Randy Harrison
One of the most-hyped shows in Ultimate Fighter history took place last night as Kimbo Slice met Roy Nelson in the biggest preliminary fight in the tournament and Nokaut's Ultimate Fighter 10 blogger Zak Jensen was cageside for all of the action. In this week's blog, Zak talks about the fight between Kimbo and Nelson, the stoppage that ended the fight, the mindset of the team after losing three straight fights and the easy-going attitude that made him an easier target for being picked on during the show. There's a lot to get to this week, so let's get right into it!
Nokaut.com: What did you think of the show this week?
Zak Jensen: It was interesting to see how they cut it and edited it up and stuff.
Nokaut.com: Do you want to elaborate on that at all?
Zak Jensen: Well, the training where they didn't show a lot of Kimbo's getting ready for the fight. They cut out a lot of the wrestling that I did with him and just showed that one little part where I was working from the mount with him.
Nokaut.com: How were you feeling about Kimbo's chances after working with him on the ground and what kind of work did you do with him that we didn't get to see?
Zak Jensen: There was the whole thing about if Kimbo gets taken to the ground it's Roy's world. That's why we worked from the mount a little bit in case he ended up there so that Kimbo would kind of know what to do and be able to try to get out. When Kimbo wasn't able to get me off of the mount with me basically just sitting there, we knew that we had to keep him standing and knock Roy out. What they didn't show was a lot of the wrestling and situations like shooting single-legs, shooting straight doubles and things like that, which he progressed a little bit on in the time we worked with him.
Nokaut.com: When he showed that he wasn't able to buck you off from the mounth, did the coaches decide to make him work more on sprawling and keeping the fight standing?
Zak Jensen: We did a little bit of both. We started with the mount and then the next day we did a lot of wrestling. He was willing to learn, it was just that there was so much that he had to learn in such a short period of time, it was probably really overwhelming for him.
Nokaut.com: What was your opinion on Rampage's comments about you during the show about you being similar to Roy's size and how that was one of the reasons you were working with Kimbo?
Zak Jensen: I was the biggest guy there besides Wes, so that's all that was. We were trying to figure out how to simulate Roy and with Roy being like 6' and 265 or more normally, it was really hard. We were contemplating strapping one of the Muay Thai belly pads on someone to try to replicate that but it was impossible to figure out. All that was was that I'm the size I am and that I have the most wrestling background on the team, it wasn't like Rampage was saying "Oh, he has a fat gut like Roy" because there's no one built like Roy. As hard as it was for us to try to find a way to mimic Roy on his style and how he's built, that's part of why he's so good. There's no one out there that fights like Roy or has his same style or his same size. He's unique and that's one of his major assets.
Nokaut.com: What are your thoughts about Roy Nelson's comments to MMA Weekly last week about how he wanted to fight you instead of Kimbo? Have you had a chance to read those?
Zak Jensen: Yeah, I did actually. Right after the fight pick, he actually said that so I had already known about that. I didn't know that he had talked about it again until someone told me about it and I read it. It makes sense in that I match up well with my lack of jiu-jitsu and no one has really seen a lot of me. Roy likes fighting taller guys cause it kind of matches up into his style where he has the overhand right so it makes sense. I didn't take it as him wanting to fight me and trying to be a dick. I'd love to fight Roy. I could still have a chance to fight him in the house and if not, I'd like to fight him after the show. It's almost like a compliment that he'd like to fight me more than he wanted to fight Kimbo.
Nokaut.com: So you didn't take it as Roy selling you short at all?
Zak Jensen: No, the styles matched up better because I'm a wrestler who's going to want to take it to the ground, so it was more about the styles than anything else.
Nokaut.com: Moving on to the fight, how do you think Kimbo was doing early on in terms of the takedown defense and keeping his distance?
Zak Jensen: He was doing really well with being patient and not rushing. That was the gameplan, basically to ease him out and see what Roy was going to do and not to over-commit so that he didn't get taken down. He surprised everyone with that leg kick and it was actually a really well-thrown leg kick, which was another surprise. He was doing well and then he stopped a few of the takedown attempts from the upper-body until the second round. The only mistake Kimbo made during that whole fight was when he tried to throw that knee when he was getting rushed backwards. As soon as he did that, Roy used that to get him down into side control and that was it. That was pretty much the only mistake Kimbo made that entire fight. It just happened to be the thing that ended up costing him the fight.
