After watching this episode, I have to say that I was a bit shocked at how Team Mir was being portrayed. We may not have been a tight family like Team Nogueira, but we were not a dysfunctional unit either. Aside from Junie being an ass, all of us got along very well.
Don’t get me wrong, we did have small cliques within the team; Eliot and I would train together a lot, Vinny and Tom worked together mostly, Shane and Junie were always grappling together and Roop and Kaplan trained a lot. However, during our sparring sessions we would all work together, along with our coaches, and rotate partners.
At one point during the episode they showed some of us lying around while others were trying to train. This was taken out of context. There were times we would finish the training session early, and instead of getting into the van and driving off to the house of boredom, we stayed and hung out at the gym. There were times when guys would take a day off from training but would still head over to the gym just to get out of the house.
Junie complaining was such bulls--t. You have a guy who rarely did any conditioning classes and every time Shane or Kaplan would tap his a--, Junie would storm off and make a huge scene by throwing stuff and getting p----d off. How can you train with someone like that? All he had to do was ask questions: “How did you catch me with that?” or “Where should I go from here?” That’s how you learn. We had Mir,
Vinicius Magalhaes,
Demian Maia and Robert Drysdale -- four of the top BJJ guys on the planet -- and Ken Hahn, our striking coach, always available to help and answer questions.
I’m proud to say that I did not have anything to do with urinating and ejaculating on the food. This went beyond anything I did or would do. Yes, my pranks were childish and stupid, but they were not malicious. I tried to have fun with my pranks and have some interaction between the teams, but these guys stepped
way over the line.
I was very disgusted when I found out what happened -- I knew that this would escalate to something very bad. Team Nog took it pretty good, but Kaplan was pissed off. His plans for revenge were in poor taste and couldn’t even be aired on TV. After that night, everyone would inspect their belongings for feces.
I don’t think anyone on Team Mir knew about Junie giving tips to Team Nog about Dave Kaplan. I felt this was one of the most disrespectful things I had seen and any remaining respect I had for Junie was gone.
Dave Kaplan’s game plan to “stand right in front of him, take his two hardest shots, walk through them and then kick his ass” was not a solid one. Dave’s vanity in proving his toughness impeded his performance. Nover was a beast. No one on Team Mir knew how talented Nover was until that fight -- I mean the kid passed out during the first minute of taping the show.
Stay tuned next week as Kaplan and Lawlor get out of control and I finally step into the cage against Kyle Kingsbury. It’s been four long weeks and I am ready to tear it up!
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