Randy Harrison
On this week's episode of The Ultimate Fighter, Nokaut's TUF 10 blogger Zak Jensen finally saw his first taste of action in the Octagon against Team Rashad's Darrill Schoonover and while he may have come up short in the fight, he still took the time out to talk to us this week about the fight, the numerous run-ins between Rampage and Schoonover, the continuation of his hazing at the hands of Wes Sims and what he thought of the whole Linderman scenario and whether it will lead to us seeing an on-camera incarnation of Shrek's little brother. Let's get to Zak's take on the sixth week of The Ultimate Fighter: The Heavyweights!
Nokaut.com: Where were you checking out the show this week?
Zak Jensen: I actually just hung out with some buddies down in Dallas where I'm training. One of my buddies is getting ready for a fight and he wanted me to come down and help him with his wrestling so we went through all of the camp's activity and then came back to his apartment and watched it on DVR later. Kind of laid back and relaxed.
Nokaut.com: What were your thoughts with Darrill coming back into the training session and Rampage getting after him with all of the name calling and that?
Zak Jensen: When it started I was standing right next to them, it happened in the kitchen, but then I just went out into the gym. So I saw the beginning of it then I just heard the ending of it. Darrill's crazy for saying it, but you can only take so much of something like "Titties" before you snap. He had all rights to snap back at rampage the way that he did.
Nokaut.com: What was running through your head when you saw all of that going on and was it a situation at all where you thought it might have been Rampage trying to light a bit of a fire for the team or was it just all Rampage being a bit of a bully?
Zak Jensen: Well, the whole thing was just him joking around and Rampage even said that if Darrill had told him that it bothered him, he would have stopped, but when he kind of fired back with it, Rampage took it as something he could do the entire time they were there. You could tell it annoyed him and the fact that Darrill was giving it more power, if he had just ignored it, it probably would have went away. Like the thing with me and Wes where I just ignored the whole thing last week so he just jumped to something different this week.
Nokaut.com: Was anyone there thinking there was a serious chance that Darrill was just going to fire off and pop him one?
Zak Jensen: We never knew what Darrill was going to do. If he would have, it would have been the dumbest thing because he would have been booted off the show, so I think he's smarter than that and he wouldn't have, but it probably ran through his mind. Even I wanted to punch Rampage when I was getting ready for the fight and he was talking about all that stuff about calling my mom and all that. I mean I pushed him, but I really wanted to punch him.
Nokaut.com: When the fight announcement came, were you feeling like this was your time and what went through your mind when you finally got picked?
Zak Jensen: Yeah, I thought the week before was going to be me, but obviously I didn't get picked so I figured that I would be up next. I just had a feeling. I was like, ok, it's go time and now I'm here to fight. Now I can actually fight instead of just training all the time and it was nice. It kind of solidified why you're there and at the same time it got my mind off the hazing. It wasn't so much that it bothered me, it was just in the back of my mind because it was annoying, if that makes sense.
Nokaut.com: Before we talk about your thoughts on the match-up, Rampage and Darrill got into another verbal altercation. That seemed to just be an extension of the first argument but this time Rashad got into the middle to try to break it up. Do you think it was out of concern for Darrill, concern that a member of his team might get thrown off the show for hitting a coach or a little of both?
Zak Jensen: I think it was a little bit of both and like Rashad said, it looked like Darrill was about to hit Rampage so Rashad did the adult thing and jumped in and tried to cool it off. I had forgotten some of the stuff that Rashad had said like when he talked about how Rampage would have been pissed off too if someone called him Dickface the entire time he was there. It was funny because I didn't hear that because I was off in my own little world, thinking that all of that stuff was stupid, so I just kind of walked out of the gym. In fact, when you see Darrill putting the chew in and they're doing that close-up, I just went up to Darrill and told him to forget everything that Rampage said and to just have a good fight. We're here to fight and let's forget all the bickering and the BS because honestly I thought the whole thing was bull[expletive]. The nickname and the teasing was just stupid. I mean we're there to fight, we're all adults, we're there to fight for our dream and not to give people crap and act like two year olds. I guess that some people just didn't understand that.
Nokaut.com: Now that that's out of the way, what were you thinking about the match-up and how were you feeling about the fight with Darrill?
