FIGHTING FOR AIR TIME
TUF 5 Fighter Gives his Thoughts on his Reality TV Experience
The Ultimate Fighter 5 had its share of wild characters, but out of the pack one fighter stuck out—Gabe “Godzilla” Ruediger. The 29 year old Californian fighter fighting out of Team Quest, already had a fight in the UFC, but like UFC vet Joe Lauzon, received an opportunity to get on the reality series. Being a former WEC lightweight champion, Ruediger had all the skills to win the competition, but self-admittedly got caught up in trying to create drama and excitement around him to monopolize TV time. His focus on entertainment went too far and he found himself unable to make weight and kicked off the show by an infuriated UFC president in Dana White. Ruediger quickly admits he made a huge error and has learned much from the experience. He spoke with The MMA Digest on being a part of TUF 5.
Things didn’t work out the way you wanted to in the end, but what was the experience like being on the show?
It was positive and negative. I’ve never been to jail but I suspect it would be like living in the house—a bunch of guys with egos and nowhere to go. And actually in jail you have some of the amenities like music and books and whatnot, whereas we didn’t have any of that. It was kind of difficult. I didn’t think it would affect me the way it did but you really get caught up in it. But I learned a lot about myself and I try not to allow the negative to affect me too much.
What did you learn about yourself?
I guess the biggest one was preparation regardless of what situation you’re in. I kind of felt like going into that show I wasn’t focusing on fighting, I was focusing on the TV show and I didn’t prepare like I normally would. And I also realized subtle nuances of my personality like obviously I was trying to get camera time but that’s not really the person that I am, I have no concern about notoriety or fame, and I just got caught up in the moment.
Did you keep your weight high to make an exciting and dramatic cut at the end?
Yes and no. I wanted my weight to be down, but my weight was kind of petering the whole time I was on the show. Right about the second week it was about 169. But I wanted to make a dramatic cut no matter what, that was my intention—I thought it’d look good for TV. Bobby Southworth did it, Joe Stevenson did it. But at the same time after the second week I was like, “Whatever” and just sort of fell into the grind of things. And it didn’t help that everyone else was eating pretty much whatever they wanted.
People who lost their fights were or everyone?
There were a few people being pretty strict on their diet but like Joe Lauzon and a bunch of other guys, because their weight was so low were pretty much eating whatever they wanted. And I got caught up in that. It was weird, throughout the whole thing it never felt like I was getting prepared for a fight. I’m getting prepared for a fight right now and everything I’m doing is towards the fight and I know that I have a goal in mind and everything is focused towards that. On the show it never felt that way, not once.
What did you think when you watched the show on TV?
I just feel like it’s not a good representation of the person I am in real life. And on top of that I definitely feel they took some liberties with the editing, and that’s to be expected. How can I not expect that to happen? Little things like showing me eating cake right before I was cutting weight, and that wasn’t the case at all. I shouldn’t have been eating cake no matter what, but it makes it a lot worse when they show it right before I’m cutting weight when in reality it happened like two weeks before that.
So it’s not completely honest with the timing?
Exactly. It’s all about the setup and what they leave out. Obviously what they’re showing is reality, but the timing of the reality and everything that leads up to it…(pauses a moment). For example they show me bickering with Matt Wiman when I’m getting massaged and it seems like I’m just immediately on Matt Wiman, and that wasn’t even remotely close to the truth. Matt Wiman and I disliked each other before the show and there was little flare-ups before that, so me and him were going back and forth before they showed that incident. But you just see that incident and you go, “Oh wow, Gabe is just starting something out of the blue”, which wasn’t remotely close to the truth. But the fact of the matter is I signed my contract to be on that show and I knew what liberties they had. Basically they could do whatever they want with it and I gave them more than enough ammunition. So as upset as I want to be about it, if I wouldn’t have done stupid things they wouldn’t have that ammunition to manipulate it.
