'The Ultimate Fighter 27' blog, Episode 1: The Sleeping Llama

Here I am standing in the The Ultimate Fighter Gym with all the other contestants. At this moment, I’m not even thinking about fighting these guys. I’m lost in looking at all the previous season’s jerseys on the wall, seeing some of the greatest fighters’ names on them. I’m standing in the cage and taking it all in. I’ve seen some of the craziest fights in this cage, and I’m going to be apart of the history of “The Ultimate Fighter.” It’s such a great feeling, and it just keeps getting better.

It’s time to meet the coaches, so as I’m stood on the mats, my mind is running with who it could be. There were rumors days before that it could be Daniel Cormier vs. Stipe Miocic, but I wasn’t sold on it because I was thinking no way would ‘DC’ fight his friend Cain Velazquez if he were to win the heavyweight title. But like people say, money talks, so here we are gathered on the mats.

To me it’s one of the biggest moments in ‘TUF,’ the moment when the coaches walk through them big double doors!

The doors swing open, and the rumors were true. It is ‘DC’ and Stipe. But, I’m not even looking at the two of them, because towering over the back of ‘DC’ is one of my all-time favorite fighters, Cain Velazquez. If you don’t know who this beast is, then you need to look through his past fights. He is an absolute legend. This makes things very interesting with ‘DC’ moving up to challenge Stipe. Where does it leave Cain? We will have to wait and see.

After meeting with the coaches, they introduce us all to the training staff. Both coaches have great staffs, but I’m still eyeing up Cain Velazquez. This beast has the biggest head I’ve ever seen. I mean scary big, but I reckon I could take him. Ha, ha! All jokes aside, he was a super nice guy, and it was an absolute honor to meet him. So on with the evaluations, this is when it all became real.

The lightweights started with Stipe, and featherweights with ‘DC.’ We trained 20 minutes with each coach, then swapped. The evaluations consisted of mainly grappling, and there was some beasts among us. I remember grappling with Kyler Phillips and trying to get a look at Brad Katona and Bryce Mitchell going at it the whole session. It was a very intense 40 minutes, all the guys trying to set their dominance on each other. This was it – game on.

Evaluations finished, and coaches went away to sort their picks. My feeling after the evaluations was that I would be at the bottom half of both the coaches’ lists, purely due to the high level of grappling in most of the fighters’ backgrounds. I thought ‘DC’ for sure would want all the wrestlers, but I decided way before getting to the show that regardless of where I was picked, I would still go in with my strong mindset because I know on previous seasons, the last pick has impressed and won the whole show. I am not interested in where I am picked. I just want to put on some crazy fights and show the world who I am.

Then the coaches came back ready to start the picks. The main man himself, Dana White, is here for the famous coin toss, which of course cannot be done without him. After a near runaway coin, ‘DC’ wins the toss and goes with first fighter pick, and I wasn’t surprised at all with any of the picks. Featherweight Tyler Diamond was the No. 1 pick for ‘DC,’ and Kyler Phillips for Stipe – both super talented guys. No. 1 at lightweight was my good friend Richie Smullen and for Stipe also my good friend Mike Trizano. I was the sixth featherweight picked and the 13th overall, which didn’t surprise me. Either way, I am here to do what I know I can do.

For the first fight pick, Stipe decides to go with John Gunther vs. Joe Giannetti, and finally the ball is rolling. The more I thought about this fight, the more I thought Joe didn’t have enough for John. I’ve felt both guys in the grappling department and really felt John had the upper hand, but Joe moves very well and has sharp striking. Having watched some of John’s previous fights before the show, I started thinking I might end up fighting him. I knew you needed to hit like Francis Ngannou to put him away, and I just don’t think Joe has that sort of power, so I was confident John would bring back the win, and so was the whole team.

The picks are done, we know who’s with who, and there is only one thing to do now – head to the house!

We were given some inside tips on where to head once we were at the house by James Krause because it’s a “first come, first served” situation with the bedrooms and beds, so it was a race to find the best spots for where we were going to spend the next six weeks. Me being the big kid I am, (along with my main man Dulani Perry) I bolted from the vans to the rooms, with me hitting the deck looking super cool (I’m so glad they edited that bit out).

We quickly found our beds and took a quick look around the house. It was crazy big compared to my small flat in Spain! It was also Dulani’s birthday, so some the guys had a shot of Hennessey to celebrate the beginning of the show and his birthday. I was offered but kindly declined as I’m not a person you want drinking – especially in this environment. For those of you who know me, I’m sure you will understand what I mean!

So I thought to myself, “Finally, I am here, in The Ultimate Fighter house.’ It was a strange feeling that night. My first night sleeping trapped in a house with 15 other undefeated beasts, I had to remind myself before I fell asleep why I was here, and who I was here for.

With fight day approaching quickly, weigh-ins were the first step. They went well. John looked great leading up to the fight. Confidence was high on our team. The gameplan was simple: for John to get the takedown, control him, and grind him out. As we are waiting for the fight to start, we’re all stood together as a team. It’s only been a few days since team selection was made, but we’re a strong unit sitting here in team colors all ready to support John, watch him get the takedown and grind Joe out to victory! Obviously everything didn’t go quite as we thought it would.

I remember thinking, “John is sleeping. What just happened?” It went SO quick! John rushed in, received some shots on the way in from Joe, and it seemed like John was comfortable in a good position against the cage but a beautiful high-elbow guillotine from Joe cut the circulation of blood off to John’s brain and ended the fight, just like that. WOW! We really didn’t see that coming, and I remember thinking this season is going to be very interesting.

Once we all gathered our thoughts and everyone had got over the fight, it was time for Stipe to pick the second fight. He decided Kyler Phillips vs. Brad Katona, and we all knew that this fight is going to be a great fight. In my opinion, Kyler is one of the most talented guys that we have, and going into the show, he for sure was a favorite for the finale. We didn’t know much about Brad, apart from the rumors floating around that he is Superman’s long lost son. So we have a season favorite vs. The Man of Steel’s spawn – who are you picking to win this one?

Jay Cucciniello (8-0), an English featherweight on “The Ultimate Fighter 27,” blogs about the season each week exclusively for MMAjunkie. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMelowFelow. New episodes of the show air each Wednesday night on FS1.