TUF 10’s Abe Wagner Has Irrefutable Proof That Matt Mitrione Is a Faker

He may not look like much.  He may have terrible takedown defense and he may speak in a monotone voice that makes him sound like a robot that is slowly running out of power.  But “Ultimate Fighter” season ten heavyweight Abe Wagner is one perceptive son of a bitch.  While everyone else in the house traded unfounded speculation about whether Matt Mitrione was faking the whole ‘hurt brain’ thing, Wagner did some sleuthing that turned up incontrovertible evidence, and he shares it with us in his Fight Magazine blog:

“I wasn’t personally very convinced of his head injury and thought he was continuing to play the game the way he had been up to this point. A prime reason why I felt that way was he came up to me eating peanut butter M&M’s and asked me if it was normal for them to be delicious or if his brain was really that messed up. This was obviously a joke because everyone knows that peanut butter M&M’s are delicious. In my experience people with real brain trauma have no humor; it just doesn’t occur to them. So that he was able to make jokes with me made me think that his head injury wasn’t in fact that bad.”

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution rests. 

Okay, so maybe it’s not exactly scientific, but it’s still very difficult to argue with.  Who makes it all the way to adulthood without finding out that peanut butter M&M’s are delicious?  Some people learn it on the streets, some in an uncomfortable talk with their father, but by a certain age, everyone knows it.  Oddly though, his take on Mitrione and peanut butter M&M’s was somehow not the strangest moment in his post-episode blog.  No, that happened when he got around to discussing the chicken prank and its aftermath:

“When the chickens got out, everyone was running around trying to catch them. Coach Van Arsdale pulled out this strangely curved piece of thick wire and went and caught a few of them. He told us he used to be a chicken farmer and the metal thing was a chicken catcher. I couldn’t help but think: what the hell is he doing with a chicken catcher in his rental car in the middle of Las Vegas? I mean I could see him owning one in general, or maybe even him happening to have one in his own personal vehicle, but to be out of town with a rental car and have it there was a little strange. He said you never know when you’re going to need it, and I guess ultimately he was right.”

It is after reading this story that we are forced to consider three possibilities: a) Abe Wagner is fucking with us, b) Mike Van Arsdale was fucking with Abe Wagner, or c) Mike Van Arsdale really is a former chicken farmer who carries a chicken catching device around with him wherever he goes.

Option a is possible, but not much fun.  We’ve already seen Wagner’s powers of observation in action, and from what little we’ve seen of Van Arsdale, he seems like a no-nonsense sort of guy, so there goes option b.  That leaves only option c: Mike Van Arsdale is a man so shaped by his chicken-catching past that he is unable to go anywhere, even a chicken-less wasteland like Las Vegas, without bringing his chicken catcher along for peace of mind. 

One can only imagine what a day of utter vindication it must have been for him when he walked out into that parking lot and saw the multitude of chickens running free.  He knew this day would come.  He waited patiently for it, and he stayed ever vigilant.  Then, on that sunny day in the middle of the desert, the world clicked into place.  This was Mike Van Arsdale's time.  This was Mike Van Arsdale's one perfect moment, be it ever so brief, and yet so majestic.