by FORREST GRIFFIN, InsideFighting.com

Updated: April 3, 2008, 2:47 PM EST 16 comments

add this RSS blog email print

When I was asked to be on the show I was like, yeah of course. I had thrown my name in the hat to do the show since I was on the first time before. It's a training camp paid for by someone else — eight weeks of training — so it's great. And, of course, there is a title shot involved for me so it's even better.

Two of my buddies from Athens, Ga. were on the show and though you don't really have much of a say in it, I definitely threw their names in the hat. I put in a good word for them.

I thought the twist of the guys having to fight their way into the house was kind of funny and a good idea. But I kind of expected the fighters to freak out more when they realized there were more than 16 of them. It was one of those things where no one wanted to be the only one to freak out so they all acted like nothing was up.

But because I had two friends on the show, I knew that all the fighters knew that somebody would be fighting in the first three days. I'm sure they didn't expect it to be on the second day though.

But they had a head's up — the middleweights were told to come in at 190 lbs in advance.

I think the set up for this season of having to fight their way in was the most fair. The show is just about fighting, they all know that.

There were a couple of things I was looking for as a coach evaluating the fights. I was basically looking for guys that were not banged up and guys with a high skill set.

I didn't care so much about mental toughness or tenacity, just that they were skilled. Guys that were skilled and whose heads did not get in the way of their skill.

There are always guys that just don't perform and you know that they are better than that. Some guys just freak out. I don't know if mental toughness can be developed, but I knew that we could not make anybody skilled in just six weeks.

I hadn't really been in a coaching position like this in the past. I'd taught some Jiu Jitsu classes at the Hard Core gym back in Georgia to pay for my gym membership but that was it.

Watching the first episode, I already noticed a couple of times where I'm saying stuff that, in retrospect, it was the wrong [thing] to say. There were just a couple times throughout the whole thing but, for example, I kept screaming during one of my guys' fights to jab.

At the time his opponent was on his knees and what I meant was, don't kick him in the head but to throw a little something out there to set up a big cross. I did get a little better as it went on.

During the evaluation, someone asked me who I was going for and I said that I was going for whoever was losing. In life I always tend to pick the underdog and side with the underdog whether it's in a movie, sports or life.

I noticed that for the first couple of days "Rampage" was much more funny than me and I was upset by that. My joke-making was distracted as I tend to get serious around fighting.

Even if you are just watching, you get into a fight or a good fighter. It's a cool environment and I like it.

It wasn't awkward being there next to "Rampage" because our fight was far enough off that neither one of us was training specifically for each other yet at that point. I'd met him a couple times before that time, you can't help but meet the guy being in the same circles, and all my interactions with him to that point were positive.

All the elimination fights took place on the same day and it took three to four hours. It was crazy, like two UFC cards in one afternoon. We didn't get breaks, but who cares? It's about those guys, not us.

After eight fights, the Amir and Steve Byrnes fight was one of the highlights for me. I also had a pretty good idea at that point who I wanted to pick for my team.