TUF 26 Episode 1: Roxy’s blog

When I walked into the TUF gym for the first time…for the SECOND time as a contestant, I thought, “Welcome to the jungle. Here I go again. This time, it’ll be different.”

We saw Eddie Alvarez and Justin Gaethje standing before us on either side of a big TV screen. I admit I fan-girled over Eddie a little bit at first. I’ve been watching him fight for years, and it turns out that we started fighting the same year, 2003, within months of each other! I wanted to be on his team so badly. I knew Justin was the WSOF champ and an exciting fighter, but didn’t know much about him personally.

On the way over, I had said to DeAnna, “Hey, when we are paired up for evaluations, do you wanna be partners? Since we already fought, you already know my game….” I was, not nervous, but I guess you could say wary, because we didn’t know the teams yet. I’d train with my teammates no problem, but I didn’t know who I was fighting first, so I didn’t wanna show them my favorite moves. DeAnna was all for it. When we got split up, we were in different groups. I politely told the staff that DeAnna and I would like to work together, so could we change groups? The friendly staff politely replied no, go with my assigned group. ^^;;

dang it

So I made a bee line for Rachael Ostovich-Berdon, who I was friends with on Instagram. I had posed with her many times at Invicta in our weigh-in costumes. lol



(I screen-capped the episode so images are copyrighted TUF or UFC or whoever)

We were with Team Gaethje’s coaches first. Justin, his striking coach Trevor Whittman, his training partner and wrestling coachMatt Lopez (current UFC fighter), striking coach Luke “Lil’ Hulk” Caudillo (former UFC/Strikeforce/etc fighter), and Vinny Magalhaes BJJ trainer! (fighter and my former teammate!).

Whaaaaat! VINNY?! I gave him a big hug.

Matt had us do strikes into take-down fit ins, to test our ability. Matt took turns going with each of us at least once. Then, we did rounds on the heavy bags observed by Luke. Trevor and Justin sat on a bench and briefly interviewed us. Why do we fight? Our motivation. Our heroes. etc I was impressed. It seemed very thorough.

Throughout this process, I kept hearing crashes and commotion coming from the cage area. (We were on the grappling mats.) “Dang, what are they doing over there?” I thought, about Team Alvarez evaluations. Then they went over to the treadmill and had the fighters run.

After one hour passed, we switched. I admit I was a little nervous …. I got to chat briefly with Eddie and he asked me about living in Japan. He had fought in Japan! Then he said, “OKay gear up. You’re sparring. 70%!”

I was like, “ummmmmmmmmm oh crap.” None of us had trained at all in a week before hand. I didn’t really WANT to spar someone since I didn’t know who I’d be fighting. I didn’t trust people to go easy….I didn’t want to go hard. I didn’t want to get beat up because I was going easy and they were going hard.

My first partner was Sijara. I remember chatting with her during the tryouts. She was so cool! A black belt in BJJ, we both agreed that if we’d get into the house, we’d bring our gi’s and try and get some gi training in. “Hey, Sijara,” I said, putting on my shin guards and she her helmet. “Sooo Eddie said 70% but that seems a bit much. Do you wanna go like 50% or something? Just show our technique?”

She smiled at me. “Oh no, he said 70%, so that’s cool! Let’s just do that!”

crap. ;_; alrighty then!

It really sucked. There was a heavybag in the middle of the cage dividing it so a few groups could go, so I barely had space. I was sliding all over the slippery plastic flooring since it wasn’t quite canvas… “Okay okay what do I know about Sijara?” I asked myself as we started testing jabs. I had followed her on instagram and she posted all these pics of her with her boxing coach. “Okay boxing boxing boxing….” suddenly I was in a front headlock …guillotine…or something. She had my neck and I couldn’t move. lol “JIUJITSU BLACK BELT!” My brain screamed at me. It was kind of a stalemate since I couldn’t move because of the headgear, and our gloves were so bulky she couldn’t quite get a blood choke. I forget if I tapped to get her to let go or if it was a crank or what but I survived that and then we switched partners. I think I sparred Maia? She was so fast. I was getting lit up when I stood in front of her. I couldn’t move well. I didn’t want to hit her back too hard! I looked horrible. Then I went with Rachael and she did some beautiful take downs and spinning stuff and finally I was tired of getting beat up because I couldn’t get my aggressiveness going, and I think I was like “RAAAAR” and flurried hard and took her down. I think it was Rachael I was sparring with. My memory isn’t the best under stress. lol I mean, Eddie is right when he says it’s the best way to see people’s abilities…I just… x_x wasn’t ready.

Anyway, then Eddie said he wanted to test our fitness by having us do sprints. My heart monitor thingies didn’t read my pulse, which is frustrating, but just another part of being the vampire that I am. (can’t eat garlic, look the same as in younger pictures, etc)

After we finished evaluations, I actually hoped that Justin would pick me for his team. My biggest anxiety was not having John Wood coach me. My second biggest anxiety was that my training partners would go too hard in training and hurt me, or we’d train too hard and I couldn’t recover and would get hurt and then everyone would hate me as a partner….surely Vinny would also put in a good word for me? I’ve heard Eddie was a good coach, though. I was just anxious all around. Other girls were probably anxious because they didn’t know what was gonna happen, and I was anxious because I DID know what could.

Eddie won the coin toss. I thought he would pick me, so I steeled myself. He picked Barb! Then Justin picked me! I was so excited!!

Look at Vinny smiling in the background behind Justin.