When Dana White kicked Jesse Taylor off “The Ultimate Fighter” Finale for being a drunken knucklehead, he also told Taylor to call him when he matured and got his act together. Apparently that only takes a few months, because Fight Hype is reporting that Taylor will be added to the July 19 event on Spike TV, and guess who he may be up against:
Despite being kicked out of The Ultimate Fighter Finale, it appears that Jesse Taylor is set to make his return to the UFC. Sources close to the situation have informed us that, less than one month after he was supposed to face Amir Sadollah in the finale, Taylor will be entering the Octagon on the July 19th card headlined by Anderson Silva vs. James Irvin. Although an opponent has yet to be named, it’s rumored that CB Dolloway, who replaced Taylor in the finale and ultimately lost a second time to Sadollah via first round submission, could be the frontrunner to land the fight.
Well isn’t this a twisted little scenario. At least we know Dollaway is relatively unscathed after his fight with Sadollah, and probably also pretty eager to get back in the Octagon to erase the painful memory of his one-tap defeat. It just goes to show that opportunity knocks more often for everyone when the UFC has a competitor they need to crush.
Now maybe if the AFL would hurry up and get huge Kalib Starnes might even find his way back into the Octagon. Probably not, though.
C.B. Dollaway tapped out in his fight with Amir Sadollah. That seemed clear to everyone but Dollaway following the bout. His vague protest of the stoppage seemed to be rooted in the belief that just tapping once wasn’t really a tap. That’s basically the MMA equivalent of trying to tell your girlfriend that it wasn’t cheating because it was with a prostitute. In other words, it’s an argument that’s doomed from the start.
In an interview with MMA Weekly, Dollaway kind of owns up to it:
“With the tap, I didn’t fully commit to the tap, but I did hit him once. I guess they ruled that a tap. I thought you had to go on and start tapping out. I did hit him once. Right as I did that, I felt my arm get into a position where I could get out. At that point Herb (Dean) ruled it as a tap out.”
Maybe the reason he felt his arm get into a better position after the initial tap was because Herb Dean stepped in and Amir began to let him go? You know, since by tapping his leg Dollaway indicated that he wanted to stop fighting. That’s usually how it works.
Whether he fully committed to the tap or not, tapping once is the same as tapping a dozen times. It’s a signal that you want to quit, which is why you probably shouldn’t tap at all if you don’t want to quit.
Good for him for sort of owning up to it in a very oblique way though. That’s kind of dignified almost.
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.
Yeah, I did that twice the whole time I was there, probably, and they put ‘em back to back. And they kind of set you up for that too, they’re like “What does CB Dollaway want right now?†They lead you into things, and you don’t really notice it at the time. They’ll ask you the same question ten different ways to get ten different responses.
Is Jeremy May a monumental asshole in real life?
Yeah. I was one of the guys who kind of held out on thinking he was a prick — he was still on my team so I thought I’d give the guy a chance. But some of things he said and did would blow your mind, and there’s certain things he did that they didn’t even show. One time, he told Dante he was tooling me in sparring — the only time we ever sparred, I kicked him in the leg a few times and he never practiced again, the whole show. So he tells Dante that, and then they asked me about it in the confessional, and I went off. He gets called in there, and then he comes up and he’s like “Did I get drunk and say I was kicking your ass in sparring? Because that never happened.†And I was like “Yeah, I fuckin’ know.â€
How would you rate Rampage as a coach?
I think he’s still got a lot of learning to do as a coach. I don’t know if he was taking it as seriously as Forrest was. Forrest had been there before. His experience on The Ultimate Fighter helped out a lot, and he brought in a much larger coaching staff, which helped give guys more individual time with coaches. We just had Rampage, Juanito [Ibarra] and Zach [Light], and Forrest had like six coaches on his team. Rampage is definitely a successful fighter, but it’s just something that was new to him.
Do you still hang out with anybody from the show?
Yeah, Matt Riddle moved to Arizona, so I see him on a daily basis. Gerald Harris is moving down there, and he’ll be training out of our gym too. And I also keep in touch with Pat Schultz. He’s a cool guy, and I get along with him good.
If you beat Amir, who would you like your next UFC fight to be against?
