Amir Sadollah was one of 16 middleweights to fight their way into the the house for a chance to win a contract with the UFC on Spike TV’s reality series “The Ultimate Fighter 7.”

Sadollah is writing a weekly blog to give ocregister.com readers a behind-the-scenes look at everything that goes on in the house, during training and in the fights.

TUF 7 airs Wednesday nights at 10 on Spike TV, and Sadollah’s blog posts immediately following each episode.

EPISODE 4

JT livened up significantly after his first fight. We started to get our first exposure to the real JT Money. As I said before, he is a total character, there was no TV but there was always the JT Money show.

I actually always wondered who broke those blinds first. I don’t think they were ever really right after that. They fell off almost every other time we opened that door.

People may not realize how much of an advantage it is to have control of the picks. You have the advantage of tapering or increasing your training, a luxury the opposite team does not have.You have to train hard, and make the most of your time, but be weary that you are possibly on the chopping block.

The Tinactin scene actually took place a few weeks in. For some reason JT really was opposed to applying it. It took us a while to convince him.

Watching the show at home, I never realized how tense the fight picks are. Strange how we all know we are all going to fight, but the format added real drama. I guess, the act of lining us all up and picking out the fights definitely has a purposeful element of psychology engineered in to add to the emotion. The show was good at doing that.

Dante and Riddle’s pseudo hostile interaction started innocently enough back during our interviews. Dante originally was joking how Riddle reminded him of his nephews, and he couldn’t hit him if they had to fight. Riddle likes to push buttons, and Dante has big red buttons everywhere.

The scene where Dante and Riddle were bickering in the kitchen was some of the first of much banter to come.

Also, how long was I making that sandwich?

I will also say, as watching at home does not impress upon you, invariably when you are sparring like crap, after your body is completely broken down, and you’re punching like a limp armed 3-year-old, the camera is on you, showing America your awesome technique.

I’ll admit. while I was watching previous seasons, I would wonder why these guys looked like crap training. Now, I know.

The pick of Riddle vs Tim was another good matchup stylistically and on paper. On a selfish level, obviously, I wanted our team to win, but Riddle was one of the first guys I made friends with. Besides the invisible line in the sand provided by the teams on the show, I considered us friends throughout the season.

The first thing you notice about Riddle is he is just a laid back, funny guy. He can sound cocky, but it’s more him wanting to make you laugh than arrogance. Hanging out in the initial interview process, Riddle joked how he just wanted to make the show so he could buy an Xbox 360.

It didn’t make the air, but one of the quote’s of the season was Rampage commenting on Riddle at weigh-ins, “He looks like a lesbian.”

The fight between Riddle and Tim was one of the most exciting I had seen in a long time. I don’t think Tim took Riddle lightly but, well, yeah, I think he did. He definitely didn’t expect the ensuing war. None of us did.

Riddle was strong with great take downs and scrappy as hell as advertised. The unseen advantage of all this for Tim is that he likes the wars. He can be slow to start, but continues to fight every second of the round.

This fight on TV did not do justice to how exciting it was live. We all left this fight exhausted just from watching it. If you pay attention to the background noise of us cheering, it is not dubbed in or amplified. The room must have sounded like a freight train passing through. It was that exciting. We were going nuts.

I would never want to be a judge in a fight, but at the time it looked to me like Tim won the first round. Watching the fight again now, I could easily see the judges giving that first round either way. I thought the fight was going to decision and Tim would get it before the armbar.

Now, I could see it having gone to third round and overtime.

I know it just stemmed from wanting to see his fighter win, but you could see Rampage’s real disappointment in the result, and it made you question if it would affect their team’s overall morale.

Back in the Team Forrest warm-up room, we were all reeling at how exciting the fight was. Tim, obviously impressed with Riddle’s performance said, “I think I owe that kid an Xbox.”

-Amir

To check Sadollah’s Episode 3 blog, click here.

To check Sadollah’s Episode 2 blog, click here.

Posted in: Amir's TUF 7 Blog • The Ultimate Fighter • UFC |

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.