'The Ultimate Fighter 22' blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 10

James Jenkins

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

We lead off the season’s 10th episode with Team McGregor’s Martin Svensson going out with an elbow injury he suffered in his fight with Thanh Le. It felt like some cosmic justice getting Chris Gruetzemacher a chance to get back in the competition.

Like I said, I didn’t think it was right for a guy who won two fights to get cut. So now we have Artem Lobov against Chris and Ryan Hall against Saul Rogers. I thought they were both good matchups for us. Chris is a very gritty durable fighter, and I looked at Saul as primarily a wrestler, and I thought that would be a very bad matchup for him against a tactician like Ryan.

Meanwhile, I was not having such a good time. All of this pretty much happened over the course of a few days. I fought, and the very next day we had the last two prelim fights. Of course, I was bummed about losing, but I wanted to make the best of the situation and get back to training. But I had a broken orbital bone, so no more live rolling or any contact.

I did what I could. Ryan showed me some cool jiu-jitsu techniques, and coach Urijah Faber had Brandon Gibson came down from Greg Jacksons. Brandon is one of the striking coaches there, and it was awesome to get to work with him. He works with a lot of the top strikers in the game, guys like Carlos Condit and Jon Jones. So I wanted to take advantage of that as much as I could.

Life in the house was getting a bit boring at this point. Don’t get me wrong. I liked all of my teammates, but I wouldn’t want to be around my best friends this long. After a while, all you hear are the same jokes over and over. We played the same games over and over.

Then you had the Europeans. Some of them were the messiest guys I’ve ever met in my life. The house was trashed. The kitchen had three garbage cans, and every single one of them was filled, and people were just throwing more garbage on top of garbage. Frantz Slioa would leave his dirty underwear outside on the patio furniture. Martin would walk around in his underwear all day long. Every single dish in the house was dirty and piled up in the sink that was filled up with dirty rancid water.

We had about two weeks left, and I was counting down the days. I think everyone was. I played a lot of chess with Ryan. He beat me every time except once because of a terrible mistake, but he was kicking my ass up until that point.

I know I wasn’t the only one a little frustrated; it was a very cool surprise when I got to the house and saw we were having a party. I actually got there a little late because I was just getting back in from the doctor.

During the party, everyone was having a good time, Conor McGregor and Urijah actually looked like buddies. Some of the guys got a little crazy. Tom Gallicchio had a wrestling match with one of the girls. All and all, it was a good time. It was nice just to be able to let loose a little bit. A lot of us had girlfriends, so we weren’t fraternizing with the girls too much. Don Frye came, and it was cool to get to have a beer and hang out with him at a party.

On the day of the fights, Chris surprised me and asked me to go with him for his fight with Artem. I don’t know if it was because I fought Artem before.

Round 1 kicked off, and I thought in the beginning Artem was catching him a little, but Chris just kept coming after him. He was doing great with that gritty style he brings to the fight. He was hitting him with short elbows in the clinch, a lot of kicks on the outside, and just really bringing the fight to him. Chris was doing good keeping a nice high guard and not letting Artem hit him with those hooks. Toward the end of the round, I thought Artem was starting to look fatigued.

I thought Chris was going to be able to wear him down and win this. Round 2 came around, and Chris started dropping his hands a little bit. Artem finally found a home for those hooks and started landing. Artem was able to hurt him and, unfortunately, Chris was never able to recover. Artem has heavy hands and was able to score the knockout.

Next up we had Ryan going against Saul. Ryan showed some nice kicks. Saul didn’t engage too much in the standup. He would occasionally explode in with one or two punches. Ryan tried to roll to a leg with about a minute left, but Saul was able to stop it. It was not an action-packed round.

Faber was telling Ryan to get the fight to the mat in Round 2. Ryan went for a takedown. Saul was able to take him down and get on top. He played tight, and shortly later, they went back on the feet. Saul landed probably the best punch of the fight with a short right that stunned Ryan for a second.

Ryan tried to get the fight to the mat a few more times, but each time Saul showed good defense and was able to escape. Saul was able to pull out the decision. Ryan will come back stronger from the experience. He’s a crafty guy always trying to learn. I’m sure you see a lot of him down the road in the UFC. It was a tough day. Now we were down to just Julian Erosa left on our team.

Also see:

• ‘The Ultimate Fighter 22’ blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 1
• ‘The Ultimate Fighter 22’ blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 2
• ‘The Ultimate Fighter 22’ blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 3
• ‘The Ultimate Fighter 22’ blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 4
• ‘The Ultimate Fighter 22’ blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 5
• ‘The Ultimate Fighter 22’ blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 6
• ‘The Ultimate Fighter 22’ blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 7
• ‘The Ultimate Fighter 22’ blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 8
• ‘The Ultimate Fighter 22’ blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 9

James Jenkins (8-1), an American featherweight on “The Ultimate Fighter 22,” blogs about the season each week exclusively for MMAjunkie. Follow him on Twitter at @crzyjenks.