'The Ultimate Fighter 22' blog: James Jenkins on episode No. 8

James Jenkins

Alright, with the eighth episode of “The Ultimate Fighter 22” now out there, this is where I get to talk about my lead-up to the fight in the house.

Conor McGregor had chose Artem Lobov to fight me. I liked the match up. My coach, Urijah Faber, was already talking to me about fighting him.

On the show, Artem doesn’t always come off that great toward the Americans, but my experiences with him in the house were much different. The day Conor chose us to fight, I was playing catch with a football with him in the morning. He couldn’t throw a ball for his life, but it was still a good time. I had no hate for Artem. I thought we were both similar in that we were tough guys looking to bring a fight. The only thing going into the fight that I didn’t particularly like was that he was a southpaw. I’m not to keen on the southpaws, but I already fought one (Brennan Sevin) to get into the house, and I did well.

That week in practice, T.J. Dillashaw had been doing a lot of work with all of us. I think T.J. took a liking to Johnny Nunez off the bat, being that Johnny was also a high-level wrestler. I had one strange incident with T.J. I was doing some drill sparring with Johnny, and he went a little hard, so I would go a little hard back – not to be a dick, but just because I didn’t want to back down to anyone. At the time I had to think any one of us could be fighting.

Well, I guess T.J. just saw me going hard and came over. He said something to Johnny about some guys not knowing how to drill. Then he showed us something and nailed me in the leg with a kick. He smiled and said “sorry,” but I had a good idea it wasn’t an accident.

So, off the bat, I was like, “OK, this isn’t the best start working with the champ.” Later on that day at the second practice, I actually got to work out with T.J. He held for me, and I gotta say, it was pretty awesome. After getting to work one on one with him, I liked him a lot more. He pushed me pretty hard and was yelling at me at the end to go harder, and I could see the same expressions in his face I could see during his fights. It was a pretty badass moment to me. I’m just as much a fight fan as anyone, and to have the champ there pushing me was pretty great. I also have the pleasure at home of having middleweight champ Chris Weidman pushing me, so it wasn’t the first time I got help from a champ.

The day before the weigh-ins, I left practice only four pounds over. It was the first time in my fighting career I was able to eat dinner the night before and breakfast the day of a weigh-in. I was a little small, but I thought it could be an advantage later down the road not having to really cut much at all.

At the weigh-in, they made us do the staredown, but it’s the longest staredown of your life. They need to put up sponsors on TV, so for like a good solid minute, you just stare at each other.

Later on I thought a lot about how I thought the fight would go. I wanted to put on a great performance. I knew Artem was tough and would come forward, as would I. Anyone who saw my first fight to get in the house would probably agree I have a good chin, and if you have seen any of my fights in my career, you would probably agree I have some punching power. So usually I welcome a guy who’s willing to exchange. Fighting in the house is much different than a regular fight. Usually you would have about two months of preparation and be able to watch film. You get none of this for these fights, and all I knew was what Urijah and his team told me, and what I saw of his fight with Mehdi Baghdad. I didn’t let things like that bother me because everyone was on a level playing field with that. He only knew what he saw of me and what his coaches said about me.

The day of the fight came. I had Julian Erosa come with me. He’s a funny guy, so I thought he could keep the mood light. When I was in the locker room and the Team Alpha Male guys got there, they brought in MMA legend Don Frye. I was pretty shocked to see him, another legend of the sport. He told me something like, “Whatever happen’s in there, he’s not going to kill you.” Not exactly the best pre-fight speech, but I was like, “Damn, he’s right.”

At one point in the locker room, the guys were talking about camping. Julian tried to make a joke to Don and said, “They made a movie about my camping trip. They called it ‘Brokeback Mountain.’” Don just gave him this long stare. For a second, I was actually worried he might kill him. Then he gave a low growl and walked away.

T.J warmed me up again. He liked my punching power, and I think the Alpha Male guys thought I could score the knockout. Artem tends to leave his hands low, and I wanted to catch him.

The fight kicked off, and we touched gloves. We both were pawing out with our lead hands. This happens a lot with the southpaw matchup. It makes it a little hard to set up the jab, which is one of the reasons I don’t like southpaws. He was also looking for the uppercut. That was something Urijah worked with me a bit on. Artem wasn’t much taller than me, so I didn’t think his reach would be a problem. But he has a bit of an unusual stance. His head was way back, and I had a real difficult time finding my reach against him. He also would slip his head and counter punch me as I came in.

He landed a few punches off the start. They hurt a little but nothing too bad. Every time I came forward, he would get out of range and counter. He did a good job. A couple minutes in, he hit me with a punch that knocked me down, and the cut from my first fight opened up. I still felt good, but shortly later, he hit me with a short left to my eye. The shot really impaired my vision, and I was seeing double. Not the first time it’s ever happened to me, but usually it goes away after a little bit. This time it wasn’t going away, so I was happy when they called time.

I thought the timeout would give me the time I needed for my vision to come back. It still wasn’t coming back, but I told the doc I was good. I didn’t want them to stop the fight. I thought at this point I needed to land a knockout. I was looking for the big punch, and with about a minute left of the round, I went for a big right, and he caught me lunging in. Amateur mistake by me. I left myself vulnerable, and he took advantage of it.

This was tough for me. It’s tough to write about. Artem did a great job, so my hat’s off to him. I think my crucial mistake was I was too stubborn about wanting to catch him on the feet. Things weren’t looking great for me in the standup game off the start. I could have been more diverse in mixing in my wrestling.

It’s a hard lesson learned, but all I can do now is take everything I have learned here and apply it to becoming a better fighter. I later found out the reason my eye never got better was because I had a fractured orbital, which really sucked. It was super painful, and I had to go to the hospital after the fight.

As much as it hurt, I don’t think anything was as bad as the feeling of being out of the competition and losing on the big stage. I’ve had a loss as a pro before. That was tough, but it made me realize that I fight for me. I don’t let naysayers get to me because it’s not for them, but this loss has been very hard. Not because of any negativity, but because of all the support I have gotten. A lot of people have been supporting me – family, friends, my Serra-Longo team – and I feel like I let a lot of people down. Now the only thing I can do is move on and come back better.

So the fight with Johnny actually happened the next day, but I was at the house resting up my injuries. This was the first time I actually saw this fight, and I think this was a great one.

In the first round, Johnny opened up pretty good against a seasoned striker in David Teymur, who landed a couple of huge knees and then poured on a lot of punches. Johnny came back and landed a big left of his own, dropping David. Johnny hit a takedown with a little more than a minute left and got mount, but he didn’t land a ton of damage. It was tough round to score; Johnny had some good positions and time on top, but David landed some hard shots.

Round 2 came, and David landed a hard body kick. Johnny hit a takedown off of one of David’s switch knees. He got to mount again, but David kept exploding to regain half guard. David got back to his feet and landed some good kicks at the end of the round. They were two pretty grueling rounds, and it went to a third.

I think some of those hard body shots David threw took a toll. He landed some hard shots on top of Johnny, and for a second, it looked like it might get stopped. Johnny took a little bit of punishment but eventually got back to his feet. David was just the fresher fighter in the third, and he came in this fight with a lot of kickboxing experience, and it showed. He threw some hard knees and some hard switch kicks. Johnny was able to get on top at the end, but it wasn’t enough.

David won the third round and the fight. Very hard fought fight by both guys. So with that fight up, the last guys were up. Next up we have Jason Gonzales against Abner Lloveras.

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

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.