Team Tate blog: Chris Holdsworth on 'The Ultimate Fighter 18,' episode No. 9

Well, the big story this week was Cody Bollinger, of course. I knew his weight had been pretty high all season, but he always told me he had it under control and had never missed weight. As you can see, that’s not what happened. On top of that, he was lying to me, too.

I would ask him like, “Hey, man, what do you weigh?” He would tell me a certain weight, but I think he was lying because as you saw on the show, he was two pounds heavier than what he told me in the morning. When you’re cutting weight, you don’t gain two pounds. You’re not supposed to drink or eat anything, especially if you’re that much over weight, so I think he just kind of deceiving all of us. He definitely wasn’t making the right choices on the show as far as his diet and stuff goes, and I think that played a big factor in him not making weight.

We had a nutritionist on the show, and I think he made one meal and went back to his old ways. He loved eating cereal in the morning. A couple of times, he binged on some ice cream and stuff. When you’re that heavy, you can’t do those things. It’s just not going to help, and you can’t keep doing that. I offered my help to him, as did a couple of other people, but as they say, you can lead horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

It was kind of shocking to see Cody just quit cutting weight. Knowing him as a person and a teammate, I definitely didn’t think he would quit the way he did. I feel bad for him, of course – and his family and all that jazz – but really, he did it to himself.

It’s kind of crazy if you follow him on social media. He was kind of leading on his fans. I think if I was him, I would have just kept my mouth shut. I would have been embarrassed. Instead, he’s promoting himself and telling everyone to tune in. I’m not sure exactly what’s going through his head. It’s just kind of weird. Still, I consider him a friend, and it sucks that he just quit like that.

So when Dana White called the meeting at the gym, I had just gotten home from practice and dealt with everything with Cody, and I had just barely finished my lunch. I was going to get some rest time before we went back to the gym for weigh-ins and training. That didn’t happen. We kind of knew what to expect, but Dana definitely ripped Cody a new one.

After that, Anthony Gutierrez had a chance to decide his own fate, and he took the forfeit. In a competition, the whole plan is to get to the next round and get to the finale. I think he made the smart choice. As he said, he’d love to be the macho man and say, “Yeah, I’ll fight.” I did think it was a little unfair, and I expressed that, but in all honesty (and as Dana told me), it’s not Anthony’s fault. Anthony is a big bantamweight, as well, and you heard him say he was at 159 pounds a few days before. For him to make weight two days later, that’s a lot on your body. That’s very unhealthy. So I think a lot of people are going to be like, “Oh, Anthony is a b—h for not taking the fight,’ but in all honesty, I think he did the smart thing and conserved his body for the next round by not getting injured.

With that over, we moved on to Sarah Moras vs. Peggy Morgan. Sarah and I were pretty close. As far as the girls go, she was one of my favorites to just hang out with. She was like a dude, pretty much. We could just back and be funny, cracking jokes. I liked her personality. She is kind of cocky thought. I’ve noticed that through the interviews and stuff that we didn’t get to see while we were there. The way she talks about her opponent and such might not be the best, but she knows how to sell her fights, and that’s her style. Calling Peggy a ginger and a giraffe, I thought that was pretty funny. That’s not my style. I’d rather let my fighting do the talking and not talk too much s–t to my opponents. I don’t want to look stupid if I lose!

That said, Sarah looked great out there. She got clipped a couple times, of course, but she got the takedown, and once she got on top, I’ve never seen – even with guys – ground-and-pound like that. She was dropping some sledgehammers. Almost all of her punches and elbows landed, and Peggy tried to push off so she didn’t have to take any more of those hard shots and ended up giving up her arm.

When it was time to match up the semifinals, I called out Anthony for a few different reasons. We fought as amateurs, so I knew his style. I didn’t know nearly as much about the Brits because I’ve never trained with them. Like Dana said, it’s all about getting to the next round.

Also, there was a day right before the Chris Beal fight when I had some salmon and quinoa in the refrigerator, and I hot home from practice, and I was hungry and ready to eat. I see Anthony finishing up something that looked like my salmon and quinoa. I go into my drawer in the refrigerator, and it was gone. I knew right away it was him. He acted all surprised and was like, “Oh, I couldn’t find my salmon. Somebody must have stolen my salmon.” So then I had to make lunch again. That kind of got me heated.

There were some other times where he got drunk and kept me up at night. That irritated me, too. So all those things combined, I thought it would be the best matchup. Instead, I got Michael Wootten. At the end of the day, I was ready to fight anyone. I thought I could beat anyone there. Wootten was a really cool guy. We got along great in the house. I can’t say anything about him or David Grant. But this was business. We knew it could happen, so that’s it.

My fight is in next week’s episode. It’s kind of wild because it’s airing first, but my fight was the last episode of the season. It was kind of cool, in all honesty, because I had an early fight in the season, and I was able to get some rest in between.

“The Ultimate Fighter 18? cast member Chris Holdsworth (4-0) blogs each Thursday exclusively for MMAjunkie.com. The bantamweight prospect takes readers behind the scenes of the FOX Sports 1-broadcast series, which airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET. Catch Holdsworth on Twitter at @holdsworth135.