IN her new weekly guest blog, Scottish TUF 20 fighter Joanne Calderwood breaks down episode 8 and takes a look at Torres vs. Rawlings.
Joanne Calderwood poses for a portrait during the TUF 20 Media Day session at the TUF gym in Las Vegas, Nevada
THE Ultimate Fighter enters its twentieth season with a new weight class and a world championship on the line.
Under
the guidance of star coaches Anthony Pettis and Gilbert Melendez,
sixteen of the top 115lbs female fighters on the planet will live
together, train together and compete for the right to be crowned the
first ever UFC Women's Strawweight Champion.
Every week, Scotland's Joanne Calderwood gives her behind-the-scenes take on The Ultimate Fighter experience
"On
The Ultimate Fighter, I saw Angela Magana and Bec Rawlings' true
colours within a week and now they're just starting to show it on the
show. They're just not nice people.
There was no reason for them to go on like that about Tecia
Torres and Heather Clark. Yes, Tecia got a second chance but, if any of
them been eliminated and had the option to come back in, they would have
taken it. The whole bedroom thing was just silly, it was like
playground rules. It was like pre-school. It just shows how immature
they are.
Bec and Angela have obviously both been through a lot in
their lives but you would think they would treat people better because
of that.
Bec's main focus should have been her fight. We all knew we
were coming to stay with each other so who cares if you're sitting next
to your opponent? That's The Ultimate Fighter! She made such a big deal
about the bed situation which kind of showed she wasn't there for the
series' main reason, which was to win the belt.
Being in the house
with Bec and Angela, I saw them being quite nasty to people's faces too
so it wasn't just behind people's backs. That's what people who are
insecure about themselves are like; they'll obviously think someone's
saying something bad about them or they'll always think the worst.
They are definitely insecure in that way. I'm so glad that the show has started showing their true colours.
Tecia
was probably the only girl from Invicta I really knew. I didn't go out
of my way to tweet her or text her or that kind of friendship but I
would always speak to her backstage.
Tecia's always been very nice
to me. I like her as a fighter and outside of the cage too. She stood
up for herself and said, 'No, I'm not moving bedrooms' which is what I
would have done. I really respected that.
When Tecia got moved to our team, although I could see both
points of view, I was always thinking she was a high level girl that I
got to train with. I took it for what it was. She's like me; she's
serious about this sport, so I would give her my time.
I thought
Bec never really did anything in the fight with Tecia. I was laughing at
one point because she seemed to pull Tecia's hair to make it look like a
pineapple like hers.
Tecia never seemed to be in any trouble at
all and Bec just showed that she should have been focusing on her
opponent instead of worrying about her changing bedrooms.
I was
impressed with Tecia's performance. She did well to deal with Bec and
get the win. There was a lot of pressure on her with coming back into
the competition.
I was quite vocal in the episode about some of the booing
from Team Melendez after Tecia's win. There was no need for it. I was
really shocked. You don't want anything bad to happen in your sport and
for fighters to be the ones that are doing that, it was just completely
shocking behaviour. I was really disappointed and that's when they all
really lost my respect.
They didn't show the half of my staredown
with Rose Namajunas. We were actually there for about 10 minutes! Me and
her were just looking at each other and didn't want to be the one to
look away.
That's just the way I do a staredown, I just look into
them. You kind of get lost in the moment. It's like the first part of
the fight, in a way.
Other than my own quarter-final fight, I was most looking
forward to Randa Markos vs. Felice Herrig. I think in the next episode
you'll see Carla Esparza and Felice's true colours coming out also. I
had every faith in Randa that she was going to beat Felice and I was
really looking forward to seeing it."