Zak Jensen: I liked the match-up. I knew he didn't have any wrestling and that he was just a stand-up guy though I've never watched tape on him and never seen him fight. It was just basically knowing that he was a stand-up guy and knowing that my gameplan was to take him down and being confident in that. That's what I was working on and then the cut kind of derailed the training for a day or so, but it didn't deter me from what I was planning in my head and what I had wanted to do. Obviously, the fight didn't play out the way I had wanted it to in my head, but other than that I liked the match-up.
Nokaut.com: Kimbo talked about you a little bit in this one, calling you Linderman and saying that you have a bit of a serial killer side to you. Your thoughts?
Zak Jensen: The serial killer thing I don't understand at all because I'm the most laid-back person you could ever meet. I'm just quiet and I keep to myself and I don't like to give people a lot of crap, I just mind my own business. I don't really understand that whole aspect of what he was thinking, but the nickname thing I thought was funny. It was just funny and it made no sense where he got the name Linderman from, but the funny thing is that I was Shrek for Halloween once in college and they didn't know that so it was kind of funny that they brought up the whole thing about Shrek's little brother. It just went on where everyone started calling me Linderman and no one would call me Zak or Jensen for the rest of the show. Even the crew was calling me Linderman. I lost my microphone at the training center because you have to take it off when you're training and I had to go run back in and get it when we were leaving and one of the crew guys had it and was talking about how Linderman forgot his mic. I was like, hey thanks a lot, and he kind of apologized to me and I told him that there was no problem. (laughs) I thought it was pretty funny.
Nokaut.com: We saw the infamous pool and calendar finally get introduced during this episode. We know what led up to it, but did you really think they'd take it that far in the beginning?
Zak Jensen: Nah, I didn't really. It was just one of those things where people were trying to find something to do to waste time. The only thing that was really annoying about it was that certain people would actually try to do stuff to win on their day. I kind of thought that was pretty immature. The fact that they had a calendar was actually kind of funny and it made me wonder why they were so hung up on when I would be breaking. I mean, what possessed them to do that to me. I was just thinking along those lines and the fact that they did it in the bedroom with everyone coming in and out it was kind of annoying. That was the most annoying part. It wasn't the calendar in general, it was just that some people would end up taking it a little too far.
Nokaut.com: What were you writing down when it headed to the commercial break at the end of the segment?
Zak Jensen: I hate Wes Sims. (laughs) Nah, I'm kidding. That was written a few times though, but basically it was writing my thoughts going on with the daily events and what happened in the fights before and stuff like that. Trust me though, I hate Wes Sims was written a few times in that thing.
Nokaut.com: You ended up getting cut during one of the last training sessions heading into the fight. Walk me through what happened there and what you were thinking when it happened.
Zak Jensen: I knew it wasn't going to take me out of the competition or actually, I knew it wasn't going to keep me from fighting. I didn't know if they were going to say that it was too bad or too close to the fight and that they would tell me that I was out and put Kimbo into the fight, but personally it wasn't going to affect me and not make me fight. It was annoying and I was kind of pissed, thinking what else could go wrong, but it's just blood and it's part of the sport. I just wanted it stitched up so that I could get back into doing what I was doing. That was my thing, just to get it taken care of and get back to getting ready for the fight.
Nokaut.com: Do you feel like the coaches were willing to let you fight or do you feel like they might have been trying to press you a little bit to let Kimbo back into the competition in your place?
Zak Jensen: Sick Dog (Hector Ramirez) and Junior (Perez, jiu-jitsu coach) knew I was going to fight, they had no doubt in their minds. Tiki is an [expletive]hole, though I didn't know that until watching the show last night and what he really thought of me. I guess he should go bleach some more stripes into his goatee. I don't understand Tiki, I mean obviously he's on the Kimbo bandwagon and he wanted Kimbo back in the thing and he obviously didn't want me to fight. Personally, I think he's a douche. Other than that, there was no pressure. Kimbo didn't want me to fight, but obviously I was going to fight. Like I said, it's just blood and it happens. You're in a sport where you're fighting someone in a cage. You're going to bleed. If you faint at the sight of blood or don't like blood then you're in the wrong sport. It's just a cut, I mean I've been cut wrestling before, it's no big deal. I was going to fight regardless and with Tiki's opinion of me, that's just his thing and I think that he was the only coach that really didn't want me to fight and wanted Kimbo back in.
