After reading my recap of last night’s episode of the Ultimate Fighter, cast member Nam Phan was gracious enough to answer all of my burning questions. Phan earned his way into the house when he defeated Mike Budnik by TKO with a nice liver shot followed by punches. He then won a fight against Spencer Paige, making it into the quarter-finals where he’ll be fighting Cody McKenzie in an upcoming show. Phan was seen last episode cornering Aaron Wilkinson, so that’s what we discussed first.

MMA HQ: Dana white seemed to have a bit of a problem with your cornering…

Nam Phan: I think technique wise I did a pretty good job. The judges, I don’t know if the judges know jiu jitsu. Most judges know boxing but usually they don’t know too much about grappling, and if you’re not well-versed in grappling, the guard and the triangle look very identical. And so all you know is that the guy on top is punching, so it looks like they’re winning. And I remember I asked GSP and he said, “He lost that round.” I’ve never cornered Aaron before so I don’t know what his mentality so I just said, “Aaron, you won that round, you got this, don’t worry about it.” I decided to be positive.

MMA HQ: If you had to do it over again, would you have done it differently?

Nam Phan: If I did it over again I would’ve still said the exact same thing. If it was one of my guys, I would’ve said, “you’re down one, you need to hustle more,” but I don’t know Aaron’s style. That was my first time cornering him, so I just decided to think positive.

Okay, I wanted to ask you about Josh Koscheck. He came across as a bit of a bully on the show, but you said you had a different experience.

It’s very difficult for me to defend him because he was going for the heel, but if you ever get to meet him in person he’s a wonderful, very down-to-earth person. I can say that from personal experience. Before I got to meet him I figured he was this arrogant guy, but when I met him I realized the guy’s not who I thought he was.

Do you think that in the editing they played up the times when he came across negatively?

A lot of times he was a jerk but we’re 5-2 against the red, and never once did he ever yell at us. Not one guy. He never yelled at anyone on our team. Ever.

Yeah, he always seemed very respectful towards your team, but it was just the way he came across towards GSP and the other team.

He’s very competitive. He wants to take your mind off fighting. It’s very mental, he plays a lot of mental games. Musashi, the samurai, said if your mind isn’t in the moment, as a warrior, you’re going to die. So he was trying to take his mind off of the moment. He was trying to distract him. I don’t think that Josh dislikes Georges St. Pierre whatsoever from what I can tell. He was saying good things about GSP to our team. But at the moment he’s just getting his mind there; he has to do what he’s gonna do to beat this guy to try to get underneath his skin. And he does that very well.

He makes his bed and then he sleeps in it and I respect him for that, he lives with the life that he made for himself. Even with Tate… he wasn’t upset that Tate was saying things to him, it was when he was saying things to the Armenians. But even then he told them, “Let me look like the bad guy. Let me handle this.”

He came across as very immature, in the interactions he had with the other team on the show.

Yeah, it makes for good television. The way that Koscheck makes fun of GSP, it’s nothing too malice, it’s nothing too bad, calling him a nerd and a robot. I think it makes for good TV, the way that GSP so calmly brushes it off. That’s how I would handle that situation. The two have good chemistry together.

So do you think Koscheck is being misrepresented through the editing for the show, the footage they choose to use, or is it that he’s playing head games to get to GSP?

Definitely both. There’s a lot of good material where Josh Koscheck is a good guy, righteous, but there’s a lot of footage where he’s playing mind games so maybe the show is showing mostly him being a jerk and playing mind games. So I’d say it’s a combination of two.

Whether you like him or hate him, you like him to react, and now he’s banking off it. I mean, I don’t blame anyone for not liking Josh Koscheck at all but if you ever get the chance to meet him and get to know him; he’s very easy to come up to and non-confrontational, and he’s a great guy.

Yeah, I know several people who have trained with him who are really great people, some of the nicest people I know, not just as fighters but just as people, so I figured he couldn’t be that bad.

He’s not that bad. I think I’m very nice, or at least a good representation of MMA. I try to portray myself in a positive light and I try to be a gentleman. I think I have a good sense of judgement when it comes to people’s characters, and I’ll say that I am impressed with Koscheck’s character on a personal level.

What I don’t understand is people booing him and cussing at him, like at (UFC) 121, all the people that were booing him and saying they wanted to kick his ass. Why would you want to make someone else feel bad like that?

