We’re at the conclusion of the first round of fights in the house and Chuck picked me to fight Nick Ring. I had asked him a week or so before how he had felt about me fighting Nick and all of my coaches agreed that it was a good match.

I tapered off practice a little bit and cut weight without too much trouble. The weigh-ins ran about two hours late. Like usual, we were waiting on the commission. The morale on our team was good, as our practices were solid and strategic.

The only thing that sucked was that I was missing my family. I think everyone in the house was kind of missing their regular lifestyle. That’s one of the downfalls of the show is that you had no contact with your family. It either helped keep your focus or broke you. Even though I was missing my family, it definitely was a motivational factor for me.