TUF 10’s Mike Wessel: Lord of the Flies

Heavy.com: Do you feel like Matt Mitrione was playing up his supposed injury for the camera time, was he genuinely feeling sorry for himself, or do you think he was looking for an excuse to get out of having to fight Marcus Jones?

Mike Wessel: I think it was a combination of all of those. He did it for more camera time and he did it just to create some drama. When I look back on the show, he really wasn’t that influential other then snitching on the team. I think his whole shoulder injury was so that he wouldn’t have to fight next. I think he believed that they were going to have whoever fought next, fight Marcus [Jones]. He did not want to fight Marcus. We could all tell. And the supposed shoulder injury, you could just tell, all the coaches and everyone were just like, “This is bullshit. This is just ridiculous. He’s acting”. We’re all fighters. This is what we do. We get sore, we get tired; just stop being a wussy and do it. I don’t think Matt really wanted to train that much. I don’t think he really trained like we did on the show, back home. I think with guys like Matt and “Big Baby” Marcus, who are former NFL players, the gyms that they go to, the coaches kiss their butts, because they want to make sure they don’t lose them. They’re high profile. But you really need coaches to push you like that because that’s the only way you’re going to get better. Like when Marcus was done training, Marcus was done training, because he was tired or whatever. He’s never been pushed like they were pushing him on the show. With Matt, it was just a situation where he just got caught snitching, and he knew they were going to make him fight next, so he had to come up with something else to get out of fighting.

Heavy.com: Right, but this is the same guy that’s always been walking around the house talking about well he feels like he matches up with Marcus.

Mike Wessel: Yeah. He was bragging and talking abut how he was the most powerful guy there, and he is a talented guy. Matt was very fast with his hands, and plus he’s a left hander, so that makes him that much more difficult for someone to fight. But I definitely think that he knew that Marcus was ten times better on the ground than he was, and he knew that he would maybe have to go to the ground.

Heavy.com: You said that Zak was a friend of yours; Did you guys train together prior to the show?

Mike Wessel: No. I met Zak in Seattle at one of the first TUF 10 meetings before the show. He hung out at the table with us all day, and then he hung out with us that night. Then when we were in Las Vegas, Zak hung out with me the whole time. So I got to know Zak, and Zak doesn’t really have the personality that all the rest of us have, or that attitude and mentality that all of the rest of the guys at the house had. That’s kind of my background of knowing Zak, but I never really knew how he could fight or any of that.

Heavy.com: Sure, but being kind of humble and reserved doesn’t always seem to reflect on how a fighter can perform.

Mike Wessel: It doesn’t, but their team would talk to us and they’d be like, “Dude, he’s just horrible”, or whatever they would say. Now, I’ve never had any experience so I can’t speak from my experience, but this is what they would say. They would rip on him from day one, to, now it’s week three, and they were just constantly on his ass. Wes Sims was just on his ass. Everybody was making fun of him. Everyone would tease him. Our team didn’t really start getting into teasing him until the end of week three or four. So he had already had his whole team ripping on him for that whole time before that. It’s because he’s just such a nice guy, and because he’s just so non-confrontational, he just doesn’t stick up for himself at all. He was kind of treated like a bitch. Like someone that didn’t belong there.

Heavy.com: Do you think he basically turned into the house scapegoat, or a verbal punching bag? It seems like a lot of the guys were using him as a vent for their own personal frustrations in the house.

Mike Wessel: Oh yeah. That’s definitely what he was. When someone can’t defend themselves, he’s an easy target. He made himself an easy target. Like just when he talks, he’s just socially awkward where he says stupid things where you’re like, “Really? What are you thinking? Why would you…..?”. It wasn’t just that he was an easy target, he egged it on himself too. What people don’t understand is that when you’re in that house, you’re so secluded, and there’s just nothing else to do, so when there’s an easy target like that…..

“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away” – Ralph, Lord of the Flies, Chapter 5: Beast from Water

Heavy.com: It’s almost like a prison mentality I’d imagine.

