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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief The oft controversial Junie Browning saw his stint on the Ultimate Fighter come to an end on Wednesday's final episode, as he lost a semifinal bout with Efrain Escudero. Cory Brady at FiveOuncesOfPain.com picked up an interview with Browning this week, where Browning touched on that loss, as well as what went on in the house, his training with Frank Mir and more.
He talked about all that went down in that last episode, and said basically "the simple fact that I didn’t want to fight helped me not think of the consequences. I was at a point where I didn’t really care. It wouldn’t have bothered me if they kicked me off because I knew I was out of shape and shouldn’t have been fighting."
He said he felt like he fought a horrible fight, and that the longer he was on the show he was getting worse. He attributed that to the other guys not wanting to help train with cardio, "People say 'Well you can do your own cardio' but I don’t think that’s possible. I feel like you can only push yourself so far without someone being there to push you cardio wise. There was nobody there to do that for us." He then said that he had injured a foot early on and couldn't train for a couple of weeks, information that was not really shown on the show.
In regards to the fight with Efrain, he said he was out of shape and couldn't push the pace like he normally would. He says that Efrain knew he wouldn't be able to push the pace so Efrain was willing to try to stand and trade with him. He said "[Efrain] knows if I was 100% that he wouldn’t be able to do any of that stuff?"
He said he was really caught in the D'arce choke, but he shouldn't have allowed it to get there. It all came back to the conditioning and not caring anymore. He said "[y]ou should never go into a fight out of shape and I knew it was going to be like that too."
He had some words about Frank Mir's decision to stop yelling advice as the fight progressed, saying "[t]he funny thing is, he gives up on me like he was disappointed but he was never there to train with me to begin with. How am I going to listen to my corner when he was never there for me to begin with?"
He talked about not getting the training he needed on the show from Mir and his staff, and also touched on Mir's comments from the end of this week's episode that he liked everyone on his team except for Junie, "I saw that coming. I figured that. he doesn’t say anything all season and then as soon as I lose and make him look bad then he doesn’t like me."
He gives some thoughts and predictions on the Mir-Nog fight, as well as the two Ultimate Fighter 8 finals fights before touching on the retirement comments that were made in that episode this week. He said "I was just pissed. They do that confessional immediately after the fight so after I went home I had time to think about it and realized that it wasn’t my 100%. I can’t quit. Especially when I know that I didn’t give it my all. I never want to leave the sport knowing that I didn’t do my best. I’ll never quit."
Expect to see a different Junie Browning when he takes on Dave Kaplan next Saturday at The Ultimate Finale on Spike.
Penick's Analysis: As I stated in my "Penick's Take" column yesterday, Junie shouldn't have been fighting in that semifinal fight. It's clear with his comments in this interview that was the case. Not only was he not in shape for it, due I'm sure in large part to what he perceived was inadequate training, but because of all of that his head was out of it and not wanting to fight. It would have been much better to have kicked him off the show than for him to fight in that condition. Again, with his training in the Xtreme Couture gym for this next fight, and him seemingly getting things straightened out in his life, I'm expecting the real Junie Browning to show himself next Saturday.
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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