Sarah Moras of Kelowna, B.C., is one of four Canadians competing on The Ultimate Fighter 18. She will be writing weekly blogs for sportsnet.ca to share an inside perspective about what went on inside the gym and house on TUF 18.
Team Tate playing favourites
I’m sure some of the viewers back home had noticed that there have been favourites on Team Tate with the coaches. For the most part this has already been discussed and dealt with, yet I’m put in a weird position. I don’t like to bring up the past, I’m over it, but I’m put in a situation where I have to relive it and discuss what went on. At this point in the house you can see I’m not feeling like I’m in my regular groove and that there are definite favourites on Team Tate that I am not a part of.
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Watch The Ultimate Fighter 18 every Wednesday on Sportsnet 360 and get weekly episode recaps on sportsnet.ca
When Dana asked who the best female was, Miesha named Julianna when she had three females on her team still in the competition. If I were in those shoes I would say that the level of competition is so high that they are all great and that it is anyone’s competition to win. Since we got into the house, it felt like most of my training sessions were designed around Julianna to improve her game. You see her working her armbar defence with me armbarring her while she’s preparing for Shayna, and me sparring her (I wasn’t allowed to use my double leg take downs against her in MMA because “Shayna doesn’t do that”) and I even was the person warming her up for her fight with Shayna. When it was my turn to fight Peggy I got none of that special attention.
With all that being said, this is the point in the show when I got a lot closer to Raquel and Louis, and even Josh even though they don’t really show him. We were all feeling neglected and it was made clear to the people out of the competition that it wasn’t about them anymore, and that they aren’t going to put time into them.
Holdsworth vs. Wootten
This fight typically went how everyone was expecting it to go, at least from Team Tate’s persepective. He had all the coaches working with him, and a way longer recovery time since his fight than Michael did. This is the part in the competition that sort of changes. Everyone fights to get in the house, and then everyone fought throughout the next five weeks to get to this stage. So everyone had the same amount of recovery time as their opponent up until this point. Fighting three times in less than 6 weeks is pretty crazy. I’m lucky if I get three fights within a year! With Michael being the last male fight and Chris being the first, it made it a lot different going into this fight for Michael than it does for Chris. It’s not that I’m saying Chris was going to win because of this, but I’d say that he had a bit of an advantage going into this fight.
Chris is a serious athlete, so I’m definitely not trying to take anything away from him. He stayed focused the entire time (other than flirting with Julianna of course). At this point in the house, I’ve gotten to know everyone and it makes it difficult to watch because you have no idea who you want to win. Both guys are cool, it’s not a team thing anymore, we are all in it for ourselves at this stage and our fights have already been picked so if our team wins it doesn’t affect the outcome of my next opponent and fight.
Harley shoot
The Harley shoot wasn’t my favourite thing, although once you sit on one it feels pretty badass. It was the hottest day ever and we were stuck in this hot van for over an hour while water loading (so we all had to pee about five minutes in). When Miesha was giving that speech at the beginning all I could think about was going pee, and I’m sure that was on everyone else’s mind as well. When Cain Velasquez came in I didn’t even know who he was, I saw his picture up at the UFC gym but other than that I wouldn’t have recognized him. I am terrible like that. I am probably one of the only fighters that doesn’t like to watch fights. I watch the female fights when I can and guys that I know, but for the most part I don’t watch fights or follow them whatsoever.
You can follow Sarah on Twitter @sarahcheesecake