Zak Cummings TUF 17 Episode 8 Blog: Andrews vs. Myself!
Jimmy won a brutal fight with Clint on last week’s episode of TUF 17, showing how durable he was while working to get Clint’s back and locking in a rear naked coke. Even though Team Darkside took the victory there were only two guys left to fight, Dylan Andrews and myself.
Dylan grew up in a marijuana grow house in New Zealand with his family and he has been fighting to give his family a much better life. Dylan is seriously one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met but this fight was just business. Dylan spent time out by the koi pond, writing in his journal and naming the fish to keep his sanity, while stuck in the house away from his family.
Inside the house all I really did was cook, shoot pool, and play some card games with the guys. Tor and I normally cooked lunch and dinner for our whole team. It was nice to be able to do one of my hobbies in the house. I’ve cooked for my family at least one day a week ever since I was a little kid. I’m very grateful for this because no one had to teach me how to cook chicken on a Foreman grill in the house or heat up corn dogs.
We had the Coaches Challenge on the episode and it was one of the best challenges I’ve seen. The challenge was “Dig This” an obstacle course with excavators. Chael started off great with a big lead until attempting to stack the tire pyramid. Jones finally caught up and actually passed Chael but luckily for us Jones missed his first shot with the basketball and it bounced off the tire and out. Chael scooped up his ball and gently rolled it out directly in the tire and won the challenge, which was $10,000 for him and $1,500 for all the Team Darkside fighters.
Fight time comes around and there is only two guys left in the prelims, Dylan and myself. Round one starts with Dylan landing a stiff jab, which caught me off guard and actually knocked my mouthpiece loose. Once I realized I was in a fight, I felt like I got Dylan’s timing down and started landing some hard shots, which dazed him and caused him to attempt to take me down. I stuffed Dylan’s shot and took him down, moving in side control. I rolled him over and slipped in a D’Arce, which I felt was really tight but when I tried to cinch it tighter he defended well. While on top working some ground and pound with elbows, Dylan was split open and I moved to mount to better my position. Dylan exploded up and swept me to my back and threw some elbows of his own. The round ended with Dylan on top but I felt that rocking him on our feet, taking him down, near submission and cutting him open with elbows was enough to win me the round.
Round two starts and again I went to work with the stand up, catching him with some shots. I threw a back spinning heel kick, which we stopped and laughed about for a second, then rocked him with a left hand sending him stumbling to the cage. I saw blood and went in with a flying knee, which Dylan circled off and caught me in the air and scored a takedown for himself. Dylan spent the rest of the round on top and in control, though most of the elbows thrown glanced or missed me completely. After it was all said and done, I should have done more to get up. Herb Dean kept threatening to stand us up, I just felt all I had to do was lock him down again and we would get stood up. That’s what you get when you rely on someone else. Even though Dylan didn’t land much and I felt like I hurt him on our feet, Dylan dominated the top control and easily won round two. I felt it was pretty obvious we were going to the third but when I heard them say a decision had been made I knew it wasn’t going my way. I lost a Majority Decision, which means not all the judges agreed but still goes down as a loss. Dylan is a tough guy, he said he nearly tapped to the choke and didn’t remember most of the fight from some of the punches. If I had to lose to someone I’m happy it was a respectful and solid opponent like Dylan.
Once the prelims finished, the wild card picks were made. Dana normally makes the picks but this season he decided to give the power to the coaches. Jones decided to give his teammate and veteran Bubba McDaniel a second chance. Chael on the other hand felt that Kevin severely under performed in his fight with Collin and decided to give him a second chance over me. Once the decision was made, the emotions set in that I was out of the tournament. Chael came to me and said that Dana was very impressed with my showing on the show and felt very confident that I would get another shot in the UFC and he thought Kevin needed to prove himself better than what he showed.
So on the next TUF 17 episode we will finally see the battle between Bubba and King go down…
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My brain child is MMAValor, something I had wanted to do for a long time and finally it’s here. Been an MMA fan since TUF season one (play catch up all the time) and the obsession started to grow like a weed and as the sport grows so does the love for the sport. I’m a jack of all trades, a very organized person that rides an emotional roller coaster daily.Subscribe
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