Randy Harrison
Following last night's UFC Fight Night 19 event on Spike TV, the tenth season of The Ultimate Fighter began with the premiere episode of the season, which will feature sixteen Heavyweight fighters vying for one six-figure contract with the UFC. This season, Nokaut.com has been able to secure the services of Zak Jensen as our first Ultimate Fighter blogger.
Earlier this week, we got to introduce Zak and talk to him about what led up to the season and some of his thoughts on the show before it began. Every week for the entire season, Nokaut will talk to Zak and ask him for his thoughts on the most recent episode of the show. Without any further delay, let's get to Zak's take on the debut episode of the tenth season!
Nokaut.com: What did you think of the first episode?
Zak Jensen: I thought it was great. It was kind of weird to see myself on TV. There was a lot of anticipation leading up to it, I mean it's already happened, but I was still nervous to see the final product.
Nokaut.com: Do you feel like it was fairly accurate in terms of what went on with the editing of the episode?
Zak Jensen: All they did was shorten stuff up. I thought they would have shown more of the training in the first day. The only thing that was different is that it looks like they pick the teams really quick, but they pick and then they have to wait and get the after shot and all of that so in between each pick is about five minutes. Of course, they show me standing there because I'm the last one. There was no monkey business with the editing really. I mean they chose to show certain people working with certain people like when Kimbo was doing his wrestling, the guy he was wrestling against didn't know how to wrestle. When he did the wrestling for Rashad, Madsen was wrestling with him and they just kind of chose not to show that, which was funny.
Nokaut.com: What went through your mind walking into the training facility that you've seen on TV so many times?
Zak Jensen: It looks a lot bigger on TV than it is. It's a nice size, but it makes it look so much bigger. We all got there and kind of asked "This is it?". It might just be because it's the UFC Training Center and you see it all the time but the ring area is kind of small, the weight area is kind of small, they have everything you need but it looks way bigger on TV than it is.
Nokaut.com: How was the evaluation training session for you? Any better or worse than the training sessions you have back at your home gym?]
Zak Jensen: I think it was worse because you're trying to show everything you have and you kind of over-extend yourself with everyone going at it 100%. I was so nervous because you're there and you know you're going to be on the show, but then you know that you have to show what you can do. It was definitely more stressful than any other training session I've ever had. Like Rashad said on the episode, Rampage had us spar and we were essentially trying to kill each other. (laughs) Rashad was looking more at technique and when we went live was more with the jiu-jitsu and the wrestling.
Nokaut.com: Rashad thought that Rampage might have been going a little hard in his evaluations? Did you think he was being too rough at all?
Zak Jensen: It was really just trying to show what we got. Everyone had the same kind of, hit as hard as you want, the general rule of sparring. If you hit someone hard, you knew you were going to get hit hard. No one was not expecting to get hit, but the one thing that pissed me off is that Rampage told Kimbo that he didn't even have to work. He told him not to worry and that he was going to be picking him right away. That was definitely something where you could tell that Rampage took a liking to Kimbo really quickly.
Nokaut.com: Did you have a preference as to who would be coaching you or were you going to be good either way?
Zak Jensen: I was good either way. They're both former world champions and they both have great coaching staffs so, it's not so much who your coach is, but what you do with the coaching.
Nokaut.com: Who ended up being your roommates since we didn't see a lot of what happened in the house in the first episode?
Zak Jensen: I roomed with Wes Sims, Wes Shivers and Demico Rogers. Sims and Demico had these single beds and me and Wes Shivers had a bunk bed with me on the top and him on the bottom. Every time either one of us moved, the thing just creaked. We looked at how it was put together and it was just welded and we were wondering when it was going to break. (laughs)
Nokaut.com: Did you think about calling in the producers to get them to reinforce it or something?
Zak Jensen: It wasn't going to go anywhere, but whenever either one of us moved, you could just tell. It wasn't going to break, but when you have a 280-pound guy sleeping on top of another 280-pound guy in a bunk bed, weird thoughts go through your mind. We were kind of thinking it was going to be like the Step Brothers movie like when is this going to happen, is it going to happen? All it was was a mattress on a piece of plywood. It wasn't the most comfortable bed.
Nokaut.com: What was running through your mind when you were up there as the last guy waiting to be picked? Was it something that gave you a bit of a feeling of something to prove, or did you just take it as it went the way it went?
Zak Jensen: Yeah, it was just the way it went. You have no control over who picks you or when you get picked, but the thing that made it awkward was that Rampage made me stand up there a little bit longer than he needed to. Like when he picked the cameraman, I was just standing there thinking "Thank you, that's awesome". Rampage picking the camera guy and me standing there a little longer was tough, but I made the show and I was in the house, so I didn't take it too badly.
Nokaut.com: Were you thinking you might have flown under the radar because you didn't have the past with EliteXC or the IFL or the NFL aspect going for you?