I’d actually like to fight Jesse Taylor. No matter if I win or if Amir wins, there’s gonna be a lot of people saying neither one of us should have won and Jesse should have. So I think whoever wins needs to take that fight, if Dana wants to make it happen.
Since it’s still so early in your career, have you had to work another job on the side to make ends meet?
I haven’t had to work even before I went on the show, because I’m on the MTX Audio MMA Fight Team. They sponsor us on a monthly basis, and they pay me enough so that I don’t have to work. They’re looking to make fighters better, and they know you have to train twice a day to get to the elite level; they’re providing me with all the tools I need. I can’t do it for this fight, but for every other fight I strictly have MTX on my banner and all my trainers and cornermen will have MTX stuff on. They’re a great company for mixed martial arts.
What do you do for a good time when you’re not training?
I like to go out to Lake Pleasant and Lake Havasu for holidays and stuff. I just picked up a new Honda Waverunner, though I haven’t been able to use it as much as I’d like — I don’t want to risk getting hurt on it right before the fight.
Clad in a gay-friendly rainbow t-shirt, Dana White pumps up the 90-minute final episode of The Ultimate Fighter: “In seven seasons of doing this show, there has never been a bigger twist.” Bold words considering that the TUF series has had a history of monumental twists, like when Anthony Torres turned out to be a woman who was only posing as a man to compete on the show, and the crazy TUF 5 finale, where it was revealed that the entire season was just a dream Jens Pulver had while he was in a coma.
Personally, I hope the twist is that Jesse Taylor gets kicked off the show for breaking a limo window and killing Jeremy May, and the semi-final match between Amir and CB is so exciting and close that Dana White decides to have them fight again on the finale for the contract. That’s kind of an “everybody wins” type of scenario. Between the pissing, the puking, and the laying-and-praying, I think I’ve had my fill of Mongo…
Every Thursday morning, Team Rampage member Gerald Harris blogs his reactions to each new episode of The Ultimate Fighter 7 on CagePotato.com. Here’s what he had to say about last night’s ep, in which Jeremy May tried to stir up some more shit, and Tim Credeur and CB Dollaway battled their way into the semis.
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Well, I have to say that this was my favorite episode. There was a lot of *bleeping* going on tonight so let me translate for you. Our evening started off with the usual Jeremy May bashing, especially when we weren’t at the house. I was a little shocked at how much people talked behind each other’s backs; it sounded like Americas Next Top Model at times. (I don’t watch that show, but I saw an episode or two…) Anyway, when Jeremy walked in and heard JT he told me his bright idea to get JT kicked out of the house. I had no idea he was going to call him a “Jewish bitch”! Now, that’s not a smooth move — imagine if someone called me the “N-word” or a “Black bitch.” JT was offended and flipped out, but I quickly sat him down and told him to think about his son. You’re in the semi’s man, don’t let anyone stop you from achieving your goal. Things cooled down, but I did laugh when he called Jeremy a broke-nosed bitch!
Now to the semi match ups — Creduer vs. Cramer and CB vs. Yarbrough. I was a little thrown off at Tim’s constant compliments about Cramer. Every time he speaks of him he says that “Cramer is hot,” “Cramer is a heart throb,” or something in that manner. I know that we were locked up for a minute, but I wasn’t thinking about Cramer, I was trying to get a peek at the ring girls or any woman driving on the highway as we went to practice. I don’t want to seem like I’m hating on Tim, but I did want to fight him extremely bad. The first time we spoke I told him that I was going to miss my kids and he says “yeah, I know how you feel — I got two dogs at home.” Then after his victory he randomly walked up to me and a couple other guys that lost. He calmly explained to us how he has $20,000 and how he has the ability to be losing a fight but win, and how we were winning our fights and lost.
(”The foulest stench is in the air / the funk of 40,000 years / And grisly ghouls from every tomb / are closing in to seal your doom.”)
Every Thursday morning, Team Rampage member Gerald Harris blogs his reactions to each new episode of The Ultimate Fighter 7 on CagePotato.com. Here’s what he had to say about last night’s ep, in which CB Dollaway got his first inevitable win and the quarterfinal matchups were announced.
