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[Clint]

Mac Danzig:
http://punch.freedomblogging.com/200...de-6/#more-178

Hughes:
http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=8400

Serra:
Not up yet but should be here eventually: http://weblogs.newsday.com/sports/sp..._fighter/blog/

[Clint]

Danzig

EPSIODE 6

Finally, the “Barrer-isode” is here.

I remember being halfway through the entire six-week ordeal and discussing Dan Barrera with some of the other guys on the team. (This was actually done quite often because, let’s face it, he’s an interesting guy to say the least) We all agreed that he was probably going to get more air time than anyone else on the show because of his crazy antics, but until now, they really haven’t shown much of him, which surprised me.

This week’s blog will no-doubt be much shorter than last week’s, and thank goodness for that. The Barrerisode starts off immediately with fight picks. Ben and Dan get matched up and we get right into a training montage that includes footage from a whole load of different training sessions, all spliced together. This is especially apparent, because it shows Blake training with him, and Blake never did get back on the mats after his fight with Richie, because after all, his ACL was completely torn.

Dan’s knee-drop on J-Roc’s baby-makers gets aired. I remember every time Dan would train, somebody would get hurt. The guy was physically and mentally a little bit out of control. J-Roc was convinced that Dan did it to buy time because he was tired. That may be the case, but I think Dan is simply out of control. Kind of like a toddler on high amounts of sugar, just running around with reckless abandon, unaware of other people’s testicles. Unaware of anything at all, really.

Mac Danzig against Joe Scarola

This episode doesn’t even begin to show Dan for who he really is. I won’t give away too much of what might be in store for future episodes, but a few examples of his absent-mindedness stand out in my mind. One time, Barrera was finally convinced by someone to do some laundry after about 3 or 4 weeks of simply stealing other people’s clothes and using the homeless man’s “take a swim in the pool with your clothes on” method.

I’m not sure if he had ever done laundry before, but he ended up grabbing a giant wad of dirty clothes, along with various other random items, and tossing them directly into the washer with Paul’s clothes, mid-cycle. When Paul went to check his laundry, it was mixed in with a bunch of still-dirty clothes that weren’t his, and if I remember correctly, plastic zip-lock bags, an unopened energy bar, and loose almonds everywhere. The thing is, you couldn’t even really get that mad at him for it. Like I said, it was kind of like having a young child around the house. (One with ADDHD, anyway) You couldn’t get through to him by getting mad at him. Dan is just Dan. And we liked our crazy toddler of an Ultimate fighter.

Barrera was the only guy in the house who had the freedom of being able to go on monitored runs throughout the neighborhood, simply due to the fact that he was the only one crazy enough to be up at 4 a.m. to do it.

In a comical little montage, we finally get to see a glimpse of what Dan was doing while he was in the bathroom all those times. As cast-members, we were all under the impression that those cameras weren’t being fed to video tape, and that they were for surveillance only. Boy were we wrong. I can only imagine what they have on tape from some of those guys. I would actually go in there whenever I was having an emotional, stress-filled moment and didn’t want to be filmed. Heh, I guess it’ll be seen anyway!

Hughes actually beat up on Barrera like that multiple times during the show. I really think thats just his way of asserting his dominance over someone who has a lot of spunk. Never once did he act that way in training to me. I think he wanted to “break” Dan, so to speak. It’s more of a college wrestling mentality, I think. He really picked on Dan during training, but it was all in good fun, I guess. Dan really sucked up his hand injury too. He may be a nut, but he’s not a complainer, that’s for sure. That thing had to hurt, broken or not.

The incident with his wife and the phone call happened on private terms, so this is the first time anything from that was seen by us. All crazy screaming by Dan’s wife aside, it has to be hard to get a call like that. This happened within days of Paul’s family tragedy, and it just made things worse for all of us, thinking about what negative things might be going on at home that we have no control over. Barrera is a trooper for dealing with that the way he did. I’m not going to judge his wife too much by that call, because keep in mind, she is fairly young, and the stresses of all the responsibilities he left for her to take care of while he was gone probably drove her crazy (as if being married to Dan Barrera wasn’t hard enough) … (lol) All joking aside, that was a hard thing to go through and I felt for Dan being in that position.

The fight: A lot of people don’t understand how hard it is for a seasoned veteran to get in the ring and do exactly what the coach wants them to, let alone someone with no professional fights like Dan. They listed him as having 1 fight, but as far as I know, that was a Pankration match on mats in a high school gym with no strikes to the head. In my opinion, that’s not an MMA fight. Dan has an amateur boxing and wrestling background. Considering his lack of experience, I thought he did really well. He fought a very awkward fighter and even though he had a brain-fart or two during the match, he showed heart, which goes a long way. Ben Saunders has alot of potential as a fighter. That body-type along with his athleticism could make for a really excellent fighter in the future.

