The fight on this week's episode of The Ultimate Fighter was the best of the season so far, with Team Koscheck's Nam Phan getting an impressive win over Team GSP's Spencer Paige.We checked in this week with Team GSP's Michael Johnson to get his thoughts on the fight, as well as his feud with the teammate everyone calls Bruce Leroy, and his training with a master of muay Thai.
This week's interview is below.
Michael David Smith: On this week's show you were shown getting mad at Alex, also known as Bruce Leroy, over an incident with your laundry. What happened there?
Michael Johnson: He was trying to play a prank replacing the fabric softener with bleach. I really got frustrated with that. There were times when Alex could be cool, but the majority of the time he was like a childish little kid. We were supposed to be there for the purpose of getting better as fighters and trying to get into the UFC, and it felt like he was in the house to mess around while the rest of us were there trying to improve ourselves.
GSP brought in one of the real legends of Muay Thai, Jean Charles Skarbowsky, to serve as one of the coaches for your team. What was working with him like?
Painful. He was real good, he taught us a lot of things, he was really focused and as a world-class Thai guy he taught us the tricks of the trade. But he didn't take it easy on us at all. If you're working with him and you make a mistake, he's definitely going to make you pay. But that's good. You've got to learn the hard way. It's a lot better to learn those lessons in practice than have to learn them in a fight.
The fight on this week's episode was Spencer Paige vs. Nam Phan. I thought the first round was very entertaining, and Spencer was very effective in the stand-up early on, but then Nam really turned the tables on him.
Spencer was tearing him up at first. I think the problem for Spencer was just that he got his hand broken in the first round. I thought he showed a lot of heart to keep fighting with a broken hand, but he just couldn't win the fight that way.
After two rounds the judges gave it to Nam, which gave Team Koscheck its first win over you guys. Did you have a problem with the judges' decision?
No, I agreed with it, just because Spencer really couldn't do what he wanted with his broken hand. He was on his back at the end of the first round and definitely lost that, and then in the second round he was trying to pull out whatever he could with a broken hand but it didn't go his way.
It seemed like Team Koscheck went a little over the top with their celebration after that fight. Did that bother you?
It bothered me a lot. It got under my skin. They had one win in four fights and they were overly celebrating. On GSP's team, our guys were humble and respectful and we were acting like we had been there before. Those guys were beating on the wall and doing that nonsense. But that's them. We conducted ourselves differently.
Get the latest gear