Zak Jensen: I think that might have been the case, but I'm not really going to speculate too much on it. It was what it was and I got picked last. Rashad got picked last, Amir Sadollah got picked last, Luke Cummo got picked last, so it's not a bad thing to get picked last sometimes.
Nokaut.com: Take me through the first workout with Rampage coaching, like what you guys worked on and things like that.
Zak Jensen: The first workout actually happened after the fights were picked, so those guys went off and worked out on their own and the other six of us were left and they had us do the rope drill, which was godawful. They showed a little bit of it, but they had us do it four times. So it was horrible. (laughs) You saw how Marcus looked like he was sucking wind and some more than others, but Rampage would make us do the ABC's after to see if we were out of breath or not. I think they just wanted to push our cardio the first day and see if they could break us. The next workout we had, we just did some sparring and technique. The first couple of days were just trying to get into a routine and see where guys were and get the first two guys ready for their fights. Kind of a feeling out period.
Nokaut.com: What kind of things were talked about in the process of making the picks for the first fight. Did you talk about it as a team at all or was it strictly a decision from the coaches?
Zak Jensen: They brought us into the locker room and asked us who wanted to fight first and of course we all said that we did. Then they went and picked who they wanted and picked the opponents, so it was 100% all Rampage and the coaching staff. We didn't really have any say on who fought or who they fought against, it was all the coaches. Kind of like in real life, you don't get a choice of who you fight. (laughs)
Nokaut.com: What were your thoughts on the first fight and what were you thinking about when Rampage was getting frustrated and walking away from the Octagon at the very end of the fight?
Zak Jensen: Well, Abe didn't follow the gameplan. Madsen was a Division II National Champion so he's a great wrestler and Abe had no wrestling. First off, that was a horrible match-up. Secondly, I didn't see Abe work on any wrestling. I mean it was only a couple of days, but still you'd think he'd be focusing on some shot defense and basic wrestling. After that takedown, he just kind of laid there and took it. He took a beating and didn't quit. I was getting frustrated watching it too though because we were told never to touch gloves and he went to touch in the first round and that's acceptable. But doing it in the second, already knowing that he's going to want to take you down, it was sneaky of Jon, but Abe should have known that was coming. That was the frustrating part was seeing Abe getting taken down like that in the first round and then in the second round it happened again on a really slow shot where he could have stopped it. Even though we were only there for a couple of days, it was hard to see a teammate take that kind of a beating.
Nokaut.com: How did the loss affect the morale of the team afterwards? You said it had only been a couple of days, but did you guys take it tough or were you just trying to put it out of your minds and move forward?
Zak Jensen: We tried to put it out of our minds fast, but it was like "Crap, we lost the first fight and now Rashad has control". That was the main thing. We hadn't really had a chance to bond yet as a team, so it sucked that he lost, but it was more of the fact that now we don't have control, we don't know what's going to happen with the next fight selection.
Nokaut.com: Was that fight bloodier than the Dewees fight from Season Four that everyone still talks about?
Zak Jensen: The Dewees fight was a gory fight, but I don't think that was as bloody as Abe's because the blood actually soaked through the canvas and was dripping down onto the floor underneath the Octagon. "Stitch" Duran said that that was the worst cut he'd ever seen. He had 200 stitches and it was right down to the skull. They split it open and looked down to see if he had a fracture, it was that bad.
Nokaut.com: Do you feel like giving us any hints as to who the rather tall, all green individual was in the preview of the season at the end of the episode?
Zak Jensen: Well...it was me. (laughs) Uh, you're in the house for six weeks with nothing to do, no TV and you kind of lose your mind a little bit. It'll make sense further on. They showed it and I figured "that's gonna get taken way out of context". It happens later on, but there's a whole bunch of stuff that leads up to it. It'll make more sense as the season goes on. It'll be funny if they keep showing that at the end of every episode though.
Nokaut.com: Yeah, when I saw that I knew I was going to have to ask you about that one.
Zak Jensen: See, I've got people talking already. You've got to do something to get remembered. (laughs)
Nokaut.com: What's been the reactions of your friends and family now that they've been able to see the first episode?
Zak Jensen: People were like telling me they hadn't seen me yet and my phone was going crazy with calls and text messages as the show was going on and my friends were like "Really? You got picked last? You suck" and all of that. My family was really proud and people were calling from when I went to Northern Illinois and they were talking about how proud they were to see me on there, all of my old teammates and that. It was all positive and nothing really negative outside of my friends ripping on me for getting picked last.
Nokaut.com: If there's anyone you want to thank or sponsors you wanted to mention, that'd be awesome.
Zak Jensen: I'd like to thank Gorilla Combat where I train and Jessica Evans, my agent. For sponsors it'll be a lot easier now that the show is on, because it's hard to pitch something that hasn't happened yet, but we'll get you more of that information as it rolls around.
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