By MARCUS JONES

Hello TBO.com,

It was finally my time.  It took eight weeks but I am finally featured in the octagon. Episode 8 opens by touching on a few of the highlights from last week’s questionable decision for Matt.  In a very memorable moment, Rampage takes his displeasure out on the door and this week the cameras gave him the opportunity to apologize to the door.  Classy move by Rampage. 

But in all seriousness, Rampage is a good guy, just very intense and competitive.  He just wants to win.  He took a loss for us as a strike on his record and it pissed him off.  After seven fights and seven losses, it was up to me to get the team it’s one and only win.  I felt ready for the challenge. 

Back to the house, I swear each week the cameras catch something to embarrass me.  This time it was the situation with the sun spider.  I have never seen one of those things before and after my first encounter I never want to again.  Those things are nothing but fangs and legs.  Justin was my hero that day and took care of the problem.  I don’t care that I yelled… that thing scared the hell out of me.

For obvious reasons, the episode focused on Mike and myself.  I did not get to know Mike that well in the house because he liked to stay with his team.  Before the fight, I had no idea about his situation at home.  After I fought I learned of it and have nothing but respect for the fact that he was able to stay focused on his goal while away from his sick wife for six weeks. 

With that being said, I still am pissed over what he wrote on that picture.  I am a 35-year-old man with kids.  To write “sucks balls” on a note is a childish prank.  It involves very little intelligence and isn’t even funny!  I can take a good prank, but those types of things should be left back in grade school.  He is lucky I never found out that he wrote that until I watched the episode.  It was degrading. 

Back to the reason why I was in the house.  I love the sport of mixed martial arts.  I consider myself a student of the sport, because I gain such enjoyment over learning new moves and techniques.  Even though Rampage gave me some ribbing over it, I do get a little giddy when I learn.  It is a high for me. 

It is something that I never really felt from football.  I know it sounds funny, but my years in the NFL were not nearly as rewarding.  I was able to succeed in football because I was born with certain athletic gifts.  MMA is a whole new beast.  I honestly just can’t get enough of it, I spend my spare time studying and watching tapes of old fights.  The last two years in the sport have been the best of my life. 

At the time it seemed like years had passed since I last fought, but the day finally arrived for me to enter the octagon and show my abilities. 

In hindsight, I trained perfectly for Mike.  I knew he was going to look to keep the fight standing and would come on the attack in an attempt to get into my guard.  Mike delivers wide, looping punches, so I had to make sure I kept my hands up to the side to avoid getting caught, since he rarely looked to throw a straight punch.  I, on the other hand, wanted to bring the fight to the ground where I could overwhelm him with my strong jiu-jitsu.

The fight worked out exactly as I planned.  The bell rings and Mike comes straight at me on the attack.  He lands a few blows, but nothing too damaging.  I was reaching too much in an effort to get him in the clinch, but I finally was able to get a hold of him and bring him down. 

I then focused on getting him into a submission. I failed in my first attempt with the Americana, but then he made the mistake of resting his arms on my stomach.  I jumped it and sunk him into a deep arm bar.  It was a very quick transition that even caught me a bit by surprise.  He had no choice but to tap out. 

I defeated a very tough competitor, a guy that actually fought in the UFC against Antoni Hardonk.  I was elated.

Rashad and Dana’s comments after the fight were icing on the cake.  Back in the beginning, I was chosen 14th overall and I felt disrespected.  I had a lot to prove to everyone. 

It felt great to hear them say that I was no joke.  But I had no time to really enjoy it.  One week later I was going to have to fight Darrill Schoonover.  After watching the episode, it is quite apparent that Rampage’s ongoing issues with Darrill led to that decision.  That is fine by me.  I just wanted to fight.  Some other great matchups also were decided – Roy vs. Justin, Schaub vs. Madsen and McSweeney vs. Mitrione.

Hope you guys enjoyed my (kind of) UFC debut.  Until next week.

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