Matt Mitrione's Ultimate Fighter Blog: I Was Kicking the Crap Out of John Madsen Singing "Proud Mary"

Following each episode of The Ultimate Fighter Heavyweights, Team Rashad member Matt Mitrione will share his thoughts on what happened on camera and behind the scenes.

The pictures of Darrill drinking Jim and Coke were from the first two days, literally the first two days we were on set. The shots of him drinking all those beers were from later in the season. The conversation that the coaches had where Darrill and I were in the room, that happened probably the second day after they picked teams. They brought me in because I was sparring John Madsen – I was kicking the crap out of him and I was singing Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary.” They told me I was disrespecting him and told me to cut it out. So that was completely out of context.

Darrill is a drunk. He likes his alcohol. But he was so low-key that they had to create something to make him an interesting character. And as far as his tattoo – that is one of the creepiest tattoos I’ve seen in my life. That conversation happened in the first couple of days as well. Darrill is probably my best friend from the show, he’s the one I stay in contact with the most, but that’s a creepy tattoo.

From the get-go, Zak was picked on. From the get-go. Pretty much the entire house was aggressive personalities. Brendan Schaub isn’t really outspoken but he’s confident, so even if you didn’t act like an Alpha male you still had the mentality of one. I think that the casting staff is pretty good at what they do. I think they knew I was going to be an antagonist, I think they knew Zak was going to be a pushover and get bullied.

I don’t know what Rampage was like before the show but they are definitely not showing him in a very good light. Or maybe they are showing his true colors. I don’t know. The poster was funny but it’s like, why are you putting so much energy into pranks? Is it because you’re doing so poorly that you’ve just given up? They had some funny pranks but for the most part, all of us were like, let’s just finish this thing up.

He got punched in the face a lot. I think we were all surprised that he had stones like that. But when that triangle got set in, that was the slowest triangle on the planet. It was so telegraphed and Zak just let it sink in. I think by that time Zak was just done. He was just done. He would sit outside by the pool by himself and say out loud, “what did I get myself into?” I think he wanted to get out of the spotlight, be another face in the crowd and get all the pressure removed.