Today the UFC held a telephone conference call for The Ultimate Fighter 14 with both coaches, Michael Bisping and Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller. The two bantered back and forth with eachother and made this conference call one of the most memorable in a long time.
Below are highlights from the call.
Jason Miller
– I didn’t like him at first, then I liked him. Now I’m back to hating him again.
– I definitely got under his skin…apart from the unbelievable fights…our personality clash put on a damn good show…
– I think you’re way worse an idiot than I am…
– My first priority was to give full attention to coaching these guys and second to make entertaining television…
– Bisping fully proved himself to be a prick by week 2
– It wasn’t the normal crop of TUF crowd who were 2-0…some of these guys had 30 fighters…we didn’t have one lackluster fight the entire season…
– There were some upsets that some of the media have heard of, but guess what? They’re not coming into the house.
– It comes down to what’s best for my career, me vs. Bisping is going to be way better for the UFC. This is going to be huge for the TUF franchise. Just looking as a TV viewer, I’m totally enthralled with it.
– They just stuck the camera on us and we made good TV. I contributed to Lesnar’s season of TUF not having any ratings, I didn’t watch.
– I put 100% of my effort into this job.
– The amount of time stuck with a camera in your face and a microphone up your ass…I was used to television being a more controlled thing.
– A lot of his coaching staff are guys I used to train with and had to move on because they couldn’t give me what I needed.
Michael Bisping
– Jason, you have 15 different personalities. You either love or hate him. I definitely hate him…December 3rd I’m going to kick his ass, so it’s all good.
– This season is all real fighters. They weren’t there for air time…it was a good season, my team did a good job and I feel I represented myself pretty well.
– After a day the team gels, they open up to one another…many fighters told me how shocked they were that I did care about the team…it’s not about me or Jason…it’s about giving these guys a shot at the big time…
– Miller’s annoying for a completely different reason (than Jorge Rivera)…it wasn’t just Rivera, it was him and his entire team…they crossed the line talking to family…Jason’s not like that, he’s just idiotic…his mouth is definitely bigger than his brain…
– Nice to see you’ve warmed up on your sister, Jason.
– I always give people the benefit of the doubt…we have a few mutual friends…the first couple of days before shooting starts and the more time I spent around him the more he irritated me…you’ll see why he isn’t on my Christmas card list..
– Coaching lighter weight guys is a double edged sword…the downside is when I’m coaching you saw in season 9 I’m on the mat, but with the size difference this time I couldn’t do that…had to do a lot of coaching from the sidelines…
– You didn’t have to show these fighters too many things…these were complete fighters, they just needed guidance and structure.
– There was never any hesitation in accepting the role as coach…in my opinion, that role is very prestigious…the reality is there is a downside: it means 10 months out of the game, it means taking a fight against Jason Miller.
– Anderson Silva hasn’t wiped out the middleweight division yet; I match up well with him and better than some of these other fighters have.
– This season I was myself, I didn’t pull any punches, I didn’t go on a PR campaign to get more fans.
– Jason’s already beaten mentally. It’ll be my job to show up to the fight and collect a paycheck.
– As of right now I’m living in California. The plan for the training camp is to spend a month in California and then somewhere else yet to be determined…I’m still very much part of the Wolfslair.
