Demico Rogers TUF Blog Week 6
Hey everyone thanks for checking back for my week 6 blog. In this episode you start seeing more and more of what goes on in the house and the focus is not completely on the fight itself. You are beginning to really get to know the guys and their personalities.
Team Rashad had a talk with Darrell about his drinking habits and not letting it get in the way of his goals. I didn’t really have an opinion on that. I was there to fight and was just worried about what I was doing and making sure I was taking full advantage of my opportunity. Rampage continues with the “titties” comments and Darrell finally started to push back. I guess there is only so much someone can take. I think he might have actually started to get under Rampages skin as well.
Rashad made his picks and chose Darrell to fight Zak, I thought that this would be a fun fight to watch. These are the two guys in the house that have gotten the most grief thus far and both seem to have some pent up aggression that they need to release. This was the last easy pick they had, the only guys we have left are Junk and Marcus. With those two guys it is kind of like pick your poison.
Zak’s head was not in the right place, he was kind of on both sides of the fence. If you asked him he would tell you he was going to win the whole show but in practice he would get down on himself and say he sucks. This was the episode that Kimbo came up with his new name for the rest of the show “Linderman”. He went along with it just fine it wasn’t that big of a deal, I think he might have even liked it. Wes Sims and McSweeney were starting to get on him really hard and we knew it was only a matter of time before he snapped so we started a betting pool about what day that would be. Its safe to say pretty much everyone picked a day. Even though I didn’t want Zak to lose it was inevitable it was going to happen at some point. During practice a couple days before the fight Zak was wrestling with Coach Tom and caught a knee above his eye and opened up a cut. We really didn’t think it was a big deal but Kimbo got real excited. Not much came of it and you saw he was still able to fight.
On this episode Phil Nurse, a well respected striking coach, was able to come in and work with Team Rashads guys. I don’t know if this is a coincidence or what but so far they have had Nate Marquardt, Keith Jardine, Mike Pyle, etc. to come in and help them train as guest coaches, we are currently at no one. I am not sure if Rampage didn’t want to bring anyone, didn’t have anyone to bring, or if he just wasn’t given the option but this is definitely something that our team noticed throughout the taping.
Darrell and Zak seemed like a decent match up. We knew Darrell would have the advantage on the feet and figured Zak would have better wresting as well as top game.
When the fight started out they both came out swinging. Zak would have been ok if he would have not kept his head in the same place, he needed a little more head movement during the exchange. They banged for a little while and it was not looking too good until Zak changed levels and took Darrell down. From the top the game plan was simple work posture up, fight off any submissions, get to the side and pound him out. However, Darrell was able to lock up a triangle. It looked like Zak had the pass to the side but it didn’t happen. He was hammer fisting him but it was not doing enough damage for Darrell to let go and he eventually went out. The fight was pretty straight forward and I can’t say I was too surprised. We have two of our strongest guys left and I was now thinking about getting them prepared. Next weeks episode and fight are both really good so stay tuned!
For those of you in the Seattle Area come watch the show with me Wednesday nights at The Liquid Lime in Kirkland at 8pm.
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