Nokaut.com: A lot of folks are talking about the two crucifix positions that Roy had. Were you thinking the fight was going to get stopped in the first or were you thinking that the shots weren't really doing much damage
Zak Jensen: See, the thing is that the rules say you have to be intelligently defending yourself. You could just be slapping someone and if they're not defending themselves, they stop the fight. That's why MMA is safer than boxing, that's why there's been one death in the history of organized MMA and there's like six boxing deaths a year. There were forty-four unanswered punches. Yeah, they weren't very hard, but Roy could have made them hard. Roy could have been dropping them on him, but I think that Roy knew he was in a dominant position and he just wanted to stop the fight without inflicting a lot of damage. Roy is a nice guy and he could have done a lot more damage to Kimbo in that position. That's the most vulnerable position you can be in because your head is right there and you have no defense at all. There were forty-four at the end of the first round so I really don't know. Herb's not the greatest ref, but it kind of reinforced it a bit in that he's not going to stop it because it's Kimbo. Anyone else and that fight would have been stopped after twenty. He got a little more leeway in the first and then in the second he took twenty-two and they stopped it. That's sixty-two unanswered punches. It's one of those things where it could have been a lot worse. Dana was talking about how his daughter could have been on top of him punching him and all of that, but the rules don't say massive punches not being answered, it's that you have to be defending yourself. Kimbo wasn't defending himself so by the rules, the fight should have been stopped at the end of the first round.
Nokaut.com: What did you think of Dana White's comments after the fight and do you feel at all like he was trying to undercut Roy a little bit?
Zak Jensen: Roy did enough to win and a win is a win. This whole thing is kind of like a game too. I mean it's kind of like Survivor to where you don't want to show all of your cards. I don't know what Roy was thinking. Roy's background means that he could have just taken Kimbo down right away and submitted him, but that shows all of his skills. Maybe he did it to lull some people into thinking that he is fat and lazy and that's the whole other thing too. You can't really say off of one fight that that's how Roy is. If you look at all of his other fights, he finishes his fights. I mean he finished this one too even though it was a little lackluster, but he did what he had to do to win. Dana said some stuff about Rashad too when he was in the house, so I don't know. The win wasn't impressive, and there hasn't really been an impressive fight. You know the fight with Abe was really bloody and it was a dominating fight. It wasn't really impressive, but he dominated him. Same thing with this one. It wasn't really an impressive win, but Roy dominated him 100% for the entire fight so what more can you ask for someone when they put on a show of complete dominance. It may have been boring, but he got the job done.
Nokaut.com: Was there anything that you had worked on with him that might have helped him out that you didn't see him doing in there?
Zak Jensen: He did everything and everything we worked on, he used. Like when Roy had him pushed up against the cage and they were fighting for hand control. Everything we showed him, he at least tried to do. The only thing that he really did wrong was that knee, which we told him not to throw if he was getting pushed back. He tried something and it backfired. Kimbo listens while getting ready and he was willing and eager to learn. Everyone always says that he's a sponge and he was. He was trying to learn everything he possibly could in such a short time, which is a hard thing to do. He had a crash course in wrestling, a crash course in ground game and to try to put it all together before you fight a veteran like Roy Nelson is a rough task.
Nokaut.com: After the fight, your team is down 0-3 and things are looking pretty bleak. The teaser has Rashad talking about going 8-0. Is there more tension within your team based on the loss, or are you all using it to rally together?
Zak Jensen: We were all definitely depressed at the loss and everyone was hoping that they get picked so that they can be the person to turn it around. Everyone was looking at it as being down 0-3, but there's five fights left in the prelims and let's turn it around and get the advantage going into the quarters. Everyone was rallying around each other and wanting to get the job done and turn it around.
Nokaut.com: Was there more tension between the two teams based on the losing streak?
