Ultimate Fighter Season 9 “U.S. vs. U.K.” Q&A with Richie Whitson

By Dave Carpinello

This season of the Ultimate Fighter features the United States versus the United Kingdom. Ultimate Fighter 9 participant Richie Whitson has decided to answer questions for UFC and TUF fans weekly here at PunchDrunkGamer. Richie is a native Alaskan who trains with Team Quest in Temecula, California and is on Team America. On the second episode Richie defeated Paul Bird with a rear-naked-choke in round 1 to secure his spot in the Ultimate Fighter house. Make sure you catch this week’s episode on SpikeTV Wednesday Night!



Questions Regarding Episode 11, 12 and TUF Season 9 Recap:

1. What was the deal with Cameron Dollar's pre-fight rib injury?

Richie Whitson – I don't remember exactly how he hurt his ribs but it was definitely bothering him at the practices leading up to his semi final fight against Andre Winner.  I don't think that it really played any part of him losing that fight though.

2. Hey Richie thanks again for the Q&A this season. Did it seem like the UFC didn't give you a real shot considering you fought after being sick for 2 weeks and they didn't give you a fight on the finale?

Richie Whitson – It was definitely a bummer that I didn't get another shot to fight but the UFC has so many fighters right now that most of the time you only get one shot.  They have lots of fighters that are getting cut after just one or two losses.  It is just how things are right now and I have to move on and look forward to other opportunities.

3. What were the pros and cons of being on the Ultimate Fighter?

Richie Whitson – For me I think the whole experience was nothing but pros.  I was able to get exposure that will open up more opportunities for me down the road.  Overall it was a great experience because it gave me the opportunity to be on camera and the ability to learn better communication skills.  I guess the only negative thing that I could say about the whole experience is that I got the first loss of my career.

4. Most of the weigh-ins were not shown on TV; did anybody miss weight during the season?

Richie Whitson – All the fighters were really good about making weight and nobody missed the whole season.  By the way there were a lot of things that happened while we were in the house that did not make it on TV.  I figured that they would have shown more of the training that the fighters went through in preparation for their fights.

5. What did you think of Frankie Lester's second fight against James Wilks and then his fight last Saturday against Nick Osipczak on the Finale?

Richie Whitson – I think that Frank came out in that second fight with James as a better fighter.  He was more technical in that fight than the first one but his biggest problem was that his body was just to beat up to go three more rounds.  His fight on Saturday against Nick fucking sucked because he got poked in the eye at the beginning of the fight.  His eye is still pretty messed up but those things happen when you're fighting with open gloves.

6. In the last episode of the season, it showed the British fighters horse playing, including a flour dousing after one of them got thrown in the pool.  Seems like they where some pretty cool guys.

Richie Whitson – We must have been at practice when that happened but it was definitely pretty funny to see on TV.  All in all the British guys were a good group of people.

7. Since the UFC released you, what's next for your career?

Richie Whitson – I'm going to start off by fighting in some smaller shows to get some more experience and then fight my way back up to  the bigger organizations.  I would love to be able to fight overseas and so I will just have to wait to see what opportunities present themselves to me.

8. After watching all of the episodes was there anything of note that didn’t get shown on TV?

Richie Whitson – Yes, after me and Jason Pierce got into the argument that you saw on TV.  Santino and I were roommates in the house and Pierce decided to put a sign on our door that said “Gingers Only, Queers Only, Please Knock”.  So Santino, Frank, Cameron, Demarques, Mark and I sat around thinking of some way to get even with Pierce.  We made stick figure drawings with each of the British team members and on each one of the pictures was a picture of Pierce on his knees &^%#$@ &**&.  Then we made one more picture with Bisping and the rest of the British coaches doing all kinds of things to defile Pierce.  The next morning we got up at like 5 a.m. and put all of the pictures up on the walls of the living room.  I went back to sleep and was woke up by the loud laughing of the U.K. team.

9. Thanks again for your TUF 9 articles Richie.  In closing this season of the Ultimate Fighter is there anything else that you wanted to add?

Richie Whitson – I definitely can't end without talking about the night that Martin Stapleton drank his own piss.  After the two of us lost our fights we stayed up late the same night that I was arguing with Pierce and were getting hammered.  A bunch of us were sitting at the table drinking and all of a sudden Stapleton took off all his clothes and jumped in the swimming pool.  Everybody was like WTF.  Later on that night he challenged me to a game of rock, paper, scissors and the loser would have to drink their own piss.  My thinking going into it was that if I won that he would drink his piss and if I lost than I would just refuse.  And of course I ended up losing and after I refused to drink the piss he drank it.  It was pretty disgusting and funny at the same time.  The reason why this probably was not in the episode was because by this time we had pissed off all the camera guys and they had left for the night.  Staps (Stapleton) was pissed off that I refused to pay up for losing the bet so I had to drink an entire glass of straight gin.  I told him the only way that I would drink the whole cup of gin was if the cameras were there to witness it.  So Staps started pounding on the door that led to the garage where the camera crew was staying. Finally the camera guy came back out and filmed me drink that whole glass and then throw it up moments later.  The reason I threw up was because Staps told me that people died from alcohol poisoning but that nobody has ever died from drinking their own piss.

I wanted to say thanks to all the people that asked questions and to PunchDrunkGamer for giving me the chance to talk about my experience on the Ultimate Fighter.  It's all over now.

You can read all of Richie Whitson's Episode Q&A's HERE!!