Randa Markos of Windsor, Ont., is the lone Canadian competing on The Ultimate Fighter 20. She will be writing weekly blogs for sportsnet.ca to share an inside perspective about what went on inside the gym and house.
The Ultimate Fighter 20: Episode one recap
After my fight with Tecia Torres, the coaches asked me what I wanted to eat as my post-fight celebratory meal and I asked for carne asada fries, so they stopped by and brought me some and Felice Herrig had made some ginger shots for us to celebrate the win.
My mindset didn’t change much after my fight, but I did become a little more confidant in my training and my skills. I continued asking the coaches for as much help as I could to improve my skills and technique.
Other girls were complaining about the practices, saying the coaches were over-training us, but I felt that everything was great. I enjoyed listening to what the coaches had to say to help me in my training. I felt that some of the girls spoke for the team without even asking everyone. Anthony Pettis is the champ for a reason and I wanted as much advice he and his coaches could give me.
It only took, I think, a day before girls started getting a little nasty towards each other, but I tried my best to stay away from all of that and stay focused on what I was there for.
I got along with Joanne Calderwood right off the bat. She was very quiet and an awesome training partner. I didn’t know much about her opponent, Emily Kagan. I trained with Joanne and knew that she was a badass, so I felt very strongly about her winning the match.
Joanne was the best roommate. She had similar views as I did and that helped us get along even better. As a training partner she is tough as nails and was always down for whatever, never complaining, just there for one purpose: to train and to fight for the belt.
Before the fight, I had a feeling that Joanne was going to dominate in her fight and I was right. The best part of the fight I felt were the striking exchanges. JoJo has really good standup and it showed. I wasn’t surprised that it didn’t go three rounds. I think the judges made the right call because JoJo controlled the fight. JoJo got stuck in a position, but Emily did not have any control which gave the round to JoJo.
With Team Pettis being up 2-0 it didn’t really make a difference to me because that meant we would be fighting our own teammates down the road. In the end, there can only be one winner and we came to the show knowing that.
Follow Randa Markos on Twitter @randamma