Maybe because that’s what they see him doing.

Maybe but then, if they hate Koscheck so much, do they really want to follow in his footsteps? Monkey see monkey do? Everyone’s an adult; you can judge for yourself how you want to act and whether you want to lower yourself to that level.

I think it’s also because they see him acting that way towards GSP, who many people have a ton of respect for.

I don’t think Koscheck dislikes Georges St. Pierre. I mean, how can anyone dislike Georges St. Pierre?

Who do you think’s gonna win?

Georges St. Pierre is a champion for a reason, but I think that Josh Koscheck has the best chance of dethroning the champion. It’s yet to be determined, but Josh Koscheck has the best chance to win.

So who do you think’s gonna win?

No comment.

Do you think that Koscheck’s behavior towards GSP stems from his own insecurity? It almost seems like he’s trying to act like a bully to compensate for thinking he’s going to lose the fight.

Well, I think for a bully…from my experience, bullies pick on people that are weaker than them to make themselves feel better. But GSP has always beaten him. I don’t think Josh Koscheck is weaker than him, but I do think it’s more strategic for him than insecurity.

It does seem like GSP is just a bit more strategic than Koscheck, though, just a couple steps ahead in the chess game.

Yeah, GSP is a chess champion; he’s been playing since high school. I’m saying that because if you play chess you know it’s not checkers. You don’t lay one move at a time, you try to predict the moves; you think three or four steps ahead. GSP is showing that; he showed that in the beginning of the show when he tricked Koscheck into picking Marc Stevens instead of Michael Johnson. Georges St. Pierre is a very intelligent guy.

I can imagine that it’d be difficult to go against GSP no matter who you were or how you acted; most people would still be rooting for GSP.

He’s the golden boy of the UFC. Everyone loves GSP.

It seems like Dana White gets along with Josh Koscheck better, though.

I think Josh thought Dana liked Georges St. Pierre better.

Well, I guess maybe in the first episode when they were watching the fights it seemed like Dana White was talking with Koscheck more.

No, they showed GSP talking about McKenzie and Koscheck talking about Stevens.

Hmmm, maybe it was their body language. It seemed to me like Dana White and Josh Koscheck were watching the fights together and GSP was just off on the side somehow… From what I saw, he was being very quiet. I wondered if Dana White gets along with Koscheck better because they have more similar personalities.

Well, they’re both from the East Coast. They might have more similarities, but I can’t clarify if Dana White gets along better with Georges St. Pierre or Josh Koscheck.

Okay, last question. Was there anything else on the show that was going on that we didn’t get to see?

Well there was the wild card…

A lot of people thought Dane Sayers should’ve gotten it.

Sayers broke his nose. That’s why he didn’t get it.

Oh! That’s one of the things they didn’t show.

Yeah. So Marc Stevens getting the wild card; Andy Main should’ve had the wild card spot. Marc actually got to 185 pounds and then got picked for the wild card spot and had to cut 30 pounds.

We were talking about the mind games Koscheck plays; Aaron Wilkinson and I played the same mind games against Marc Stevens. Because after his first loss, he kept talking about how he missed home and missed his girlfriend and kept talking about home. They showed them in the sauna together but what they didn’t show was Aaron saying, “Hey, you know if you win, you have to cut weight again.” He just wasn’t into it. And then I saw him and I said, “Hey Marc, don’t you miss your girlfriend?”

That’s not very nice.

It’s not nice of me at all, but I really wanted Aaron to win. I thought Marc was a jerk. You’re seeing him on TV. I had to live with the guy. He is not a nice guy. He was always talking and he never had any nice things to say. In the beginning of the show GSP was eating outside in the dinner table and before we came out he said, “Let’s just act like total dicks.” Why would you want to do that? GSP is so nice. It was Marc who suggested that. When he fought Cody McKenzie I wanted him to lose too because he was talking so much shit to him all the time. Cody McKenzie and Jonathan Brookins were my best friends on the show.

Well you and Brookins are my favorite fighters on the show. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me.

My pleasure. Thanks for your support.

Check back next week when Nam Phan gives more behind-the-scenes insight on next week’s episode of the Ultimate Fighter. And if you have any more questions for him, leave them in the comments!