Team Australia blog: Chris Indich on 'TUF Nations,' episode No. 4

So I ended up getting into it a little with Team Canada after my loss to Chad Laprise. I think at the time, it was just one of those things where I was still pumped up from the fight. I mentioned before that I had been hearing people talk s–t around the house, and I think it was just kind of getting to me. I think Nordine Taleb and Sheldon Westcott were some of the guys talking smack, and I just thought I’d call them out and let them know like Brendan O’Reilly said earlier that we were there to fight.

They were talking about me not being able to take a punch. Probably to my detriment, it’s not usually my normal gameplan to just stand and bang or strike. It kind of put me out of me element, where I should have been looking for more level changes and takedowns. If there was an intention to get inside my head, they did pretty good.

After my loss, I was just heartbroken. For me, the size of the event was so large. If you win this event, you build a career for yourself. You move into the UFC, and that’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to be. Losing in a sort of way where I didn’t even use my game that got me to the show? I did OK, but I could have done heaps better, so that kind of hurts – knowing that I could have done better, but I didn’t. I lost, and now I’m out of the competition.

It’s still a great opportunity to train and improve, and you can always get back in the competition if someone gets hurt, but I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was just pretty bummed at that point.

It was great learning from the coaches, but as it turns out, there was a spinning back kick about seven seconds into the last round that actually damaged the cartilage around my rib and made it very hard for me to train after that. I found that out a few days after the fight. Initially, my body still had all the adrenaline and stuff like that, so I was fine. But I was getting out of bed one morning, and I was like, “What the hell?” I was just lying there, breathing, and it hurt. I ended up getting some X-rays, and it wasn’t a cracked rib, but it as damaged cartilage.

Things did seem to feel better around the house. I don’t know if it was because the first two fights went exactly the way the Canadians thought, whereas my fight was a little more back-and-forth. Maybe they respected that a little bit more. You could definitely feel their confidence, especially going into the bout with Nordine. He was a character that, and I don’t know if it was because he was hard to understand, but he almost felt like he was very arrogant. He seemed to think he knew he was going to win.

I thought maybe Nordine’s boots were a little too big for him. He walked around the house almost like he was dismissing us. Like, “Oh, these Australians. Whatever.” Seeing Tyler Manawaroa, he’s tough, but the way he trains is kind of lackluster and very relaxed. Personally, I had heard of him in Australia, but I had never actually seen his fights. A lot of guys were saying he was a demon. He just gets in there and destroys guys, as you saw in the fight. He almost switches into a different mode, and some of the things he was doing were just super cool to watch. It made the fight very entertaining that he would just drop his hands and wing punches. I thought that was pretty crazy. Maybe it played around with Nordine’s head a little.

The first round, I didn’t really judge. The second round, I thought Tyler was gaining momentum. I definitely think Tyler was deserving of a third, and I think in the last round, he started to get his range and really feel the fight. When Nordine scored the takedown, I thought that was the defining moment. That would have earned him a win, but with 30 seconds left, Tyler hit a reversal and ended up in mounted position and started to put some ground-and-pound on him and ended up going for a choke. For me, I just felt like Tyler finishing very strong solidified him winning that round.

It was great for the team to get a win. There was finally some momentum in our corner, and it took the wind out of their sails a bit. To watch their faces in this episode and how they just got so deflated was pretty sweet. To hear them thinking they were going to go 8-0 and then have what they thought was their No. 1 middleweight go down, and definitely made their heart sink.

With Richard Walsh vs. Matthew Desroches, I’m not really sure how that came together. I know Jake Matthews came into the house saying he wanted to fight Olivier Aubin-Mercier, so maybe that came into play. Maybe the coaches just thought that was a good matchup or wanted to give him the fight he wanted.

Despite being eliminated, I still enjoyed watching this week’s episode. Sometimes it feels a bit silly to watch yourself on TV. It’s like, “Man, do I sound like that? Do I look like that?” But it’s certainly good to relive those moments and experiences. It was a really special opportunity and a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. Some guys think it was the worst thing that ever happened to them and say they’ll never go into the house again, but I thought it was a unique experience, and I would definitely do it again.

“TUF Nations” cast member Chris Indich (5-1) blogs each week exclusively for MMAjunkie. The Team Australia welterweight takes readers behind the scenes of the FOX Sports 1-broadcast series, which airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET. Australian fans can watch the show every Thursday on FX at 4:30 p.m. AEDT. Catch Johnson on Twitter at @IndichMMA.