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Let me start by apologizing for not speaking on the Yarbrough-Schultz fight in last week’s blog. I was really going through some things — it’s hard to walk around knowing the outcome of the show and holding it from your friends and family. You’re drowned with questions and angry people wanting to know what happened, and also claiming to know the outcome. Last week was a shock to a lot of people close to me but not to many outside of that circle. I learned a lot from the experience and took the loss as motivation. I was also mistaken on my words threatening to hurt Amir after the bout. I was being very sarcastic and I’m very humble about the incident.
Now, it was no surprise that CB was fighting Nick Klein this week. The only surprise was “who the hell is Nick Klein?” Well, let me fill you in. Klein is a tough dude — we were actually respecting him a lot, because he was very quiet in the house. Quiet people are unpredictable and are usually hiding something…like talent. Klein had a lot of it and even earned the name “Killa Klein” for his random funny outbursts. I hate to use the word “underdog” on this show because we’re all at the bottom of the mountain trying to become UFC fighters. In this case even Klein felt like an underdog because of CB’s high profile and #1 pick status from Rampage.
Most of you already know about CB. I didn’t know much about him other than his great wrestling before the show, but I would soon find out about his grappling and Muay Thai skills. I thought that he was just another wrestler, but after training with him I noticed that he was well rounded. He hits hard as hell, has great subs, and he’s meaner than a muthaf*$#a when it’s time to fight. He has this alter ego called the “DOBERMAN” and I saw that as he entered the cage.
I wish I could embed this — but you’ll have to click the picture above to see a “leaked” clip from this Wednesday’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter, in which C.B. Dollaway playfully kicks Rampage during a training session, which spurs Rampage to take his pants off and challenge Dollaway to a submission grappling match. We’ll just say that he should have kept his pants on, and that Nick Klein is a dead man.
Speaking of The Ultimate Fighter 7, the undercard for the season finale (June 21st, live at 9 p.m. ET on SpikeTV) has been officially announced. Right now, the lineup looks like this:
Evan Tanner vs. Kendall Grove
Diego Sanchez vs. Luigi Fioravanti
[match between the show’s two middleweight finalists]
Spencer Fisher vs. Jeremy Stephens
Josh Burkman vs. Dustin Hazelett
Marvin Eastman vs. Drew McFedries
Jeremy Horn vs. Dean Lister Matt Arroyo vs. TBA?
Rob Yundt vs. TBA?
Other bouts featuring the show’s castmembers are also expected to be included in the three-hour telecast. I’ll sell my third testicle if Dollaway isn’t involved.
Another must-see: Remember that thing about Kimbo Slice presenting at the CMAs on Sunday? Well, it was even more awkward and uncomfortable than we thought it would be. Vid is after the jump…click if you dare.
This morning, Team Rampage’s Gerald Harris said that Jeremy May “seems to get on everyone’s nerves except mine.” Get on everyone’s nerves? That might be the understatement of the week. Nearly the entire TUF 7 cast hate-hate-hates Jeremy, and said as much in interviews and blog posts that were published today. Here are some highlights; major props to MMAJunkie.
Brandon Sene: “Jeremy is one of those guys [who] just got under everyone’s skin. He’s so abrasive and cocky that in the situation we’re living in, with 16 fighters in a house and them all having strong personalities, it’s not easy to be the one guy everyone thinks is the egomaniac and a jerk. That’s really saying something… He was just saying unnecessary stuff. He was a pain in the ass the whole time we were there.”
C.B. Dollaway: “What can be said about Jeremy May that won’t offend my family and sponsors? This guy would spend countless hours talking about how he would demolish everyone in the house. I honestly think Jeremy is surprised that Anderson Silva is not calling him out. Team Rampage knows they need Jeremy as a training partner and for the sole purpose of gaining control. We want him to win his fights for this reason only. It would be fine if he got stomped for two rounds and pulled out a come-from-behind victory. Maybe a good whooping would humble him.
During the point of the show you saw in Wednesday’s episode, I was really learning to hate this guy, and I am usually a low-key, easy-to-get-along with person. I would be lying if I told you I did not feel like smashing him myself at times. After Matthew Riddle’s fight, I think our whole team was learning how big of an ass Jeremy really was. His comments to Matthew in the van ride back to the house about getting submitted by armbar were out of line. That was a great fight, and both fighters had nothing to be ashamed of…
