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

James Jenkins

This episode kicks off right where we left off with Conor McGregor tearing back into Sascha Sharma. During the fight McGregor said a lot of stuff, but it didn’t end there. When we got into the back by the locker room, Urijah Faber had told McGregor he should show up to more practices. McGregor obviously didn’t care too much to hear that. He dug back into Sascha about not having heart. There was no way he didn’t hear everything that was said. I felt bad for the guy. Regardless of how you felt about his performance, I don’t like kicking a man while he’s down. When the show is all over, McGregor goes right back to being McGregor, but Sascha will be remembered as the guy that got ripped a new one on a show seen by people all over the world. At least later on when emotions calmed down McGregor had some kind things to say about Sascha.

For the first time the viewers got to see the NOS Energy Drink shower. I think that was Julian’s idea to shake up a bunch of cans of NOS and spray it all over the winner. We did it the previous fight to Hall, who did swear he would get revenge if we didn’t do it to everyone. So we had to get Gritz following his win – a silly little tradition we started, but whatever – it was fun.

That week in training we did a lot of hard grappling drills and got to do some 50 percent sparring with the little gloves on. That was a new thing for me. I always do all my sparring with 16-ounce boxing gloves and headgear and generally spar pretty hard up until about a week out of the fight. It’s different here, though, because you don’t know when you could be fighting. You can’t go sparring hard and get hurt and then have to go fight in four days. I thought I was going to be soon. I had hopes for Tom to win his fight, and then I was thinking I would be up.

It was great getting to spar with these guys, even if it was a light spar. Some were more controlled than others – everyone’s idea of 50 percent is always different. Getting to move around with Faber, Cody “No Love” Garbrandt, and Lance Palmer was awesome. I get to work with some great guys at home, too, but still, just to have so many guys working with me to better me was an amazing experience. It was great for training, and even the fan in me thought it was really cool. I’ve been watching Faber tear it up since he was in the WEC, so to be able to have in front of me, throwing punches at me, it’s like, “Man, Faber just punched me. How great is that?”

Tom was one of the bigger Americans. He’s not very tall, but he’s pretty thick. He had to really watch his diet while we were there. I don’t know if it was the weight cut that hurt Tom during the fight, but I would think it played a role. I got to do some wrestling drills with Tom and I’d say his bread and butter is when he gets on your back. He’s got good jiu-jitsu and he’s strong. Marcin, on the other hand, wasn’t very big, but he is a well-rounded fighter, has good standup and is pretty good on the ground, too. I thought if Tom could get him to the ground, he would be the bigger, stronger guy and he would win the fight.

Unfortunately things didn’t go that way. Tom started off well. Marcin had the quicker hands. But off a leg kick, Tom was able to take Marcin’s back. Hats off to Marcin, though – he did a good job defending and keeping Tom high on his back. Tom has finished a lot of people there, so I thought that was going to be the fight. Tom was trying to get a body triangle and I think in the process he just burned his legs out. He still managed to hit another takedown and was able to pass to mount, with short time trying to take the back again Marcin was able to reverse and come out on top at the very end of the round. I don’t know how anyone could score that round for anyone but Tom. Yes Marcin landed cleaner punches, but for three minutes of that round, Tom was in a dominant position on his back, and he was able to score a takedown and pass to mount at the end of the round.

Round 2 comes up, and you can see that Tom is tired. It still didn’t stop him from taking Marcin down and passing to mount. Marcin did a good job and was able to reverse him again. He landed good shots on top, and he was doing much better on the feet. The round was undeniably Marcin’s. When the judges said the fight was over I knew they were going to give Marcin the nod, but I think that was crap. It should have had a third. Tom was tired so I don’t know if he would have had the energy to win, but he should have had the opportunity. A few small mistakes cost Tom the fight, Marcin showed toughness and a very well rounded game. Team McGregor now gets choice of the fights for the first time. Their first pick, they match up my man Billy Q against Saul.

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

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.