At one point, Dan stands above Ben and delivers nonsensical slaps to Saunder’s ankles instead of letting him up like we were all screaming to him to do. It was frustrating from a coaching standpoint, but it’s harder than you’d think to do the right thing in there all the time. Who knows, he may have been buying time since he himself was tired. I personally thought there should have been another round, as did most other people who saw the fight, including Dana. Whenever you have people with point-karate backgrounds judging MMA, something is wrong, and you hardcore fans know exactly who I’m talking about.

Hughes is at his boiling point because after all, he’s a competitor and hates to lose just like Matt Serra. We’ll see next week what happens with all of that.

Till then …

[Clint]

Hughes

We’re down in thiscompetition so far, and in looking back at the shows each week, I definitely try to learn from my mistakes. When I’m saying stuff, a lot of times it just comes out of my mouth, but now that I can sit back and watch myself be a cornerman, I can say ‘well, maybe I should have said more of this or that.’ So I’m trying to be better, but in the heat of the fight, when I’m yelling at Dan Barrera like I did this week, I was mad, and I think that comes across in the tone of my voice.

Dan was up this week to fight Ben Saunders, and I rolled with Dan after he was getting out of hand a bit in practice. I just needed him to calm down because he’s gonna get somebody hurt, and it could be him or somebody with a fight coming up. A lot of it was just play though, because I got along with Dan real well. But some of it was, hey, you need to relax. You see what I’m doing to you? This is kinda what you’re doing to other people. I just wanted to put him in the other guy’s shoes.

Dan also got an emergency call from his wife this week, and this life can be tough for husbands and wives. How does my wife deal with me being gone for long stretches of time? She’s probably pretty happy to start off. My phrase is ‘she’s happy to see me walk out the door, and she’s got a smile on her face when I walk back in the door.’ And while I’d like to think I could relate to what Dan had to go through, I’ve never had a phone call like that. But Dan was always showing his love for his wife and he was very concerned when he got that phone call, so he was trying comfort her as much as he could and reassure her that everything was gonna be all right. And he was right – everything turned out all right.

I’ve been asked if all the outside the Octagon things that have happened to our team have really affected our performances, and I think we had a few things that happened, but I’m sure Team Serra had some unfortunate things come upon them at the same time. I’m still super happy with the guys I picked; I wouldn’t trade any of my guys for any of Serra’s guys, to be honest. In the practice room, we always just click as a team. So some things have happened, but that’s life, and at no point was I feeling sorry for myself and thinking that I got dealt a bad hand.

As for this week’s fight, I had it a draw.

With that knockdown, I thought Dan won the first round, and then Ben clearly won the
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second round. My first criteria in judging is always damage. Who has created the most amount of damage, and I thought that with the knockdown, Dan had put the most damage on Ben. I thought that was the deciding factor in that first round.

After that knockdown, I got on Dan to finish the fight. I knew Dan could hear what I was saying, but before that fight he was 1-0 in his mixed martial arts career, so that inexperience is a big factor. He’s out there and he’s thinking about what he needs to do and what he wants to do, and just to clarify, the reason I wanted Dan to back up and make Ben come back on his feet is because Dan knocked him down and obviously had him dazed, and the longer Ben got to lay on his back, the more he was able to recoup and get his mind back with him. I wanted Dan to hurry up, get Ben back on his feet, and try to knock him down again.

As I said earlier, Ben clearly won the second round, and at the end of the round, I took some scissors with me and I was cutting the tape off the bottom of Dan’s feet because he was slipping around and I think that had something to do with the way he was fighting because he couldn’t do anything without slipping. But not one part of my body ever realized that this fight could be over. I was amazed. Even Matt Serra had Dan winning the first round and that’s the opposing coach. When the opposing coach says that my guy won the round, it was just bad. It was bad for Dan Barrera and it was bad for the sport because people want to see the right call, and that didn’t happen.

So now we’re down 5 to 1, but it only takes one guy to win this whole thing and I’ve already got who I think is one of the best guys into the next round, and with Mac (Danzig) going in, I don’t think any of his (Serra’s) guys can beat him. And I have two of my best fighters left, so by no means am I hanging my head low and conceding defeat here. He’s won a battle, but with two fights left and me fighting Serra in December, I can easily win the war.

For more information on Matt Hughes, visit www.matt-hughes.com

[Clint]

No problem. These are fun each week and it's a pain to hunt them out if you don't know where they are.

