(You think that’s gay, just wait ’til you see what they did to Andre Winner‘s rainbow-colored booty-shorts.)

Ricardo Feliciano abuses the English language, Cyrille Diabate abuses alcohol, and more behind-the-scenes nuggets from Wednesday’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter, courtesy of Team USA lightweight Santino Defranco.

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Jason Dent and Frankie Lester are officially part of the "Independent Americans". The fighters from the USA, myself included, were by no means a cohesive unit like the UK fighters. Team UK ate together, with head chef and cooking captain Dean Amasinger at the helm. They played together, participating in sports, WWE-style wrestling matches, and other limey-esque games generally led by England’s bouncer of the year and lead playwright, Dave Faulkner. And, with my new knowledge, thanks to modern technological devises such as cameras and tele’s, I have seen that they trained together, led by the "Gov’na" himself, Michael "TV will show how I can throw a tantrum" Bisping". The American counterparts, on the other hand, would have little to do with one another.

To the defense of the seemingly megalomaniacal Americans, we had just met each other and were now being recorded 24 hours a day by camera crews, some of whom had handlebar porn-staches and even went to the extreme of hiding in our closets in the middle of the night. That was a bit awkward for us. Team UK, however, had almost two weeks to get acquainted with each other before filming began. Team USA was not afforded that luxury, as we fought and were immediately thrown in a house with an angry, drunk hobbit. We were getting to know every one’s personality and idiosyncrasies during the first few weeks of filming. There was, however, a common ground of distaste between the Yanks, personified by the "Count", Michael Bisping.


Bisping enjoyed a good heckling of us "insignificant winjers" (he never actually called us that, but I imagine those words were circulating around in the patronizing head of his). From the first day of training, the Gov’na was sliding snide comments in where he could get them and was even more vocal if he found the "handlebar porn-stache" around, for a good recording of his clever words directed at our team. It was interesting to see the change in the Gov’na, and his interactions with us "Eagles" over the course of the filming of the show. In the mean time we were treated to the delight of watching him anger Demarques beyond comprehension. "D" would get fired up something fierce at every stabbing comment of the Gov’na’s and would never shy away from his own coarse words. The Gov’na was always soon to reciprocate in the verbal joust with Demarques, and even Dan Henderson, which eventually led to a "boiling point." (That, you will just have to wait for though).

With the show underway and Bisping enjoying camera time, the Independent Americans were also engaging in some training sessions as well. Nothing as fantastically unified as team UK, but we were getting some training in nonetheless. I was relegated to the "JV" boxing squad where I would do little more than jab for my tenure in the house. I know I am no Buakaw, or Ernesto Hoost, but I thought I had a little in the way of stand up fighting. Incorrect was I in the eyes of my talented coaches. I worked my jab, and that was that.

The highlight of the first few weeks of training was the constant, verbal beating "Pancho"(who spells it "Pantcho"), our Jiu Jitsu coach, took from Dan and Cyrille for his comical misuse of the English language. At one point "Pantcho" told me he was going to "F*** me!" After a little deliberating with Cyrille he decided to correct himself and inform me he meant "F*** me uppey!". That’s right, "uppey". And "Armey". And "Punchy". Basically, if it ended with a consonant, he would add an "ey" to the end of the word and if it ended with an "ey" he would leave it out. Interesting this…Pantcho. He was hilarious and always offered great comic relief to our stressful situation.

Cyrille was a great asset with his unbelievable Thai Boxing techniques, although I don’t think I saw him one day without the stale, reeking breath of a homeless drunkard. The two could party, that’s for sure. Even after a good night of boozing, Cyrille had no problem knocking my mouthpiece out of my squawk box with a light foot jab to my sternum…that was pretty demoralizing. However dysfunctional our group was, we managed to get by and even pick a fight with a Brit.

No we didn’t jump anyone with tube socks stuffed with soap bars. We had first fight pick due the coin toss from Dana, our paterfamilias. With that toss came the question "Who is ready to fight?", from Dan. Meat Missile answered, "I’m ready to fight, I don’t really care", in about the most nonchalant way imaginable. It were as if he asked someone to pass him the salt or something.

Nick Ostasomething was picked and once again Bisping jumped in with his "We don’t need any luck" (or something along those lines), statement.

Fight day came and I think everyone on Team US expected Mark to run right through Nick. Something happened within the lines of communication, though, and Nick didn’t get the memo. He came to fight, and fight he did. The first round set the standard for our season and after five arduous minutes of back and forth action the round came to an end with possibly a slight edge going to Nick. The fight was really close and could have very easily gone either way. As the two came out for the second round, it was apparent that Nick had a little more cardio and after a couple exchanges and scrambles he hit Mark with a high kick that dropped him. Mark wasn’t really out, but the kick did legitimately drop him, and with him being so fatigued it looked worse than it was. Hat’s off to you Nick, and, hopefully, by the end of this season I will be able to pronounce your last name.