T.J. Dillashaw entered The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 14 with very high expectations.
What can you expect when you train at Team Alpha Male alongside the likes of former World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) champion Urijah Faber, former number one Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 145-pound contender Joseph Benavidez and current top featherweight title challenger Chad Mendes every single day?
However, perhaps living and training with an elite team of fighters left Dillashaw unprepared for life in TUF house during the six-week filming session in Las Vegas, Nevada. That's because he had some pretty rough things to say about being cooped up there during a recent guest appearance on Pro MMA Radio, even going as far as to say that perhaps prisoners would be better off than he and his fellow cast mates.
Read all about the unbearable conditions after the jump:
"[Prisoners] almost have it even better. They get to watch TV, they don't have to make weight, they get to listen to music, they don't have cameras following them around everywhere they go in the house. It was crazy, man. You're hanging out with people you could possibly be fighting with shortly. You don't know who or what's going on, you've got people getting in cliques together, talking crap about each other, hearing the same stories that guys are telling over and over and over because they're running out of crap to talk about. Some of the guys are out of the tournament so they're getting drunk and being ridiculous. It's crazy when you have that much testosterone in one house."
Dillashaw was a member of Team Bisping and if you watched this season, you noticed that coach Michael Bisping wasn't exactly the easiest guy to get along with. In fact, "The Count" went out of his way to be as disrespectful as possible at times.
While he also had some nice things to say about his coach, Dillashaw relayed some of the worst parts of being a member of the team:
"The worst thing, he gets involved in competitions, any type of competition that there is. The competition was pranking each other and being jerks to the other team and he exceeded that level and kinda pushed it to the extreme, he wanted to be the best at what we were doing so I think he was being a bit of a hypocrite at some points and kinda got out of hand in terms of antagonizing the other team."
Dillashaw got into the sport because Mark Munoz was one of his wrestling coaches when he was attending Cal State Fullerton. And through him, he actually had an opportunity to train with opposing TUF coach, Jason Miller, before casting for the show ever began.
Thus, with his unique experience rolling with "Mayhem," as well as spending six weeks being coached by Bisping, he was able to offer a little more insight into their upcoming fight than the average Joe:
"It all depends where it goes. If it stays on the feet, Bisping's got good takedown defense and it seemed like he was working on that a lot while we were there, I think Bisping's gonna win the fight if it stays on the feet. If it goes to the ground, I just feel like Miller's experience in jiu-jitsu will take over and he'll win the fight on the ground so it all depends on where this fight ends up going."
Dillashaw will battle the winner of Johnny Bedford versus John Dodson this Saturday night (Dec. 3, 2011) at TUF 14 Finale, which is set to take place at The Palms in Las Vegas. The winner of the fight will win the 145-pound tournament-style competition and earn a "six-figure" UFC contract.
Will the painstaking six-week prison-like experience ultimately payoff for Dillashaw this weekend or was he better off serving his time in solitary confinement?
Sound off!