Zak Jensen: A lot of the stuff just stays in the gym. There wasn't really a lot of tension in the house at that point. As you saw on the preview for next week's episode, there's a bit of a traitor in Rashad's team talking about who was going to fight and when they were going to fight and all of that, so defintely the tension starts a little more next week, but it's really not between teams. It's more of their own thing where they're kind of self-destructing. Everyone still gets along in the house at this point and everyone has friends on the other team that they hang out with or play cards with so it's still a happy home life I guess you could say. Next week it definitely gets tense on the other side of things.
Nokaut.com: You spoke last week about how James seems a little cocky and over-confident sometimes. Were you feeling like that opinion was validated a little when you saw him start jawing with Rampage in this episode?
Zak Jensen: Yeah, that's just how James is. I think he's just that kind of cocky guy and that whole thing with him and Rashad being teammates back in New Mexico, they both live together when they're back in New Mexico so they already have that bond. He was standing up for a friend and teammate that just happened to be his coach, so I can see where he's coming from there. If I see someone that was getting on my friend, I'd be doing the same thing. Actually, when Machida fought Rashad, I guess James was in his corner and Rampage was sitting behind them screaming at Rashad to tell him what to do because he wanted Rashad to win so he could fight him for the title. He was getting so into it that he was almost in Rashad's corner and I guess James turned around and kind of got into his face there, so there's a little bit of history with that and it makes more sense now. I didn't know that until I watched The Aftermath show and James was talking about that and it made a little more sense as to why he got into Rampage's face.
Nokaut.com: After the losses, what are you guys trying to do to turn things around and are you beginning to doubt Rampage in terms of picking the team and his coaching techniques?
Zak Jensen: Trying to stay positive. The first pick was a wrestler vs. a non-wrestler and that was kind of a horrible pick. The second fight was two stand-up guys kind of going after each other and James started doing the kick-and-run thing, which no one really thought he would do. That pick was understandable. They focused on Kimbo right away because they were buying time until he got picked or Rampage put him in there, so there was a lot of focus on Kimbo up to that point. Practice had been going well, training had been going well. Rampage will tell you himself that he's not the best coach, he's a fighter. He'd give us some insight and encouragement and show you some stuff that worked for him, but we had really good coaches under him. We have like Tom Blackledge, who's a really well-rounded MMA fighter and works out of the Wolfslair and trains out of there so along with Tiki and Hector Ramirez, we had good coaches. We had everything we needed it's just that it's hard to compete against the Yoda of MMA, Greg Jackson, when he's over there with Rashad. There's different coaching styles and there's more knowledge on the other side in regards to coaching, but they're all great coaches.
Nokaut.com: Brendan Schaub's blog was posted today and he talks about how after the Kimbo fight guys got bored and were finding you an easy target to pick on because you are a good guy but you don't stick up for yourself. Did you notice that at all after the Kimbo fight?
Zak Jensen: Yeah, I was waiting for one of the other guys to bring all of that stuff up. I'm one of those guys that I don't really care if you're going to give me crap. That's your perogative. I don't care if you pick on me, I mean, if you pick on my friends or my family then I might get a little upset. I just take it with a grain of salt in that if someone is doing that, it's their issue and it just shows how immature they are. Whatever, if you want to pick on me even though I didn't do anything to you, means you must have some repressed childhood memory that is eating away at you and you're lashing out at me.
Nokaut.com: They even went so far as to have a "When will Zak break?" calendar that they all had dates picked. Did you ever catch wind of the calendar deal or is this the first you're hearing about it?
Zak Jensen: Oh, that thing was out in the open. Wes Sims was actually the guy that kept the calendar and he's my damn roommate. It was an ongoing running joke, but there were some people like James that took it way too seriously. He was like "I'm going to break him" and that's why I think James is a dick. Wes is my roommate and teammate and he was joking with me and right away, you know that Wes is a goofy guy. You get that he's a goofball. James is just an ass and it was like he was tyring to get me to break and afterwards and after the show he was trying to make it seem like something different. To me, if that's how you want to be on camera, well that's how I'm going to perceive you and that's how you're going to be in my mind and that's how I'm going to treat you. That's how he is and that's his fault. It didn't bother me and it was kind of funny. I mean I'm not going to break. I'm there, I'm not going to go crazy and leave or anything. It just made me mentally stronger. If you can't take someone giving you crap, you probably shouldn't be there. I'm not going to go off and freak out and quit because they're making a calendar to see when I'm going to snap.
