Colton Smith and TUF – Week 3

By Mr. Twisted

Fresh off of a training session with Oscar-worthy actor and fellow Ranger Up fighter Tim Kennedy, Colton Smith spoke with me this week about The Ultimate Fighter 16, smack talking, and how he desperately hopes to be in the next remake of The Princess Bride.

So…you threw a bed into a pool, eh?

“Well, our team decided to engage in a bit of psychological warfare. We knew that Team Carwin’s pick for the next fight was heavily favored – some even said to win the whole show – so we needed to try and even the odds.”

Colton was referring of course to Carwin’s number one pick, Sam Alvey, which Team Carwin picked to fight Team Nelson’s Joey Rivera. Because he was so heavily favored, Team Nelson decided to throw Alvey’s bed into the swimming pool the night before the fight. Colton said that Alvey had “too much pride” to go and retrieve his bed, so he had to suffer through the night in the living room, where the lights from the camera crew kept it as bright as daylight.

I asked Colton about all the smack talking and pranks and if coming from an infantry background made a difference in being able to deal with it. “Absolutely. Some of these guys get really bothered by that kind of thing. I just figure that you can say whatever you want to me and I’m going to throw something right back at you – but it doesn’t bother me.” For anyone who has lived in a barracks or been in a fire team, this should come as second nature. Apparently it is a big deal for those who haven’t ever been in that environment.

In this case, the prank may very well have had an impact, with Alvey losing the fight via judge’s decision.

Where it did certainly have an impact was on the morale of Team Nelson, according to Colton. At this point they began to gel more as a team and seeking out more coaching help from “Big Country.” Though he started out rather cold, the team did what they needed to do so that they could get the best training possible. While it has yet to be seen what happens to our man from here, rest assured that he was in there doing what he could to represent the US Army and the Ranger Up nation to the best of his ability.

Next week we will find out more about how his training is going, what happened on the show, and whether or not the “short straw” teaser at the end of last week’s episode meant that the loser had to watch an hour of The View or comb Roy Nelson’s beard. As for now, Colton is training hard and looking forward to another Tim Kennedy workout, whereby he learns takedowns, striking, and why Katy Perry’s “Part of Me” should be his next walk-out song.