Sherdog.com: How long have you been home? How long ago did the taping of The Ultimate Fighter end?

Kenny Florian: I believe it ended in November. I’ve been back since November, like mid-November because I was back here for Thanksgiving.

Sherdog.com: I take it you had to sign a confidentiality contract preventing you from saying anything to anyone about what happened on the show?

Florian: Exactly, exactly.

Sherdog.com: With that contract, what would the penalties have been saying you opened your mouth to someone and word got around to Zuffa and Spike TV that you spilled some beans about the show?

Florian: It’s a pretty strict contract. I guess they have it for all reality shows. It’s a $5 million confidentiality agreement that we all signed, so if someone said something to someone, they could potentially be sued for $5 million.

Sherdog.com: Five million? Damn, that is a steep penalty!

Florian: (laughs) Yeah, that’s a lot of money, but that’s kind of what they used to scare us. (laughs again) It was enough for me not say anything.

Sherdog.com: You didn’t get booted off the show and you didn’t lose your fight. What happened with those of you who did lose early on in the taping period or who had to leave due to injuries? I would think that those guys’ friends and families would then know what happened because he would be home early. How did that work? If someone left the show early, what kind of confidentiality contract pertains to that particular situation?

Florian: In that case, that was even stated in our contracts. A lot of the guys had to stay in Vegas. Every single one of them had to stay within Las Vegas if they left the show, actually. All of us had to go home at the same time. What they had was what Chris Leben referred to as the “Loser House” at the time. They actually had two altering houses. The people who lost went to that home and lived their life pretty normally. They had to stay where they were. I guess they could use their cell phones and watch TV, things like that.

It was the same for us who stayed in the (winner) house, but the guys who left the show early were kept in that other house and had to follow the confidentiality contract no matter what. We had two separate houses [just to be safe]. I don’t know exactly how it worked, but they had two separate houses; one for us and one that the losers would go to.

Sherdog.com: That makes sense. Now, when you were picked to be on the show, were you surprised to see guys like Bobby Southworth, Diego Sanchez, etc. also on the show? Did you expect to see other professional veterans on the show along with you, or did you more or less expect it to be you and some guys with no pro experience just trying to be a pro fighter?

Florian: It was tough to say because I saw a couple of the guys during the interview process and I knew they looked familiar. I saw Forrest Griffin and I also saw Nathan Quarry. I knew that some of these guys were pretty well established fighters. I wasn’t sure what to expect, you know? I was thinking that it would be a mix of guys with a lot of experience or guys with talent who had just a few fights. I was kind of expecting everything and anything, you know?

I didn’t know what was going on in the minds of the producers. Obviously they want quality fighters, but they also want to make it an exciting reality show. I knew they were looking for people with personality, good or bad. So I knew there were a lot of factors going into it. With me never being a part of a process like this before, I was pretty much ready for anything.

Sherdog.com: But you didn’t expect someone like a Dan Henderson or “Rampage” Jackson to be on the show, right?

Florian: My understanding of it was that it was going to be young up-and-comers, guys with real potential who would be in the UFC one day. That was my understanding; so no, I didn’t expect to see any real established fighters like those superstars. I expected it to be guys who never fought in the UFC or in another large show like PRIDE. Although Southworth had been in PRIDE, his excuse that his fight in PRIDE against Vitor Belfort was early on in his career and it was a fight that he took on two weeks notice. I guess it didn’t really count. It wasn’t one of those things where he signed a contract with PRIDE and fought a bunch of times in their event. But that was my understanding; that it was going to be a bunch of guys who hadn’t yet made it to the big show. That’s what was explained to us as well.

Sherdog.com: Were there any guys who were cut out of the debut show or from the tryouts who were just some tough guys who thought they could make it? Or did the agreement with the show stipulate that you had to be somebody with at least a professional record?

Florian: As far as I know, it was only to be anyone who had an established mixed martial arts record. You had to send in a video of your fights and you had to have a legitimate record, so I’m sure they did some type of research on you. I’m sure they checked your records, checked to make sure everything was legitimate, some sort of highlight reel, some type of interview to hear you speaking. That’s what they went off of.