Sarah Moras of Kelowna, B.C., was one of four Canadians competing on The Ultimate Fighter 18. She has been writing weekly blogs for sportsnet.ca to share an inside perspective about what went on inside the gym and house on TUF 18.
Raquel vs. Jessica
The final episode before the finale was exciting. So we had Raquel Pennington against Jessica Rakoczy. I was pretty shocked by how this fight went, especially since I’ve fought Raquel before, and she is tough and extremely strong. I think that Raquel is the better fighter–but Jessica is obviously the better boxer–but this was in a way expected. Raquel was cleared by one day to fight, because in her last fight she got cut open, and I believe they took the stitches out right before her fight with Jessica. And the people on Team Tate really didn’t have a team for this fight.
We never even noticed that Jessica was injured until this fight. I think it was Miesha and Bryan screaming to circle the wrong way and that was because they noticed that her arm/shoulder was messed up. No one on our team really knew that until this fight. I know Ronda mentioned it before that we picked the people that were injured, but I personally didn’t know anything about it.
Watch the entire TUF 18 finale Saturday on Sportsnet 360 starting at 8 p.m. EST and watch a bonus prelims on sportsnet.ca at 7:30 p.m. EST
Live finale
I am super stoked for this, and really wish that I was able to compete on this fight card. As many of you now know, I injured my knee two weeks ago and had to pull out of my fight that I had booked. I was looking forward to it, and should be writing this blog from a hotel room in Vegas, but this is a part of life. I will come back stronger and be just ready to smash face and really get a chance to show what I am capable of. I thought it was going to be me against Raquel for the spot to be the first female Ultimate Fighter, but I guess that is not how it was meant to be.
What I saw that you didn’t
— In the majority of my confessionals (private interviews) at the end I’d get asked if there was anything else I wanted to talk about. At the beginning I had no idea what to say so I asked what everyone else said, and mostly it was about missing home. I decided to end the majority of my confessionals telling a story about my cat. For some reason not one of my cat stories made it onto the show, I’m rather disappointed.
— After Louis lost his fight, Chris Beal drank a little too much and Louis made a comment to Beal and Beal went off on Louis for at least an hour. There were about six of us sitting there, just laughing our butts off and none of us stood up for Louis, but as soon as Beal would be quiet Louis would say something to egg him on again. It was probably one of the most entertaining conversations I witnessed in the house.
— We never got to see the “late night crew” move all the furniture from the kitchen to outside and all of the outside furniture, BBQ, and plants into the kitchen. It was pretty funny to wake up and see that in the kitchen.
— Davey had some of the best stories and is a super funny guy and they never really showed his personality this season. He would do what he’d call “The Moonwalk” and it we were all expecting Michael Jackson type moves, and he started it out to make us think that, and then he would walk like how we have seen people walk in videos of them being on the moon in a space suit.
— Roxanne didn’t just make “Plato” but also made a giraffe, cat, dog, elephant, and probably more that I can’t even remember right now. People kept trying to kill the toilet paper family, by hanging them by the neck, or taping their feet to the ceiling, or removing the elephant’s nose and placing it elsewhere on the elephant. I believe there was also a Plato and dog incident that I didn’t see, but from what I heard it was rather funny.
— Lastly, one of the most memorable moments was when Manny Gamburyan decided to stay in the house, without his phone for a night. He signed his name on the wall and was acting all crazy. He also spent almost the entire night grabbing Julianna’s food (like frozen berries) and feeding it to the people in the room.
You can follow Sarah on Twitter @sarahcheesecake