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 Forrest Griffin proved that white men can jump, and Mongo Taylor smothered his way into the finals.
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This episode was pretty good, but I can’t wait until next week. It feels like yesterday, I was sending in an application and audition tape. Now, I’m sitting at home watching all the action unfold like I wasnt a part of it.
As you know by now, Team Rampage has been losing a lot in everything except Go Karts and shit-talking, so when the basketball challenge was announced I “assumed” we finally had a chance to win. My college coach told me that when you assume you make an ass out of yourself and I felt like a big hairy ass when Forrest started kicking Rampage’s. Before the game started I did every dance move known to man as I held 10 grand in cash, but they were slowly shut down by Forrest’s accurate shooing and Rampage’s attempt to build a house with all them damn bricks. He admitted that he sucked at basketball, but it hurt to lose again — not only did we lose, but Forrest put some stank on it and dunked at the end. Damn!
Well, once again America gets to see the many sides of Jesse. Me and Jesse were cool because of Team Quest and I mentioned before that we were both fathers, so we talked about missing our families. I was obviously rooting for him, but I doubted him because of his actions in the house. You didn’t see me in many scenes of his outburts, but I thought he was throwing his opportunity away; I felt like he was taking his position for granted. Little did I know that he’s an animal — not CoCo the monkey, but like King Kong in that damn cage. He’s not that exciting, but very solid. Sure, the dude pisses his shorts, but he kicks ass, so what can you say?
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.
(Jesse Taylor pisses his shorts on national television.)
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 retard-strong (and retard-smart) Jesse Taylor pounded his way to victory, and Amir Sadollah and Matt Brown put on the best fight of the season.
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By now everyone should know that Jesse Taylor is for real. He’s not the most exciting fighter in the world, but he’s solid and gets the job done. I can’t hate, because I respect winners and he’s also a Team Quest fighter so I was rooting for him. Dante just laid there and took a beating. He’s a veteran in the game and also a brown belt under Ricardo Almeida, so I assumed that he would catch Jesse, but Jesse just punched the [blank] out of him for two full rounds.
Now, let me get to the action! Matt Brown vs. Amir Sadollah was crazy. That’s a fight that people would pay money to watch. I think the first round could be given to Brown for the aggression and last second takedown. Amir seemed to pick up steam in the second round, took Matt down, punished him from the top, and eventually sunk in a triangle choke. I liked the fight because it wasn’t a sloppy slugfest. Brown has a great boxing background and Amir showed his Muay Thai and ground game with the strikes and sub finish. It’s crazy that the more you pressure him, he gets stronger and doesn’t fold — that’s the quality of a good fighter. I can say the same about Brown plus he was very humble in his loss and showed respect for his opponent.
(”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.
When the cast for “The Ultimate Fighter” 7 was officially announced several months back, one name that caught my eye was Gerald Harris.
Harris was a former standout amateur wrestler who had recently transitioned to MMA when I first had heard about him. Despite not having a lot of experience, the IFL wanted to capitalize on [...]
Every Thursday morning, Team Rampage member Gerald Harris blogs his reactions to each new episode of The Ultimate Fighter. And this was the one we’ve been waiting for — the night Gerald actually gets to fight. But despite his early domination against Amir Sadollah, things didn’t turn out the way he’d hoped. Read below for Gerald’s rundown of the fight and how he felt about it, and give him a shout at his MySpace page.
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It’s 8:58 p.m. and I’m staring at the clock hoping that it doesn’t click to 9:00. I’m sitting on the couch with my friends because every Wednesday we get together to watch the show. It was cool for the first couple weeks, but this one was different — I wasn’t smiling as much and I wasn’t excited. No one noticed and things went on as they did in the past. I’m flooded with text messages, phone calls, and high fives from my friends when the fight picks are announced. The fight starts and people are sending texts, calls, and jumping up and down as I slam and strike Amir the entire first round. Then it happens — “Bam,†in a quick flash — the fight’s over. You talk about silence? No one said a word for about 15 minutes, my phone stopped ringing, and nobody even looked at me. I broke the silence by saying “I’m sorry that I let y’all down, but it’s not over.” They’ve all seen the show and the success of fighters who got a second chance or at least earned a career in the UFC.
