'The Ultimate Fighter 22' blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 3

James Jenkins

We left off last week with Ryan winning by heel hook and then next up we have Chris Gruetzemacher fighting Sascha Sharma. At the house we had a schedule up of everything going on that week and the next. After getting the first fight out of the way, there would be two fights the following week. So now the ball was really going to start moving. It was nice for me not to have to worry about weight. I’m usually a featherweight so making 155 isn’t that bad. We had control of the fight pick because we won, but if anyone loses you could be up. I could make weight any day with no problem and my face was almost all healed up, so I felt good to go. Some of the other guys in the house were a little larger and didn’t have that luxury.

The day after Ryan’s fight was the Dillashaw fight; another pretty big thing to us in the house. We hadn’t been able to watch TV, talk on the phone, read a magazine, so to be able to kick back and watch a UFC fight was pretty big. Plus all the Team Alpha Male guys were coming through too. It didn’t go off to smoothly though, there was something wrong with the TV feed and it kept freezing up and wasn’t playing right. So this was a pretty big let down, I was thinking about watching this fight all day and now we might not be able to. But it all worked out in the end; we had to switch rooms, you can actually see it during the episode. The Alpha Male guys went nuts when Dillashaw won. I was pretty pumped and happy for the guys too.

Sleep in the house was something that wasn’t going so well for me. Every night I got between 5-6 hours of sleep. I had to go and climb into the top bunk of a tiny hard bunk bed. I had a cheap pillow and we had big window doors right next to our beds that the sun shined through every morning. We had no door and camera men would sporadically show up in your bedroom, sometimes I would look up and see a European brushing his teeth in our sink. Around 5 am every morning I would wake up to a man changing batteries to my microphone. To try and combat all of that I started sleeping with earplugs, a sleeping mask, my memory foam airplane pillow, and about 10mg of melatonin. I still wasn’t getting the best sleep but it was an improvement. I also learned an airplane pillow works great if you have cauliflower ear bothering you. Just lay the pillow flat and put your ear in the hole your neck would usually go into. I thought it was pretty genius myself.

The next day I hit the open gym. It’s open for either team to go, but only 3 Europeans came. I wanted to go because I knew there would be a masseuse there. The weigh-ins were later that day so Chris was using the sauna to get rid of the last few pounds. Before running over to the masseuse I hung out with Chris in the sauna. He didn’t look like he was having the best time in there so sometimes it’s good just to have someone with you to bullshit and pass time. He did a few 10 minute sessions and was good to go. Then I got a great massage. My neck was pretty stiff from a wrestling practice the day before, and that just loosened everything right up. Conor came to the weigh-in and he started on Faber about TJ. I think Conor looks for a sore spot, something he can pick at to get under your skin. It looked like it was going to be Dillashaw and his relationship with Ludwig that Conor would be going after.

After the weigh-in, Faber told me that if Chris wins it will be Tom or me up next. Hearing that I got excited and a little anxious, I could feel my heart race a little bit. It was funny to hear Sascha and Chris explain their feelings of anxiety and everything else. Just to hear other people describe the same feelings I go through, it lets you know it’s all normal, we all go through it. I felt pretty confident that Chris would win this fight, I wasn’t overly impressed with Sascha’s fight to get into the house, and Chris had a pretty dominate win in his fight. So the question to me was; is it me or Tom? I made sure my weight was on point; I ate a little less and drank a ton of water. That night the guys and I all hung out back on the patio. It was a good time, I didn’t know what type of personalities I was going to encounter living there, I was afraid I was going to get stuck living with a bunch of assholes. But the guys were all great, we all clicked pretty well with each other and we had a lot of laughs.

The next day comes and we go to the fight. Sascha started out a little better than I had expected. He landed a few punches some good knees and even a takedown of his own. Chris is a bit of a grinder though, he weathered that and kept coming forward and ended the round on top. I’d still say Sascha won the first, but after that it was all downhill for him. You could see that he had broken. He was shooting from so far out, then when he had opportunities to get back to his feet he would pull back into guard. Conor was loosing it; he threw his glasses at the cage. He started calling Sascha a pussy and a bitch. I actually felt bad for the guy at a certain point. They went to a third and it was more of the same. Sascha kept pulling guard and turtling up, Conor kept yelling, and Chris kept punching him. No question who won the fight, Chris advances and we kept the fight pick. Faber decided to go with Tom. I was a little let down, watching other guys fight makes you really want to get in there. But I was also happy for Tom, the guy was begging to fight since we got there, and he was also one of the bigger guys working on keeping his weight down.

Also see:

• ‘The Ultimate Fighter 22’ blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 1
• ‘The Ultimate Fighter 22’ blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 2

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.