[Weirdharold]

"Kind of like a toddler on high amounts of sugar, just running around with reckless abandon, unaware of other people’s testicles."

I love this quote from Danzig's log...... Any Father out there with one or any number of toddler's has a none-too-real appreciation for this line...

One time I picked up my daughter while she was kicking her feet..... square in the left nut..... i still cringe recollecting that moment....

[rafesparza]

This is great because when the episode ends every week... I realize that it'll be a complete seven days before I get the chance to catch another episode.

Damn the UFC.

Damn them for making this so addictive.

These certainly help the withdrawl syndrome.

[Tick]

Below is the serra blog... On a side note though, did anyone else realize that Hughes also posts a second and differnt blog on his web page? http://www.matt-hughes.com/ It looks like he takes some quesions from his forumns and so on...

SERRA'S

The Ultimate Fighter: Season 6, Episode 6

By Matt Serra
UFC Welterweight champion

With one more win, we’d clinch control of the quarterfinal matchups. After a little bit of thought, we went with Ben vs Dan. I thought Ben could beat him anywhere, because he is way more well rounded. I really think he’s one of the top guys on the show, and given his age and ability, he is going to be in the UFC for awhile. Barrera definitely has a work ethic about him, you can’t question that, but he was more of a boxer than MMA fighter. Ben’s good everywhere, he’s well rounded.

To tell you the truth, I didn’t know what to make of Dan Barrera when I first met him. He’s a pretty wacky guy, and I thought he may have BS’d his way through the casting process to get onto the show. He’s really energetic, my team said he couldn’t even sit still in the house, so regarding his practice habits, I wasn’t surprised – some guys only have one speed. With guys like that, I think Hughes and Jared had the right idea – when coaching, if someone doesn’t listen to you verbally, you have to kind of get the point across one way or the other.

Ben Saunders I definitely liked from the get go. He’s not your typical, cookie cutter fighter. He reminded me a little bit of Luke Cummo in that sense, he’s a smart guy just trying to be who he is, no tough guy act about being in this sport.

Leading up to the fight, Dan had some weird stuff going on. To begin with, those trips to the bathroom…he must have not known there was a camera there. Then he had that crazy stuff going on with his wife back home. He seemed to let that roll off of him, though, he was definitely focused on the matter at hand when it came down to fight time.

Also, when I first heard about his hand, Longo told me it was broken, and I thought Ben would win by default and move onto the next round. I wasn’t happy the guy hurt his hand, just to be clear. I wanted what’s best for Ben, and, ultimately, our team.

As it turns out, Dan could fight, and Ben would have to punch his own ticket to the quarterfinals. I didn’t doubt he would – leading up to his bout, I’ve never seen anyone as genuinely excited as Ben was about fighting. He couldn’t wait to get in there. Smiling ear to ear, he turned to me during practice and said “This is the closest thing to being a superhero.”

Round 1, I actually thought could have gone either way. Dan definitely landed the biggest shot of the round, knocking down Ben with a hard right, but truthfully, he didn’t do much besides that. Ben was landing a lot of shots, and while I thought the judges would give it to Dan because of the knockdown, it could have gone either way. Still, if the round is close, as his cornerman, I have to assume a close round has gone the other way to prepare my guy for the rest of the fight.

Round 2, Ben dominated. He put on a clinic and made adjustments based on what we discussed between rounds. I was very proud of his performance and thought he’d do more of the same in the 3rd round…but that wasn’t necessary. As soon as they said there wouldn’t be a 3rd round, I turned to him and said “Congratulations Buddy, you’ve got this one.”

Turns out I was right, and that set Matt Hughes off complaining to the athletic commission about the judges. Dana White seemed to agree with him. Not for nothing, but I’ve been on the receiving end of some close decisions and wacky endings to fights. I never reacted that way, regardless of the outcome. Furthermore, while it was definitely a close call, I don’t think it’s a completely unreasonable decision. Of course, I could be biased as Ben’s couach, but watching it again on TV, it didn’t seem as ridiculous a call as Dana and Hughes’s reactions would indicate.

In any event, we clinched decision making rights in the quarterfinals, and celebrated our team’s win in Ben’s dressing room. I stepped out of our celebration for a moment to, with Matt Hughes’ permission, visit their locker room to give Dan his due. He hung in there and it was an absolute brawl, and Dana did the right thing in giving both those guys the $5000 bonus. The real reason I went in there, though, was to apologize to Dan for thinking he BS’d his way onto the show. I owed him that. You’ll see him again in the UFC.