Now, let me take you back a couple months before I got there. I trained my ass off, running miles in the morning, and never missed Team Quest practice unless it was an emergency. I dreamed about holding The Ultimate Fighter trophy as Dana handed it to me and joining the ranks of Stevenson, Griffin, Evans, and many others. I was also doing bad financially and could barely afford to support my family, so winning those fights would help me provide for them. I’m the father of two and that’s how I feed them; this is my life, and the only thing that I do to earn money. When I lost that fight I felt like I let everyone down, I didn’t earn money to feed my kids, and lost the chance to become the next Ultimate Fighter. Once I took a deep breath and talked to Rampage I realized that it was ok. I still have a future in the UFC and a possible second chance to get into the tournament. During the fight I injured my ankle and scratched my eye, but that healed in a few days — the doc cleared me as good to go.
Every Thursday morning, Team Rampage member Gerald Harris will be blogging 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 got his comeuppance and Team Rampage finally pulled out a win.
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I don’t think too many people were surprised by the punishment dished out by Matt Brown. People ask me about him all the time — they think he’s a serial killer and mean as hell. To tell you the truth, I thought the same thing, but he’s actually one of the coolest dudes in the house. He opened up a lot about how fighting kept him alive and changed him in a positive way. He earned a lot of respect by doing that and whoopin’ ass in practice.
May definitely asked for it, but I gotta give it too him for coming out strong. The only thing that pissed me off is that the admitted to faking the knee injury. Now, if you don’t already know, I’m probably Jeremy’s only friend and I didn’t even know that. A lot of people were cautious of overtraining, but to sandbag is another story. The fight went well — it was all emotion, so they got tired pretty quick. But Brown had the better cardio and weathered the storm, then finished May with a kick to the nose. As bad as some people wanted to see Jeremy lose, I hated to see Team Forrest in control again.
Reminder: A new episode of The Ultimate Fighter: Team Rampage vs. Team Forrest airs tonight at 10 p.m. on SpikeTV, and Team Rampage member Gerald Harris will be blogging his reactions to it right here tomorrow morning. To commemorate this occasion, here’s an outtake clip from episode three of Rampage laying down the law on his team’s jokesters following Mike Dolce’s loss to Jesse Taylor. Yes, that’s Gerald receiving the totally accidental bitchslap at the end.
(Harris [right] rocks Fabio Leopoldo during their IFL match last April.)
Gerald “Hurricane” Harris, who fought in the IFL (as a member of the Portland Wolfpack) and the Freestyle Cage Fighting organization before being chosen for The Ultimate Fighter: Team Rampage vs. Team Forrest, has agreed to be a super-special CagePotato guest blogger for the rest of this season of TUF. Tune in every Thursday morning as the Team Quest fighter and Tulsa, Oklahoma native gives his reactions to each new episode (Wednesdays, 10 p.m., SpikeTV). If you haven’t been keeping up, Gerald recaps the first four episodes below. Enjoy…
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Surprise (Episode #1)
I‘ll start by saying that I was one of the “smart” ones who thought I was flying to Vegas to move into the house. In the past, people have had this privilege and thrown it away for a girlfriend, small injury, or because they couldn’t make weight. This year Dana White had a solution for that. He described those past cast members as “pussies and poseurs” — and I don’t fit either one of those names.
In the first episode, 16 fighters entered the UFC building with high-fives and hugs, only to be met by another 16 competitors in the gym. It was so quiet you could hear a flea fart. At first I told myself, “look at those 16 alternates,” until Dana announced that the 32 men standing in the gym would fight each other to get into the house. It didn’t really affect most fighters until he said we had to make weight in 24 hours and fight in 48. Some of the fighters had gained a lot of weight since we arrived the day before. I was lucky enough to only be six pounds over, along with many others. Also, I wrestled all my life — so cutting weight has never been a problem. Losing would have been devastating, because I came to the show with $67 in the bank and I planned on being the next Ultimate Fighter!
The day of elimination fights started off with a bang. Mike Dolce hit Prince McClean so hard he dropped as if he was hit with a taser. I felt bad for McClean, but Dolce is a fellow Team Quest member so I was rooting for him. In other action, Cale Yarbrough battled with Clark in a scramble-filled bout that was going well until Clark proved that his weight cutting had an effect on him. Yarbrough punished the extremely fatigued Clark with haymakers and wild kicks until the stoppage. With one UFC fight already under his belt, Steve Byrnes was seen as a guaranteed cast member. But in a back and forth match, he was eventually stopped with an armbar by Amir Sadollah, who had never had a pro fight.
