Courtesy of One More Round Clothing and SodaHead.com, one winner will receive a pair of tickets to see Matt fight for the title at UFC 79. The winner will be chosen at random from the registered votes on this poll. Good Luck and tell your friends!!!

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Let’s make it official:

January 1, 2008 sees the release of MADE IN AMERICA, my memoirs. This is the first book to let the fans know how the UFC actually works, from someone who’s been there. And if you think you know what the life of a fighter is like based on interviews and reality TV shows, just wait until you read this book… The book is published by Simon Spotlight and co-written by Michael Malice. Come January, you can get your book signed at one of the locations listed HERE. I’ll also be posting bulletins on my MySpace page, so if you’re interested take a minute and add me as a friend. If you can’t make the events, in a couple of weeks we’ll be letting you know here how you can get the book signed for free.

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As a thanks for being a coach on The Ultimate Fighter 6, Matt received a brand new John Deere 6430 tractor. UFC.com features a short video of Matt being presented the tractor by Dana White, you can click HERE to watch it.

In this week’s show Matt Arroyo had to drop out of his fight with Mac Danzig because of a rib injury. I did know about it, Dana called me about it and told me that I was probably not going to get one of my guys in and Serra’s team was going to fill the void. So, I was very surprised that they filled the spot with John, just because Mac had already beaten John so handily.

However, one thing we did find out from Dana later on was that the doctor found nothing wrong with Arroyo’s rib. When Dana told us, he was ticked. So I don’t know were Matt Arroyo came up with the cracked rib thing; but the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with him.

My idea is that he didn’t want to fight Mac and that was his way out and you can tell from his interviews that he didn’t want to fight Mac. To be honest, I think Matt Serra could have done a better job trying to get Matt Arroyo to fight.

Tommy’s fight went just like I thought it would. The game plan was not to go in looking for take downs for George, the plan was just to go in there and rough him up. Tommy would wear him down and then try to finish the fight. And we knew that Tommy had knock out power and to be honest I wasn’t that impressed with George from his quarterfinal fight. -Matt

As promised here is the new training video for this week, along with some new photos.
-Matt

Downloadable versions:
High quality
Quicktime Movie, 08′23, 352.1 MB

Medium quality
MPEG Movie, 08′23, 44.7 MB

I apologize for the blog not being up as soon as the show was over last night, that’s my fault. The UFC sends me a DVD each week of that week’s episode; so I watch the show on either Monday or Tuesday and then Wednesday morning I give my blog to the UFC for their website. So sometimes I forget that the show is even on on Wednesday nights.

First some questions:

What was the final score of the bowling game?

I don’t really know, I just know that I would have had to roll like two strikes in a row to beat Matt Serra.

Does the show feel anticlimactic now that you aren’t fighting Serra next month?

No, it’s still interesting to see what the guys did around the house and I’ve got two guys in the semifinals now. So, no, I wouldn’t say it’s anticlimatic. It’s just interesting to see how they cut the show up and edited it.

One of the big concerns on last night’s show was Tommy’s cut, but to me it wasn’t a big deal. Tommy’s cut was definitely bad, but they gave him the most amount of time between fights as they could and I knew that the Athletic Commissions’ number one concern is safety. So I knew that if they let him fight it would be okay, because they would never have cleared him if the cut was that bad.

About Team Serra’s pranks in the house, I did know about it, just from the guys coming back and telling me. I thought some of it had to do with Serra just not being a good coach. He should have been telling his guys that they needed to relax.

I didn’t know anything about Ben Saunders being sick until this week’s show. So I don’t know how much they played up on that or what. It could have had nothing to do with the outcome of the fight or maybe it had everything to do with it.

But still, Tommy’s just so tough. Who would have thought that guy would have gotten out of all those submissions and done so well? It just shows how tough he is and his ‘never quit’ attitude. Tommy’s training with us right now because he fights at the finale, like every other fighter from the show (except for two as I mentioned last week).

