TUF7

From April to June, TUF 7 castmember Gerald Harris was brave enough to guest-blog the "Rampage vs. Forrest" season for CagePotato.com, despite being knocked out of contention by Amir Sadollah in the round-of-16. He sent us this quick update today, to share with all the fans of his posts on our site. Give it a read and don't be a stranger...

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Well, I figured that it's better late than never. I have been in the process of moving to Phoenix, Arizona, so I haven't had the time to write. I was actually making this move in January and had no idea where I was going to work out. Things didn't go so well in Oregon financially, so I had to pack up and move in with my momma. It was hard, because I was a pro fighter, 28 years old, college graduate, and I was so poor I had to move in with a parent. Now, this isnt about pride, but I just expected more from myself. Oregon was good to me, I trained with Team Quest and built some lifetime friendships, but I had to move.

From the TUF 7 finale preliminary card: "Gumby" eats his third-straight submission loss, while "The Boogeyman" puts himself back in the UFC's middleweight picture.

Amir Sadollah kicks some ass at Combat Sports Challenge 20 (4/28/07) — rocking his trademark hipster haircut even then. Props to MMATKO.

The most breathtaking video you'll see all day is after the jump.

(Ah, crap: Spike.com embed is currently down...click the image to see the video.)

For all the debate we've had on the Jesse Taylor situation, it might be good to hear Mongo tell his side of the story. In this three-part interview from Spike.com, Jesse doesn't shed any light on Dana White's accusation that he terrorized the female guests of Palace Station, but he does admit hitting a slot machine. (Wait a minute, was Mongo so drunk that he mistook a woman for a slot machine? Uh-oh.) Later, he reveals that he's entered AA, he's been trying (and failing) to contact Dana White, and he thinks CB is going to take Amir in the finale re-match.

(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.

(Amir and his hail-Mary armbar against CB. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

Every Thursday morning, Team Rampage member Gerald Harris blogs his reactions to each episode of The Ultimate Fighter 7 on CagePotato.com. Here's what he had to say about last night's insane ep, which we've already summarized here.

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Damn, what a season! Now, I can’t sit here and say it was the best season ever, because I didn’t watch many of the previous TUF shows, the finale hasn’t happened yet, and who am I to make such a bold statement? All I can say is that we fought our asses off and hopefully built a strong fan base for ourselves while bringing some new faces to the UFC.

I don’t want to overshadow the two fights with Jesse’s incident so I’ll address that now. I feel sorry for him, but every man is responsible for his own mistakes. It’s not like getting caught with a punch or submission — this is a voluntary act that you can control. There are consequences in the real world and unfortunately Jesse picked the wrong time to learn a lesson. I witnessed most of the events that night and even tried to help him get home, but he was out of control. With a son to feed and a future career in the UFC, the decision to go home instead of party would have changed his life.