After compiling a pair of wins in his first two Octagon appearances, Osipczak unfortunately dropped three hard-fought decisions, including those of a split variety against Duane Ludwig and Rick Story, resulting in his release from the company. However, simply because “Slick” Nick will draw his next promotional paycheck from an organization other than the UFC doesn’t mean his demeanor or attitude towards his future has been soured.

A professional card-player at one time, Osipczak knows you occasionally have to lose a few hands before winning the lot of chips. The 5-3 welterweight recently spoke about what his days as a gambler taught him, as well as his experience on TUF and in the UFC, in a conversation with Five Ounces of Pain.

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Five Ounces: Looking back, how has your involvement on the Ultimate Fighter affected your career as it stands today? Is it something you would do again if you had the choice?

Nick Osipczak: It was a short-cut to the UFC and enabled me a lot of exposure which helped with sponsors. I wouldn’t do it again as in for the second time but I definitely made the right choice by doing it first time round.

5Oz: How would you describe your feelings the first time you stepped into the Octagon or how it felt to be a kid in his mid-twenties competing on cards featuring MMA icons like B.J. Penn and Randy Couture?

Osipczak: TUF also helped prepare me for fighting on the big shows because it’s the same Octagon and you have the cameras on you, so there are no outstanding memories for me regarding my first official UFC fight – I was too busy concentrating on my performance, although I did often think “How did I get to this stage where I’m fighting on the same card as these legends”. I never considered myself especially young, (since) there are plenty of successful MMA fighters in their early 20s.

5Oz: You made your UFC debut with only three professional fights under your belt. In retrospect, do you wish you’d had a bit more experience before entering the Octagon and do you feel that an overall lack of ring-time may have affected your run of performances there?

Osipczak: There will always be “ifs and buts” in hindsight, but I was offered an opportunity and I took it with no regrets. Of course, I am still getting better and if I had the same chance again further along in my career I’m sure I could have performed better.

5Oz: Though you may have fallen in your last few bouts, all were hard-fought and the result of decisions (two of which were split). Regardless of the ultimate outcomes, were you surprised to be released after such competitive showings, especially given how exciting your scrap with Ludwig was?

Osipczak: No, I wasn’t surprised. The UFC is very cutthroat when it comes to their roster, and even more so now the merger with the WEC.

5Oz: How has the change in promotional scenery affected you on a personal level, if at all?

Osipczak: Not at all, other than sometimes I can forget what a fortunate position I’m in!

5Oz: Any word on what’s next for you in terms of an upcoming fight? Have you spoken to other notable organizations since your release like Strikeforce and Bellator?

Osipczak: No word yet. I am currently spending my time teaching at my club, New Wave Academy, in London.

5Oz: Are you able to shine some light on your time as a professional gambler? What was your game/sport of choice? What was the most you ever won/lost?

Osipczak: Basically its all about discipline at the top level, knowing your game and sticking to good bets. There is no room for actually “gambling”, its all calculated bets where you are the favourite. as soon as you start mixing in the odd gamble here and there for entertainment’s sake you’re done for.

I mostly played Heads-Up Texas Hold Em towards the end of my gambling era, but originally I would bet on all sorts. I have endured swings of winning and losing thousands of pounds in a week many times.

5Oz: Today (12/30) is your birthday! Any special plans to celebrate or gifts you’re hoping for?

Osipczak: Just the usual drinks with the usual friends – I’m not big on celebrating birthdays, Christmas, NYE, etc, and I don’t need any gifts, especially from my girlfriend – that just puts pressure on me to get them something decent back!

5Oz: Before leaving, is there anyone you’d like to thank?

Osipczak: Thanks to cherryactive.co.uk and maximuscle.com, and check out slicknickmma.com for regular updates!

5Oz: Thanks for your time. Have a great birthday and NYE weekend. Best of luck in 2011!