Nokaut.com: What kinds of things were you working on heading into the fight with Darrill and was there anything that Rampage was helping you with in terms of coaching heading into it?
Zak Jensen: They weren't really helping me with anything, just telling me not to throw any punches and not to throw any kicks, just to go out there and wrestle.
Nokaut.com: Seeing the pre-fight locker room stuff with Rashad talking to Darrill the way he was and Rampage talking to you about "Titties" the way he was, does it kind of make you wish you had ended up with Rashad as your coach for the season?
Zak Jensen: It was definitely an experience. I've never had a coach be that goofy and writing out "Titties" and putting nipples in the O's and stuff and they were goofing off pretty much the entire time. They got a little serious later, but they were still cracking jokes in the locker room. I don't mind an easy feeling going on in the locker room, but it was a different experience than what I've ever had before. It's an apples and oranges thing and they have different personalities. It would have been nice to be a little more focused and have everyone focused on the same goal, but it just happened that I was the last resort as the last guy standing there. It didn't matter which team I was on, but it would have been nice to get the opportunity to work with guys like Phil Nurse, that would be the only thing I could have liked. Having all of their coaches that they had coming in, it would have been nice to have the experience of working with them.
Nokaut.com: Do you feel like there was anything that Rampage did that helped you going into the fight, or were you feeling like you were going into it basically on your own and that he was kind of giving up on everything being down as many fights as he was in the opening round?
Zak Jensen: I think that the whole thing was just him being him. He's just a goofball and that's his nature. That's one of the reasons that people like him so much because he's a good guy to hang out with and he's just a fun guy. I think that it just kind of carried over into his coaching and it was just him being himself.
Nokaut.com: So you think that there might have been a problem with him knowing when to be fun, joking Rampage and when it was time to be a coach and a leader?
Zak Jensen: Yeah, I think that's exactly what it was.
Nokaut.com: Moving on to the fight, take me through it. How you thought it went, what you feel like you could have done better, how you felt going into the cage and just your general take on things.
Zak Jensen: I just went in there and I'm one of those guys that doesn't mind keeping it standing and the gameplan was just to go and take him down. I went in there and threw a few punches and we ended up in the clinch and I started working some uppercuts before he landed that knee that opened up some space for him to start unloading. His punches were really fast, but they weren't hard and they weren't really stunning me at all. The thing that did it was the knee that gave him the space to get those punches off. I took him down and started ground and pound on him and then I felt that triangle and I could have, I don't know. I should have passed it right there and if I could go back in time, I probably would have taken him down a different way. Instead of tripping him I would have ran the pike and ended up in side control right off of the takedown, but that's 20/20 hindsight. I got caught in a bad position and it just kept getting tighter and tighter and I kept hitting him and the lights kind of went out a little bit.
Nokaut.com: You talked about how you might have taken him down a little bit differently, would you like to lay out what you would have done for people who aren't as familiar with amateur wrestling terms?
Zak Jensen: Well, where his leg was in between my two legs, it's just where you put a lot of shoulder pressure between his knee and his quad and you back step and it's like you're hiking a football between your legs. It just drags him down and you're still standing and it's a good way to get the advantage to where you can just throw the legs by and end up right in side control. It's kind of like what I was trying to do when I got cut. When I threw the leg by and was going down into side control, that was the exact same thing.
Nokaut.com: When you tried to punch out of it, was it a situation where you didn't feel how tight the triangle was until it was too late or did you think you'd be able to punch free?
Zak Jensen: I didn't feel it and it wasn't tight at all until it was way too late and by that point, I was stuck in it. That's why I was like ok, I'm just going to have to hit him and hopefully I hit him hard enough to where it stuns him and he loosens it up a little bit. I definitely ended up on the short end of the stick there.
Nokaut.com: Had they worked on any submission escapes at all with you during the training?
Zak Jensen: They did a little bit. The best way to get out of a triangle is not to end up in the triangle in the first place. I just stopped thinking and got caught in it. It was something that I could have avoided but I didn't and Darrill was smart. He knew I had bad submission defense and sunk the triangle in and that was it.
