'The Ultimate Fighter 22' blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 5

James Jenkins

This week was Saul vs. Billy Q. McGregor picked Saul because he figured Saul would be able to outwrestle and control Billy. Usually whenever I’ve heard McGregor speak of wrestlers it’s never been positive. It was kind of funny to hear him speak otherwise.

I felt for Tom after his loss to Marcin. He was obviously very down after the fight. I talked to him after and it’s one of those moments where nothing you say can make a person feel better. Fighting is a tough sport. The highs and the lows couldn’t be any farther apart. You win and you feel like you’re on top of the world, and if you lose you want to crawl under a rock forever. Hopefully this helps Tom come back stronger down the road in his career. All you can do is learn from your losses and use that to improve.

Life in the house wasn’t going too bad. Going into this, I never really cooked anything before. I got a lot of practice in the house. We also started gambling a lot. Julian was the gambler out of all of us. He played a lot of cards, and it showed. At first, we would play Texas hold ‘em for fun, but you need to have something on the line – otherwise, what’s the point? We started gambling chores, shirts, sunglasses, watches, really anything of value. A cheap Casio wrist watch doesn’t seem like much, but with no phone and living in a house with no clocks, a watch is one of the most valuable things. I lost and wound up owing Julian breakfast, but he made a mistake and didn’t bring any lunch to open mats and I was able to haggle him down to a peanut butter sandwich.

One night, I was sitting out back in the hot tub and looking into the house. I could see Artem, Marcin and Saul playing cards. You would forget how crazy the whole thing is, but then you realize you have people from all over the world fighting each other. It reminded me of a Van Damme movie where he fights people in a tournament from all around the world. I was able to see Saul comment on Billy’s whistling. Truth is, Billy wasn’t scared. He just always is making some sort of noise. He’s either singing or whistling, but he’s saying something. You can’t read too much into every little thing a guy does. It’s odd enough having to be around a guy you are going to fight, let alone live with him.

I guess Dana enjoyed our fights to get into the house, and they took us out to Caesar’s Palace and we got to eat at a place called Sushi Roku. It was cool to get a prepared meal again, and the food was pretty damn good. Conor and Gunnar Nelson sat with me and some of the other Americans – not on purpose; he was just late and it was the only seat left. Conor was pretty cool. He would crack jokes and Gunnar said nothing at all. Conor and Gunnar are good friends, but they couldn’t seem any more opposite.

The guys at the table were doing sake bombs and banging the table to make the sake fall into their beer. They went to show Conor and they spilled some beer on his clothes. One thing I learned about Conor is you don’t mess with his clothes. He half jokingly said, “You do that again, I’ll be throwing some bombs, too” – one of those jokes where you can tell he was pretty serious. One great thing about having Conor with us was he ordered everything, and he shared all of it. We couldn’t order the whole menu, but I guess you can if you’re Conor McGregor. So everyone at my table ate damn well that night.

The fight preparation was simple for both teams. For Saul it was about pressure and wrestling, and for Billy it was about getting back up, staying in good position and keeping the fight standing. The day of the fight came, and Billy asked me to come with him. You could have one teammate come with you the day of the fight. Billy and I became pretty good friends there. He’s originally from New York, too. He has an older brother named Jim, and I have a little brother named Billy. I was happy he had me come down with him. While we were in the back, I was breaking in his gloves and “Big” John McCarthy came in the lockerroom to go over the rules. I’ve been watching the UFC since the beginning with my dad. I grew up watching Big John. He also gave the best rules breakdown I ever heard. Then shortly after that, Dana comes in to talk about Ronda knocking out Bethe Correia and how crazy Brazil went for Ronda. It all just seemed so crazy, talking to Big John and then Dana walks in like no big deal.

The fight starts. There were a couple good exchanges on the feet and Billy made a costly error and shot out from far away. It went against the game plan and played into Saul’s strengths. Saul showed some real good top control and landed some hard punches. Billy never found a way to his feet. The second round was more of the same. Saul landed a takedown and maintained top position. At one point, Billy had gone for a kneebar. I thought he would be able to use it to get on top, but Saul grinded back on him. Saul won a decisive victory and he stayed respectful through it. Team McGregor maintained choice and picked Mehdi against Julian. Mehdi told Julian he was going to hurt him. I guess next week we’ll see how that goes.

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

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.