Oct-8-2008
Junie Browning’s Ultimate Fighter Blog – Week Two
|
TapouT TUF 11 Team Ortiz Jersey
|
|
By Junie Allen Browning
A NIGHT TO REMEMBER…OR FORGET
UFC 84 was pretty cool. Me and Shane (Nelson) were pretty excited after BJ (Penn) beat (Sean) Sherk. When it comes to the rest of the night, I did remember quite a bit of what happened, and after watching it again, it all came back to me.
We were just playing around at first – the whole thing with Shane (Primm) and when I knocked off John Polakowski’s hat, that was just playing around, and we goofed around with all the red shirts. It started getting serious when Kyle threw the peanuts in my face and I threw the glass back at him. It was actually somewhat of an accident that I hit him like that. I thought it was gonna land on the side of him, and I was pretty close to him, so I didn’t think the glass would break. I think he moved his elbow when I threw it, and the elbow made the glass break.
After that I definitely thought I was out of there, so I figured I’d have a big bang before I left. I got into it a bit with some of the light heavyweights, and people think I was crazy for doing that, but I still would – I guess I have a little bit of a small man’s complex. But really, I was just trying to help the 205ers practice. When I front kicked Tom (Lawlor), everyone had this misconception. I was helping him defend front kicks. The next day we spent the whole day working on front kicks. I was also doing pull-ups on (Ryan) Bader’s shirt by the pool – I wanted to work on my biceps - and I was defending people getting my back. They just edited it wrong, we were just practicing.
When it was over though, I started packing my bags that night, and it wasn’t necessarily getting kicked off the show that was concerning me the most; it was what the guys thought, because I acted like such an idiot. The show tends to make you look more like an idiot than sometimes you are, because a lot of that stuff started off as a joke. Me throwing the peanuts, they were throwing them back at me, and they didn’t show none of that. But I still thought I was gone.
The next day, I just started shooting around on the basketball court. I figured Dana (White) was gonna be around there sometime soon, and I felt pretty bad, so I shot ball a bit and tried to stay away from some of the guys because I think they were all a little scared.
The speech from Dana was a little bit longer than what they showed, and the whole time, I was like ‘man, I wish he’d go on and kick me out because this is starting to hurt.’ It was pretty bad. And when he said he wasn’t kicking me off, I couldn’t believe it at first. I figured there would be a catch, like I would have to move up weight classes so they could start matching me up with all the 205ers.
The reaction of the guys in the house to me not getting kicked off the show was actually the complete opposite of what their confessionals were saying. Most of the guys were supportive. They came up to me and told me that it was okay, and they knew that it was just the alcohol talking. They knew I had problems and stuff, and I think a lot of the people on the show are probably just as crazy, but when the cameras are on them they get sorta shy. I didn’t let the cameras determine how I acted.
After that night, I said I’m gonna stay away from anything hard when it came to alcohol, even though I wasn’t drinking every night anyway. I drank that first night when I came to the house, the night on this week’s episode, and maybe one or two more times, and that’s it. And back at home, I may drink sometimes, but I never act like I did on the show.
ROLLING WITH EFRAIN
It was the day before the weigh-ins for our first fights, and I actually had a sauna suit and sweats on. Efrain had shorts and a t-shirt on, with wrestling shoes, and for some reason during the show, he was trying to say he was cutting weight too, but he didn’t have sweats on or anything, so he wasn’t cutting that much. And I rolled with like ten people and then I went over to him and said ‘hey, let’s do some takedowns and a little bit of ground and stuff,’ just so I could cut more weight. I was already dead, and he really wouldn’t do nothing. He wouldn’t push the action or anything, and I finally started shooting in, and he caught a few guillotines and that was it. So I said, ‘let’s start on the ground,’ and I caught him in a calf-cutter, I almost had him in a twister, and I was passing his guard and everything. But then when he was in the house, he was trying to run his mouth and tell everyone, ‘I subbed Junie’, and it was starting to piss me off. I would have liked to have fought him right there in front of the couch.
ESCUDERO VS NELSON
I was real confident Shane was gonna win his fight against Efrain. The only thing that really concerned me was exactly what happened. The week before was when we all got drunk and did all that stuff, so Shane wasn’t in the best shape, and that’s what concerned me. I knew Efrain was gonna be in good shape. He was on Team Nogueira and they trained pretty hard. Looking back, I don’t think Shane was ready for that fight. I still thought he was gonna win it, but I wish he was a little more prepared for it.
In the fight itself, I was pretty sure Efrain had it because he was on top pretty much the whole time, and that’s his gameplan. He tries to not get knocked out standing up, and then just lays on people. He did catch the triangle after that whole thing of me screaming that he’s just a wrestler, but until the point that he got the triangle, all he was doing was laying on him and I knew he was gonna win on points if he didn’t sub him.
POST-FIGHT
After the fight I said what I said, which I shouldn’t have, but after I said it, Efrain always has like a smart-ass smirk and he started pointing at me and saying stuff. I don’t know what he said, but whatever it was, it made me want to punch him in his face. The only reason I jumped over the fence was because the door was too far away and I didn’t think I could run through the cage, so I thought it might be a little safer to go over it.
POST-EPISODE THOUGHTS
I thought the episode was pretty bad-assed and very entertaining. I’m glad I could sacrifice myself for the sake of entertainment. I did watch it with my coach, Mike O’Donnell, and he thinks I’m an idiot. He’s pretty much my counselor and therapist, and if he was there, he probably would have knocked me out before I started acting like that.
FAN REACTION
Every week I do a guest appearance for the show, and it’s always packed completely with all the local people, especially the girls, so that’s pretty awesome. I don’t have to pay to get into any place now, I get a lot more phone numbers, and I’m still as ugly as I was before I went on the show, so it has to be something to do with the show.
It’s funny, but I went on the forums after last week’s show, and I didn’t think that week’s episode was that bad – I thought it was sorta goofy – and the reaction was pretty crazy. This week, I don’t know what they’re gonna say. It doesn’t bother me though; as long as they’re talking. Love me or hate me, they’re saying my name.
Want to Leave a Comment?