Justin Edwards – Ultimate Fighter Season 13 Q&A Episode 7
By Dave Carpinello
The Ultimate Fighter Season 13′s Justin Edwards (Team Junior Dos Santos) will be doing a Weekly Q&A for the readers of PDG. Justin will give his answers to your questions weekly beginning on April 13th. Justin has been fighting since 2006 and was chosen out of the alternate pool to join the lineup for season 13 of the Ultimate Fighter after Keon Caldwell quit the show to return to his family. Edwards has been training for the last five years under Scott Sheeley at the Ohio Fitness and Martial Arts Center and brings a professional record of 7-0 onto the show. Make sure to catch this weeks all new episode on Spike TV on Wednesday Night!
Questions Regarding Episode 7 (May 11, 2011):
1. There was a lot of whining about the wildcard picks on the show; was it even worse off camera back at the house?
Justin Edwards – There were definitely some people that thought they were more deserving of a second chance but none of them were as vocal as Len Bentley. He was crying a lot because he thought it was his spot and that it was taken away from him and so then he was bad-mouthing Chuck O’Neil and Javier Torres. The coaches were obviously not that impressed with Len’s fight against Ryan McGillivray and I also think that his knee was an issue when the decision was made. The coaches thought he would use the injury as an excuse if he lost. A few other guys were upset, Mick Bowman was disappointed because he thought he had a good fight against Clay Harvison even though he didn’t fight up to his ability. Torres though was very persistent with the coaches throughout the whole process about getting a second chance and it obviously worked.
2. Why did the other guys call Chuck O’Neil ‘Trash-bag Charlie’ and was there any other good nicknames being used at the house?
Justin Edwards – Yeah Mick Bowman, we called him the ‘TheRapist’ (it was the therapist but we capitalized the T & R, it was a skit on Saturday Night Live) and we nicknamed Shamar Bailey ‘The Thoroughbred’. There was Zachary ‘The Virgin Daiquiri’ Davis and they were calling me ‘Little Handy’ in reference to Randy Couture. Chuck was called ‘Trash-bag Charlie’ because before he shaved he looked like a homeless bum that you would typically see in a ditch or an alley.
3. What was the morale of the eliminated fighters in the house; were they still training hard or just becoming a distraction?
Justin Edwards – Up until the wildcard announcement was made everyone was still positive and hopeful that they would get a second chance. So once the announcement was made, there was a lot of disappointment including myself. I was upset about losing and then being suspended and basically out of the competition. You could definitely see a change in the guys who were done after that and people started to get stir crazy. There was no hope left of getting back into the competition and so morale was low and people started getting on each others nerves.
4. What did you think of your coach Junior Dos Santos defeating Brock Lesnar (tried out for the Minnesota Vikings) in a football skills challenge in the Coaches Challenge?
Justin Edwards – Oh man we were stoked! When we first pulled up to Fertitta Field and we saw that the challenge was football we were all like ‘Holy Shit’ there goes the money. Since Brock was a professional football player we all thought that he would have the edge but since he couldn’t throw a football it came down to the other aspects of the challenge and once we saw that it was more about speed, agility and quickness we felt better because Junior is a great athlete. After Junior won, he showed what kind of a person he is when he split his $10K in winnings with Team Lesnar. He gave each of the fighters $100 and $500 to each of Lesnar’s coaches but he didn’t give Brock anything because as Junior put it “he doesn’t deserve any money because he lost”.
5. What did you think about the wildcard fight between Chuck O’Neil and Javier Torres?
Justin Edwards – To be honest the fight went just about the way I thought it was going to. Javier is one of those guys that is good fighter whether the fight is standing or on the ground but he seemed more interested in looking good (technique wise not like looking pretty) than he did in the actual fighting part of it. I have seen videos of Chuck’s fights and his performance against Davis was not indicative of his skill set and ability. He was more focused and comfortable for the Torres fight and you could see the results in his victory. In my opinion Chuck was one of the better overall fighters in the house.
6. Last week the UFC announced that the Lesnar vs. Dos Santos fight had been canceled because Lesnar was sick again; did he ever seem like he wasn’t healthy while you were on the show?
Justin Edwards – Not at all and when I heard about it the other day I was shocked. I don’t know if it is an ongoing deal or if it just happened recently and I keep in contact with the guys from the house and none of them had any idea he was sick. That being said the JDS vs. Shane Carwin fight may actually be a better fight. It would have been good to see Lesnar and Junior fight to cap off the competition but I think Shane Carwin is just as good of an opponent.
7. When the quarterfinal match-ups were announced, which one were you looking forward to watching the most?
Justin Edwards – I definitely wanted to see the O’Neil vs. Davis rematch because I thought it would be a completely different fight than their first one but I was most excited to see Shamar Bailey vs. Chris Cope. Chris’ yelling in the house was getting on everyone’s nerves and even though I don’t think he was doing it intentionally to piss people off… it did. Team Lesnar practiced at 9:00 am and our team practiced at 11:00 am so we were still sleeping when he was making all that noise. Shamar had asked for that fight and with all of the built up animosity I was excited to see them finally fight.
8. Was there anything they left off of last week’s show that was of any interest?
Justin Edwards – Not really, although it was interesting to see Brock step up in training because at that point in the season most of his fighters were bitching about his lack of involvement and that he wasn’t doing a good job coaching. But he really zeroed in and helped Chuck prepare for his fight and I think that is a big reason Chuck won his fight. It was interesting to see it happen on TV because being on the other team we didn’t see that stuff happen when we were on the show.
Thanks for the questions guys, check out the Ohio Fitness and Martial Arts Center – Justin
Send in your questions and enjoy this week’s episode. You can submit your questions for Justin by sending them to ad***@*************er.com and he will answer them each week following the next show on Spike TV! You can also find more information on Justin Edwards on his Facebook page.
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