Mike Wessel: That’s exactly the way it is. It’s a prison mentality. We’re going to find the weakest link, and make him our bitch. It was just a bad situation. You could tell that it was just eating him up, but he would just never stick up for himself. here were times when we’d be sitting around playing cards during week three and Wes Sims would be laying into him, and I’d be like, ‘Guys, just knock it off. It’s annoying me now’, because it was just so stupid. But yeah, he was the outlet for everybody to take their frustrations out on, because he was just such an easy target. In that house it’s like seventh grade girls. It’s like the girls are trying to compete over being the most popular, or the coolest, and they’re going to step on everybody else to get there. All of us at the house are normally really good guys and under normal circumstances, none of us would have did what we did. Because of circumstances in the house, you start to just steadily lose your mind and just come unglued, so you do things that you normally wouldn’t do.

Heavy.com: What are your feelings on Rampage and his team not being in the cage after the losses of his last two guys?

Mike Wessel: I was talked to and told that I wasn’t allowed to have a confrontation with Rampage. The reason I get pissed off at Rampage is because he’s supposed to be a coach, and I used to be a coach as well. When Demico lost the way he did, Rampage started feeling sorry for himself. You could hear him saying things like, “Do I have bad luck?”, and, “I can’t believe he tapped out to that bullshit”. I remember he said something like, “I would never lose like that”. Really Rampage? Really? You’re going to act like that big of a douche because one of your guys lost, even though he fought good? Demico went in there and surprised a lot of people, and lost, but who cares. Everybody loses. What did you do after your last loss Rampage? You went on a fucking cocaine rage and stayed up all damn night before you were driving your monster truck with a big logo on it through white fucking suburbia. Running from the cops where they had to shoot out your fucking tires. Then Dana had to come down and bail your ass out and send you to England so the media wouldn’t eat your ass apart, so you would still have a fucking career. So I think Demico is handling his loss perfectly.

Heavy.com: What do you think about Quinton’s recent comments in his blog where he goes on to say, “My team and I had great chemistry and we got along great. Rashad and his team didn’t even like each other”?

Mike Wessel: Here’s the thing, all of the guys on our team are still talking. I still talk to most of the guys from my team all of the time. All of us have stayed good friends. Even Matt Mitrione has sent me a couple texts from time to time. We all got along. Our team chemistry was true. We all really cared about one another. His team may have gotten along together fine, but everyone was not on the same page. Not everybody liked the way they were treated by Rampage.

Heavy.com: Well if he said he only trained Jiu-Jitsu once three months ago, the story goes that he was down at ATT and pulled out a strap after being caught in an armbar, and started waving it around the place like a cowboy at the OK Corral.

Mike Wessel: Yeah, Kimbo told us about how somebody armbarred him and he got pissed, because he took it personal. I was sitting right there when Kimbo told the story about how he went to his car to get his gun. He said, “Man, I took that shit personal”, and me and Justin Wren were like, ‘You can’t take it personal. Everybody taps. Everybody gets caught. Especially in practice, but that’s why you learn in practice’. We were like, ‘Why did you take it personal? Holy shit!’, you know. We’re just dumbfounded by the conversation. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? You pulled a gun out at the gym?’. That’s when I was just thinking, ‘Really? This is really how you roll?’. But you know, back in his hood or whatever, that’s the way it was. That might be the mentality he grew up with, but that’s how a lot of pro athletes can get into a lot of trouble, because their background gets them into trouble. They start doing stupid things and they don’t realize that, “Hey, I’ve got a lot of money now, and maybe I shouldn’t hang out with these people, or do the things that I used to do, because now I have an opportunity to get away from all of that”. It’s just funny to me.

Heavy.com: Did he mention who the guy was that submitted him?

Mike Wessel: No, I don’t even think we bothered to ask. We were just so shocked that he pulled a fucking gun out in the gym.

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