For the semifinal picks, I knew what I wanted and I knew that I could get the match ups I wanted. Everybody had been talking about how good George was and how good Mac was and that the UFC was wanting both of those guys in the finals, so I knew I didn’t have to say much to get that. -Matt

I’m going to fight Georges St. Pierre on December 29th. I’ve got a couple reasons why I’ve made this decision and I will share those at a later time. I’ve asked for this to be for an interim title and if Matt Serra can’t fight in a year, then this would just be the title fight; but I don’t know if that is going to happen right now. I will keep you all posted.
-Matt

EDIT: This WILL BE for the interim title, so it will be a 5-round fight. -Matt

As of now, Matt Serra is out of the fight because of a herniated disc in his lower back. I believe Serra is actually hurt, so I don’t think this is just a ploy not to fight. Before my Royce fight, I had three bulged discs that I was able to repair enough to fight. As everybody knows you never go into a fight 100%. So, I’m just going to continue to train until I find out what’s next. -Matt

First some questions from last episode:

I thought we were not supposed to know who was in the finals of the TUF until the final episode. I saw a blog on Mac Danzig’s website saying he was back in LA training full time for the finale December 8th. Any truth to that?

All the fighters from the show, except for two, are fighting in the finale. So his comments don’t give away the outcome. They’re all practicing, they’re all training, they’re all getting ready to fight.

If you had had to pick the quarterfinal fights with the same pool of fighters, what would have been your picks?

If it was me, I would have put my guys against Richie and Rude-Boy. I would have put Matt Arroyo and George together, and then Ben and John.

John Kolosci lost his fight last episode and he decided to drink afterwards, then started breaking stuff in the house. But that’s what happens when you drink too much. He had a big opportunity and he lost and he was just upset, which I can kind of understand.

I thought that was terrible that Serra would choose not to corner his own guys. It’s just a terrible coaching philosophy. It was obvious who he wanted to win. He wasn’t even supposed to be cornering Matt Arroyo and he was coming up with a game plan for him. I think it was disrespectful to Troy and just created a bad training environment.

About the bowling, I went to them when I heard that we were doing a coaches challenge and the only thing I asked of them was not to bowl. So it’s just amazing that that’s the only thing I asked not to have and that’s what I got. I’m just not a bowler, I’ve bowled maybe four times in my life. I left right afterwards. What I was disappointed about was the fact that my guys didn’t get anything. The cash to me was nothing, it was the cash my guys could have gotten, that’s what hurt.

They show Arroyo and Hightower deciding not to come train with my team, that didn’t bother me; but they did come in to our practice before their fight, at least one of them did. Hightower wasn’t going to get a good gameplan from Serra, so he definitely needed to come over. Arroyo was getting a good game plan from Serra, so he didn’t really need to come over.

Troy and Arroyo’s fight went just like I thought it would.

After his fight, we weren’t really overly impressed with George’s ground game or anything to be honest. He didn’t want to get hit by Hightower, there was no doubt about it. -Matt

First off, some questions about last week’s show:

I thought I might have seen Tommy tap early in the first round when War Machine had him in that choke.

My answer to that would be that that ref definitely had the best view during the fight, so he would have stopped it if there had been any tap. If anyone saw it, it would have been him and he never said a word.

Tommy seems really strong, do you think his strength is equal to yours?

Tommy’s definitely a very strong guy; but with my technique and my knowledge, I could definitely cut that strength and get in a better position. Tommy is strong, but I’m not saying that he’s stronger than me or I’m stronger than him.

If you pay close attention you’ll see my brother at the weigh ins. Mark was there training with the guys at the time. So, that was him if you were wondering.

The reason why I wanted Hightower and Troy on my team was because I felt that Serra threw them to the wolves. I knew that Matt wasn’t going to help them with a game plan, because he wanted Arroyo and George to move up. I wanted to come up with my own gameplan, so they could possibly knock them out.

Serra’s comments about his guys not wanting to train with me didn’t bother me, either. He’s going to say anything to get under my skin. I was going to corner one of them, so it was definitely in their best interest to come talk to me ahead of time so they weren’t just going in there blind. I was annoyed when Hightower and Arroyo took me and my coaches aside to talk to us. I guess I understood where they were coming from, but seriously I’m above and beyond that.

Mac is definitely his own person. Mac’s just different, but who’s not different? He likes nature and that’s his thing and that’s just great. He’s standing up for what he believes in and I like that. His fight went exactly like I thought it would. I thought Mac would win any and all situations.

Next episode with the coaches’ challenge is very interesting, so make sure not to miss it. -Matt