Dana White was commenting how the lightweights were the nuttiest bunch of characters from all the seasons. Are lightweights a bit wilder in general from your experience?
No, not at all. They made a big deal about how last season was so bad because no one was showing themselves and the producers kept saying “We can’t have another season four”. So I think a lot of just thought, “F__ it, just let it all hang out and not worry about it.” So did it turn out kind of crazy? Absolutely. But as far as a reality show goes that what you want. Obviously for my personality on the show it was me at level 30. That’s not who I am on a regular basis and people who know me that watched the show were like, “Wow, I couldn’t believe that that was you.” But that’s me on TV, which is a completely separate individual than I am on real life. But I’ve hung out with everybody and I think fighters in general are a very adventurous and crazy bunch.
Why didn’t you like Matt Wiman?
It stems from a lot of things. I’m not going to say who I’m quoting, but someone who was a very integral part said, “He’s a little weasel.” He’ll feign that he’s not arrogant but in reality he’s the most arrogant guy there. He has a very good way of manipulating the persona that he tries to perceive himself as. But in reality he’s just ridiculous. Some people have said there are similarities in our personalities and that’s why we clash, but I just genuinely don’t like the guy. It stems from some other issues like he talked poorly about some friends of mine and then embellishing stories about himself and how good he was, and I didn’t think he was as good as he thought he was, and I was more than willing to talk about it. And like I said before, that was me on level 30. I definitely was antagonizing Matt, and I definitely was doing it more than I normally would. But I realized one, I was on TV, and two, it seemed like a key point that the producers were really interested in. And three, it wasn’t a big deal to me because I didn’t like him so being a big dick to him didn’t bother me one bit.
What was BJ Penn like as a person and coach?
I’ve known BJ for years and he was a great guy, I love the guy to death. I’ve noticed every cast member has gotten ribbings and whatnot and people don’t realize that it’s just a TV show. People are like, “BJ’s such a dick, he did this and that”, but he’s one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. And it’s funny because people think the show is concrete and this is how people are and this is what they do, and in reality it’s a TV show.
What reactions do you get from people on the streets coming up to you?
People that come up to me are really really positive, and even people that have questions, when we start talking they kind of understand the whole idea behind the show. I think most of the negative feedback I’d say is from the internet.
Where you can’t see them?
Exactly. It’s funny, I went to Abu Dhabi and when I got back I was on one of the internet forums and some guy was like, “I saw Gabe Ruediger at Abu Dhabi and I f____g hate that guy so much, I wanted to go yell in his face and call him a p___y.” And I was like forty people came up to me and wanted pictures—anybody could have came and talked to me. But here’s this guy seething in his seat like looking at me and thinking, “Oh, I’m so mad at him, and I can’t wait to get on the internet and say what I really want to say.” I think it’s hilarious. There’s always that negative feedback and it’s to an extent to be expected, but people are like I should never fight in MMA, I’m the worst fighter ever. (laughs) They make it sound like I never fought in my life before and like they’ve never made a mistake. They make it sound like I took a baby and ripped its head off or something like that. I didn’t make weight, I passed out trying to make weight. Did I make a mistake? Absolutely. Who’s most upset about it? Me. But people are especially good at being pissed off and angry when it’s not to your face. It’s much easier when you’re behind your screen name “douchebag423”, than you’re right in front of me.
Were the producers trying to push the alcohol and give it out to you guys?
(laughs) They seemed pretty proactive about the alcohol. They were like, “You guys want to drink? Stacked bar, if you need anything else just let us know.” And even beforehand they were like, “If you’re in the house are you going to drink?” There’s a reason you don’t have anything like books, music and TV and email. They make a big deal and say it’s about copyrights, no it’s not, it’s about making it as uncomfortable as possible. And when people are uncomfortable, that’s when you really falter. (laughs) There were plenty of times that I probably got involved with stuff where if I had a book or headphones I probably wouldn’t have not paid any attention to it.
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