(CBD, reppin’ the MTX Audio Fight Team.)

Pretty much everyone had CB Dollaway as a lock to get into the Ultimate Fighter 7 finale, and the former All-American wrestler from Arizona State seemed to have it clinched on last night’s episode, kicking Amir Sadollah‘s ass all over the Octagon. And then it happened — an armbar in the third round put a shocking end to the fight, and seemed to derail Dollaway’s dreams of making it into the UFC. Good thing Jesse Taylor can’t handle his liquor, because now the Team Rampage standout has a chance to battle Amir again, this time for all the marbles. Talk about drama. In this exclusive Q+A, Dollaway chats with CagePotato about his rematch with Sadollah, the drawbacks of having Rampage as a coach, Jesse Taylor, and the bullshit one has to endure when living in the TUF house.

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CAGEPOTATO.COM: What do you think went wrong at the end of your semi-final match with Amir?
CB DOLLAWAY: I think conditioning came into play. We’d been fighting two-round fights previously, and it kind of slipped my mind that it was gonna be a three-round fight. Towards the end of the third round I was just exhausted, and I got sloppy. I wasn’t doing things right, and he was. He kept his composure and caught me in that armbar. I definitely think I was controlling the whole fight, and I believe I was ahead on the scorecards, but you have that mental lapse for a minute and the other guy capitalizes on it.

How confident are you that you’ll have him figured out when you fight him again?
Pretty confident. I believe I took care of the mistakes I made in the first match. I think it should be a similar fight, but with me winning at the end. He’s a hard competitor to finish — I already know that from fighting him once — so I’ve taken measures to make sure I’ll be in great condition.

What did you miss the most while you were trapped in the Ultimate Fighter house?
The freedom, I guess. We were told what to do and when to do it, and we didn’t have access to anything. You can’t call anyone, you can’t get on the Internet and browse around, you can’t go to the mall — you’re just there. In a sense, it’s like being in jail.

We’ve heard a lot about how some of the castmembers were made to look a certain way on the show through editing. Jeremy May says he wasn’t really that much of an asshole. Amir told us the “confessional” scenes involved very leading questions. How accurately do you think you were portrayed on the show?
It seemed like they portrayed me to be a cocky asshole, and I’m not really like that. I just want to be confident and I don’t want to put negative thoughts in my head before I fight. They basically edit out everything you say except for the parts where you’re being confident…

Or when you’re referring to yourself in third-person.

Yeah, I did that twice the whole time I was there, probably, and they put ‘em back to back. And they kind of set you up for that too, they’re like “What does CB Dollaway want right now?” They lead you into things, and you don’t really notice it at the time. They’ll ask you the same question ten different ways to get ten different responses.

Is Jeremy May a monumental asshole in real life?
Yeah. I was one of the guys who kind of held out on thinking he was a prick — he was still on my team so I thought I’d give the guy a chance. But some of things he said and did would blow your mind, and there’s certain things he did that they didn’t even show. One time, he told Dante he was tooling me in sparring — the only time we ever sparred, I kicked him in the leg a few times and he never practiced again, the whole show. So he tells Dante that, and then they asked me about it in the confessional, and I went off. He gets called in there, and then he comes up and he’s like “Did I get drunk and say I was kicking your ass in sparring? Because that never happened.” And I was like “Yeah, I fuckin’ know.”

How would you rate Rampage as a coach?
I think he’s still got a lot of learning to do as a coach. I don’t know if he was taking it as seriously as Forrest was. Forrest had been there before. His experience on The Ultimate Fighter helped out a lot, and he brought in a much larger coaching staff, which helped give guys more individual time with coaches. We just had Rampage, Juanito [Ibarra] and Zach [Light], and Forrest had like six coaches on his team. Rampage is definitely a successful fighter, but it’s just something that was new to him.

Do you still hang out with anybody from the show?
Yeah, Matt Riddle moved to Arizona, so I see him on a daily basis. Gerald Harris is moving down there, and he’ll be training out of our gym too. And I also keep in touch with Pat Schultz. He’s a cool guy, and I get along with him good.

If you beat Amir, who would you like your next UFC fight to be against?
I’d actually like to fight Jesse Taylor. No matter if I win or if Amir wins, there’s gonna be a lot of people saying neither one of us should have won and Jesse should have. So I think whoever wins needs to take that fight, if Dana wants to make it happen.

Since it’s still so early in your career, have you had to work another job on the side to make ends meet?
I haven’t had to work even before I went on the show, because I’m on the MTX Audio MMA Fight Team. They sponsor us on a monthly basis, and they pay me enough so that I don’t have to work. They’re looking to make fighters better, and they know you have to train twice a day to get to the elite level; they’re providing me with all the tools I need. I can’t do it for this fight, but for every other fight I strictly have MTX on my banner and all my trainers and cornermen will have MTX stuff on. They’re a great company for mixed martial arts.

What do you do for a good time when you’re not training?
I like to go out to Lake Pleasant and Lake Havasu for holidays and stuff. I just picked up a new Honda Waverunner, though I haven’t been able to use it as much as I’d like — I don’t want to risk getting hurt on it right before the fight.

Well, that’s all I have. Is there anything or anybody you want to shout-out before we sign off?
I’d just like to plug LG Sports Marketing, Arizona Combat Sports, and MTX Audio one more time.

(Ben Goldstein)