Guest Editorials
The Ultimate Fighter 14 Episode 5 Blog - John Albert on house pranks and Corassani vs. Neace
Oct 20, 2011 - 11:30:30 PM The Ultimate Fighter 14 Episode 5 Blog - John Albert on house pranks and Corassani vs. Neace

DISCUSS ALL THIS IN OUR NEW MMATORCH FORUM

...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!

By: John Albert, TUF 14 Competitor

Now this is a good one.

All the culminating trash talk between Akira and Neace finally came to a head. They both got what they wanted and finally got to fight each other. Before that you guys got more of a chance to see just how crazy Deigo is, god I love that guy. All that guy wants to do is fight and he was being pushed to the edge because he couldn't fight.

After that we have to start dealing with the swagger jacker stuff, hahaha. It does seem Neace did copy Josh with the cowboy hat and capital B and all hahaha, too funny. So now I feel real bad about it cause me and Neace became closer friends and he is a really cool guy, but I was the guy to grab Neace's cowboy hat and hide it for Josh to grab up and do whatever heinous deed he wanted to do to it.

There were a couple pranks that they didn't get to show in the house. I believe it was Louis and Akira who came up with melting down some tiger balm and putting it in the baby wipes, shampoo, and soap, Pague figured it out quick though so no one really go pranked. Akira tried saran wrapping the toilet seats, but Swedish people are not very good at it and I noticed right away.

Then T.J. came up with the good idea to put Akira's bed on top of the hot tub cover; I agreed and helped push everyone for this to happen and so a couple of us grabbed the bed - the entire bed, frame and everything - and put it on the foam cover and it actually stayed afloat. Akira got back and saw his bed and it was hilarious; he tried to pretend like it was no big deal, so he decided to do his far up north a couple times over the bed (Akira strips to his undies and slams his balls on the bed or over the bed to the pool). T.J. did the final flip act on it and actually broke the bed hahaha so Akira no longer had a bed frame.

Then Neace threw a little tantrum and threw everyone's stuff all over the place in our changing room, kinda rightfully so. But guess what? It was a good thing my friend Brian Caraway was on the other team and he recognized my bag with my Vibrams in them and he saved my bag. My bag was the only bag that was not touched - lucky me.

Then the best thing ever happened when Akira told Neace to fight like a man in the Garden.... in the garden, in Sweden men fight in the garden apparently, hahaha. He told me later that the garden in his head is just like the yard to us. Then the gay banter began at fight picks - "I'll make you my lover" "your gonna suck my [expletive]" and back and forth it went.

That led to the stare down getting a little out of control as Neace decided to shoot a double leg when Akira butted heads with him. Two things: 1) Akira stuffed it and reversed Neace hahaha, so that didn't look so good on Neace's part, then 2) Neace got him in an arm triangle from underneath where he was telling me Akira was gasping and about to go out, very interesting. I stayed right where i was in line and just watched, I didn't want to get into a scuffle as I hadn't even fought yet, so i enjoyed the show from the outside.

During training we did work Akira real hard at standing back up in case he got taken down and he actually did really well. His Jiu Jitsu is definitely the weakest part of his game but his wrestling defense and striking were some of the best, so as much as I like Neace I felt Akira was definitely going to win. The only thing that scared me was that he literally had to cut something like 20 pounds to make weight. I was like the nurse by his death bed, I was hand feeding him special salivating gum I brought with me, giving him ice cubes, helping him in and out of the salt bath and into the bed, putting the blankets and towels on him to make him sweat, etc. He made it though, and that was the toughest weight cut I have ever seen someone go through, he definitely toughed it out and made weight perfectly.

The fight went as planned pretty much, though there is one discrepancy: whether or not Akira tapped. In the UFC I believe the unified rules are verbal announcement that it seems like your about to lose a limb the ref can step in or three consecutive taps, not one. So Neace actually let up on the heel hook and gave Akira the advantage. I was trained to rip that thing off until the ref pulls you off. Akira came back and dominated the rest of the fight, and it was definitely a very good and aggressive fight. Tune in next week for some more amazing fights.

Watch John every Wednesday on The Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV, then check back here at MMATorch.com for his blog each week