Nokaut.com: So did it start out in jest, or was it something negative that turned into something that was a joke for the guys?
Zak Jensen: It started off negative and then it turned into a joke and then James is the one that kept it negative, especially as it got closer to his day. In the end, Wes was just like "I'm giving up on this, you're not going to break, I'm just using this to count down the days until we can get the hell out of here." so it started off negative and James kept trying to keep it negative. It was more of a joke at the end except for him.
Nokaut.com: Speaking to guys getting bored, what did you find yourself doing to pass the time once the period of acclimation was over? Any guys specifically that you talked to or hung out with more?
Zak Jensen: Marcus was easy to hang out with and easy to talk to. Mike Wessel and I played a lot of cards. I hung out with Roy a little bit. We made our own cards out of paper plates and finally convinced them to give us a real deck so we kept conversation going. We did a lot of that and a lot of playing pool. Other than that, a lot of us during the day between practices would just come home, eat, sleep and then go back to practice again. There was a lot of sleeping going on. Most of the hanging out happened at night and not during the day.
Nokaut.com: Was the sleeping partly due to being tired from training or just mainly from being bored and just trying to make time go by faster?
Zak Jensen: It was that you were tired from training, but when there's nothing to do and you can't write or anything, sleeping definitely made the time go by faster.
Nokaut.com: We talked about the cards last week. Was there a definitive game that everyone liked to play or did it vary up a bit?
Zak Jensen: We played spades a lot and we played rummy.
Nokaut.com: Who were the better players?
Zak Jensen: Wes Shivers kept saying he was the Rummy king and won a lot. Roy was a good spades player with Wessel being his teammate. We had to teach Kimbo how to play rummy, but when he learned how to play it he loved it. He just kept playing more and more and by the end of the show he was winning the odd game. Shivers was really good because he'd take the big risks by picking up all the cards and it would either pay off or bite him in the ass. I beat him a few times, but he definitely won more than most.
Nokaut.com: You alluded to good conversation happening at the card table. Was it talk of what happened during the day, or more about your home lives and sharing stories like that?
Zak Jensen: It was a combination of both. If nothing exciting happened in the house, like in the extended scene thing with James and Darrill and the baby bird thing, we talked about that a lot after that happened. We all thought Darrill was a little off his rocker so that was definitely a conversation piece for a while. If nothing had happened before or at practice or whatever, we usually talked about home life, as much as we'd be willing to open up about. Some people talked about their families a bit, as much as we could talk without bringing other people into the situation when they hadn't signed up for it.
Nokaut.com: Did you find that talking about things from home helped with homesickness or made it a little worse?
Zak Jensen: I think it was both. It feels good to talk about stuff that you miss, but after you're done it hits you a little harder about how you really miss things. It goes both ways, but it's a little better to get it out rather than to just keep it all in.
Nokaut.com: Where did you end up catching the show this week?
Zak Jensen: I was back in Minnesota at a little sports bar called Primetime. Nothing big, just went out with a few friends and watched it. It's funny because the Twins were playing and they're trying to make the playoffs and they were behind by basically an insurmountable lead and they wouldn't turn the show on until after the game, not even on one TV. I mean I was like "Please....Please?" (laughs) They put it on around 9:11 or so, so they didn't miss that much and it replayed right after. I like the intro because it has that graphic and I can be like "Wow, I'm on TV" and it has my name right beside it and everything. After the intro came up on the re-run a lot of people were wanting my picture and stuff, but before that no one really noticed that I was there, which was kind of nice, but kind of weird at the same time.
Nokaut.com: Thanks again for taking the time this week Zak and we'll look forward to talking to you again after next week's episode.
Zak Jensen: Thank you and I'm glad to do it.
For those of you that are in the area, be sure to head out and meet Nokaut's TUF 10 blogger Zak Jensen at the Valley West Mall in Bloomington, MN between 10am and 2pm CST this Saturday afternoon.
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