Justin “The Viking” Wren’s “The Ultimate Fighter 10″ blog – episode 8

Episode 8: Itsy Bitsy Spider

The episode started off with the Recap of the Junk vs. Mitrione fight. I was quoted saying Junk fought to 10 percent of his potential. I think he fought with a ton of heart though. Junk in practice is a monster, an animal; he has great conditioning contrary to what he showed and is a well-rounded fighter.

I still think he was the top one or two guys on his team. Junk had to have eye surgery after the fight, and also going into the fight he put a lot of pressure on himself for his family. I will not go into what happened but there was a family tragedy that struck him before he left and it was really on his mind. All that, plus the house puts a lot of pressure on people, and I think that should be told to people who have never thought about it.

Rampage destroyed a flimsy door, and I was shown shaking my head. I grew up in high school being coached by TWO Olympic Gold Medalists in Kenny Monday and Kendall Cross. I also lived and wrestled at the United States Olympic Education Center; was recruited and lived in Ames, Iowa for a year and worked with Cael Sanderson extensively.

We suffered some heart breaking defeats, but as coaches, world class competitors, champions, and being the role models they are I never witnessed a coach doing something like this. I think I was just shocked and thought about all the young people that look up to him… Sad thing is, he was even Darrill Schoonover’s FAVORITE fighter until he decided to pick on him for six weeks straight.

Scott definitely took his beating more like a man; Matt was going around the house telling everyone he had brain damage, potential brain bleeding, and so forth. Wes Sims gave him a hard time constantly and gave him a victory party.

I was shooting some pool whenever Marcus began to shriek, I went to kill the spider with his shoe and he squealed. That guy really is such a physical specimen, and to see him freak over a spider was funny. I expected that guy to laugh like John Coffey from the green mile, squash it with his fingers, or make it his pet and play with it… Something a little tougher!

Marcus is one of the best dudes I have gotten to know in my lifetime. He is so gentle, and if he wasn’t he would be scary inside and out of the cage! Marcus definitely deafened the spider so that I could sneak up on it! If he hadn’t things could have ended ugly.

Mike’s wife Kelly is a SUPER sweet lady, and my girlfriend and I really like them. Mike had to deal with some tough stuff, tougher than ANY TUF fighter in history I believe. His wife had cancer, had surgery, and he had no clue if it went OK or went south or ANYTHING. Throw the guy a bone, give him some info, Mike got nothing.

He was affected mentally for sure, as would any man. I think that is why he went for a takedown, against such a good guy on the ground. Not in the game plan at all. Everyone makes mistakes, and Mike will learn from it.

Rampage suckers Darrill, this happened numerous times, and then Rampage would grab on him or start smack talking again. Darrill is a good guy, he took a whole bunch before he started standing up to Rampage. It never really stopped the whole time we were there.

Marcus and Mike fought, and Mike didn’t stick to the game plan. Instead of standing he tried a takedown. Marcus did awesome and hipped into Mike with a whizzar and put Mike on his back. Marcus took his back and then finished with a quick armbar.

I was shocked Roy picked me to fight. Roy is turning out to have done a lot of different things than what he said in the house. Roy wasn’t too arrogant in front of our faces but he sure was when we weren’t around, and in all his recent interviews he sure does love himself.

My fight next week will be exciting. I will leave it up to the imagination. In my opinion it was two of the toughest guys matched up in the quarters.

By:  Justin “The Viking” Wren

You can follow Justin on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JustinTheViking.

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