Nokaut.com: You seemed to have taken the loss really hard afterwards, did anyone have anything to say to you afterwards to try to pump you back up at all, or was it a situation of them giving you the space to deal with it?
Zak Jensen: They gave me some space, but there were a lot of the guys that came up and said that they were surprised that I had actually put up a fight. I mean that was nice, but then again it's also kind of like them thinking that I was a piece of crap. It was a double-edged sword type thing where they're saying that they thought I did a good job, but they were also telling me what they really thought of me before too. The only person that said anything weird was Rampage afterwards when he said that I had just given Darrill $5,000 and he asked me how that made me feel. I didn't really respond to it because I was kind of thrown off and the next day Rampage came up to me and said he said that to make me feel bad so that I would know the worst that it could feel and that I wouldn't want to feel that way again. It was some weird psychology if you look at it, I mean he was trying to coach, but it came off a bit like him being a dick. When he explained it the next day it made sense, but at the time I felt bad enough, I didn't need anyone else's help there. (laughs)
Nokaut.com: Brendan talked this week about how everyone knew you were Team Rampage's weak link, and that now that he's seen the show it's hard to believe how bad you really were overall, adding that neither team was surprised when you lost. Does that change your opinion of him at all from what we've talked about previously?
Zak Jensen: I mean, I don't even care about stuff like that. I don't even read other people's blogs. I read some of the comments on stuff, but it's just me being over the fact of people saying stuff just to say stuff. All I have to say to Brendan is to make up your damn mind.
Nokaut.com: Do you think there was anything for him to base that on considering you were on separate teams or was it just a personal feeling he had?
Zak Jensen: I don't even know. I don't put too much thought into what other people think and like I said before, if he's going to keep going back and forth, he just has to make up his damn mind.
Nokaut.com: How are you doing with the loss now and was it hard going back to that and watching the fight over again?
Zak Jensen: It wasn't too hard and I'm doing fine. It happened in June so it's been a while. I'm just traning and getting ready for whatever lies ahead. Just pick yourself and move on, that's all you can do.
Nokaut.com: What's your mindset now that you've fought and are out of the tournament? Are you just trying to get the most you can out of the training you have left and help your teammates out, or are you trying to prove you deserve a second chance in the tournament if it works out that way?
Zak Jensen: I'm just trying to stay focused on getting the most I can out of the experience and if someone gets hurt, I'm definitely ready to step back in. I mean everyone that lost would love a second shot. If you don't, you're in the wrong business. You want that no matter what. I mean until that last semifinal is done, you never know what could happen.
Nokaut.com: Even then, you look at a case like Jesse and how he was booted after winning in the semis as well.
Zak Jensen: Yeah, you never know. Until December 5th rolls around, you just never know what's going to happen. (laughs)
Nokaut.com: Next week it looks like Team Rashad really turns on Matt after his issue with blurting out the fight picks. Is that something you guys think you can use to your advantage to at least get a win or two out of the first round?
Zak Jensen: Yeah, they definitely turn on Matt. That was their goat I guess. You could tell that they were winning, but they were falling apart as a team. It was like they knew they were going to have to fight each other and it started a little self-destruction so it should be interesting to see where they go with it on TV next week.
Nokaut.com: The whole thing with Kimbo and Linderman and Shrek and all of that, does that play a role in us seeing an all-green Zak in a few weeks?
Zak Jensen: Yeah, that all leads into it. That's why I was hoping that the Linderman thing was going to come out because if not I would have just looked like a big, green idiot. It definitely alludes to that and it's an ongoing thing and it just culminates with being bored on a Sunday and let's just let Linderman loose.
Nokaut.com: Any teammates, sponsors or friend you wanted to give a shout-out or thanks to real quick Zak?
Zak Jensen: I'd like to thank my teammates at Gorilla Combat back in Minnesota and I'd like to thank Octagon MMA down in Dallas where I'm training now for the week. I definitely want to thank them for giving me the opportunity to come down and train with them and I want to thank you for giving me a call and I love doing the blog with you.
Nokaut.com: Thanks Zak, we love having you here at Nokaut and we'll talk to you again next week!
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