We’re down in this competition so far, and in looking back at the shows each week, I definitely try to learn from my mistakes. When I’m saying stuff, a lot of times it just comes out of my mouth, but now that I can sit back and watch myself be a cornerman, I can say ‘well, maybe I should have said more of this or that.’ So I’m trying to be better, but in the heat of the fight, when I’m yelling at Dan Barrera like I did this week, I was mad, and I think that comes across in the tone of my voice.

Dan was up this week to fight Ben Saunders, and I rolled with Dan after he was getting out of hand a bit in practice. I just needed him to calm down because he’s gonna get somebody hurt, and it could be him or somebody with a fight coming up. A lot of it was just play though, because I got along with Dan real well. But some of it was, hey, you need to relax. You see what I’m doing to you? This is kinda what you’re doing to other people. I just wanted to put him in the other guy’s shoes.

Dan also got an emergency call from his wife this week, and this life can be tough for husbands and wives. How does my wife deal with me being gone for long stretches of time? She’s probably pretty happy to start off. My phrase is ‘she’s happy to see me walk out the door, and she’s got a smile on her face when I walk back in the door.’ And while I’d like to think I could relate to what Dan had to go through, I’ve never had a phone call like that. But Dan was always showing his love for his wife and he was very concerned when he got that phone call, so he was trying comfort her as much as he could and reassure her that everything was gonna be all right. And he was right – everything turned out all right.

I’ve been asked if all the outside the Octagon things that have happened to our team have really affected our performances, and I think we had a few things that happened, but I’m sure Team Serra had some unfortunate things come upon them at the same time. I’m still super happy with the guys I picked; I wouldn’t trade any of my guys for any of Serra’s guys, to be honest. In the practice room, we always just click as a team. So some things have happened, but that’s life, and at no point was I feeling sorry for myself and thinking that I got dealt a bad hand.

As for this week’s fight, I had it a draw. With that knockdown, I thought Dan won the first round, and then Ben clearly won the second round. My first criteria in judging is always damage. Who has created the most amount of damage, and I thought that with the knockdown, Dan had put the most damage on Ben. I thought that was the deciding factor in that first round.