory overload and coming back into normal life after that situation, you've got things you haven't had in six weeks. It's not that long of a time, but it does take some time getting used to again.
Nokaut.com: When you were finished, did you take a couple of extra days to catch up on what happened in the world when you were gone and did you find yourself feeling bored in the house with no TV, cell phones, reading materials, etc.?
Zak Jensen: At first you start missing your phone and the TV and stuff, but the big thing was not having anything to read. Not knowing what's going on in the news and all of that. Every time we'd go to train, there would be like little blips of people talking about things. Like Michael Jackson passed away during the show and we were all thought they were joking. We all thought that things like Farrah Fawcett and all of that that they were joking. When we finally got released and we all got back to the hotel and we did the thing for the UFC Expo, we were all getting magazines and newspapers and trying to fill in the gaps of what happened and what we had missed.
Nokaut.com: You actually just brought it up so I'll ask what it was like for you to be a part of the UFC Fan Expo at UFC 100.
Zak Jensen: It was a great experience to be a part of. Getting introduced during the UFC Expo was nice because it let us get our names out there and do interviews and meet the fans and walk around and see what the future may hold for us. The other nice thing was that we got introduced so that right after the taping we could start talking about the show and stuff like our experiences where in other seasons, they didn't announce it until just before, so they had to keep everything under wraps for a long time. It was nice to have that pressure taken off to be able to say where we were and what we were doing and everything without giving away any fight details. It was great in experience and for the exposure.
Nokaut.com: What's the experience been like for you post-filming in terms of all of the press and interviews and things?
Zak Jensen: Yeah, it's been different for me. Today, I had in the Star-Tribune in Minneapolis there was a thing in the sports section about me, which was nice, but it's still a little strange seeing yourself. I've been doing some interviews with radio shows and I'm off to do a morning talk show tomorrow so I love it, it's great stuff but it's definitely a new experience and something that I'm still trying to get used to.
Nokaut.com: Do you feel like you'll be able to look back on this positively as a springboard for getting your career to the next level?
Zak Jensen: Definitely. Definitely. It's been a great experience and it's definitely a plus. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be in the house itself and the level of training we got when we were there was definitely worth all of the drama and hard work to get there. It's definitely a springboard if you look at some of the people that have been on the show like Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans, they won and it springboarded them. Even if you don't make it to the finals, there's people like Marcus Davis who's been around since the second season. It's a win-win situation if you get on that show. It can mean big things if you do the right stuff.
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