PHOTO CREDIT – SlickNickMMA.com

As it turned out, Frank showed amazing heart and a warrior spirit and managed to outlast Dave. We knew going into the fight that Dave didn’t perform as well in fights as he did in training, but I think it still came as a shock to us to see him give up on the takedowns almost completely. I don’t think he went for even one in the second round.

Dave’s a terrific fighter, but he’s one of those guys that seems to find it difficult transferring his gym form onto the big stage. There are a few guys out there like that and it’s a difficult problem to overcome.

It was a great win for Frank Lester and he did well to come back from his first defeat. To be honest, though, I wasn’t too happy with the fact Lester was allowed back into the competition after his first defeat. Let’s face it, it’s team versus team, country versus country and both sides went into the show on an even playing field. If one of their guys doesn’t want to fight, it’s not our fault. We did our jobs. We all went on the show wanting to fight. Jason Pierce didn’t.

If one of their guys pulls out, we should get the automatic victory. I didn’t agree with them letting Lester back in the competition. It just didn’t seem fair on our boys. Pierce had the opportunity to fight and he chose not to. He wasn’t forced out of the competition.

Even though I didn’t agree with his inclusion, I take my hat off to Lester for the heart he showed against Dave. I was really shocked to see Dave pull out on his stool heading into the third round and was actually pretty angry at the time. None of us expected Dave to go out like that. He was super-fit in training and could do three rounds standing on his head in the gym. I don’t like seeing anyone quit on their stool like that.

We were all disappointed with Dave that day, but I think Michael Bisping and the other coaches would have been the most stunned, as they train with Dave on a daily basis. Nobody could really explain why Dave quit the way he did, but I think it probably tied in with the problems he was having with the mouthpiece. He seemed to have a lot of psychological problems with that and it could well have affected him during the fight.

At the end of the fight Dave mentioned how he had a kid and that he didn’t want to risk himself in the third round if he didn’t feel right. Maybe he just didn’t want to take a chance in those final five minutes. It’s a tough sport and you never know what might happen. Dave didn’t want to go there, whereas Frank did.

Going into the semi-finals, Team UK all felt really confident about our chances. We all felt we had the better team. We had big hopes for the lightweights, Ross Pearson and Andre Winner, and were excited to see how they got on.

Our only fear heading into the semi-finals were that they might pair off Team UK guys against other Team UK guys…

I was confident we’d make it 2-0 with Andre. I’ve trained with him in the past and I know how good and how well-rounded he is. Santino had a really tough fight in the elimination process, too, where he pretty much
got battered for five minutes before pulling off a miraculous knee to win.

The coaches would ask us who wanted to fight and who we wanted to fight. They picked Dre because he was doing well in training and seemed to be straining at the leash. He was just peaking at the right time and was
ready to go.

We knew Santino was dangerous on the ground, so the plan was to basically beat him on his feet and keep the fight standing. Dre is good enough to strike with anyone and we knew that he’d have Santino’s number
so long as he kept the fight standing.

You could see during the fight that Santino realized he couldn’t do anything with Dre while standing. His face dropped as he realized Dre could pretty much boss him on their feet. He was just getting picked off
and that was all going to plan.

The only thing I didn’t envisage happening was Dre finishing the fight so quickly when Santino decided to pull guard. It was just a short right hand that did the trick. It was a perfect win for Dre. He didn’t put a foot wrong.

We were all thinking we’d get eight consecutive wins at this point. Confidence was really high and we were just really enjoying the experience. I think the Americans realized that they had to start taking the competition more seriously or they’d just be whitewashed out of it.

They saw how things were going and that’s why they put DaMarques (Johnson) forward for their next fight pick. They needed a win or else we were just going to run away with it.

I was a bit concerned by the match-up between DaMarques and Dean (Amasinger). I have a similar build to DaMarques and I know how much easier it is to pull off a triangle choke with my dimensions. Dean obviously had trouble with triangles in his previous fight, so there were clear danger signs when the fight was made. DaMarques is very good with triangles, and Dean was very good at getting into them during his
elimination fight.

Dean’s forte is his strength and power, and our hope was that Dean would just simply out-muscle DaMarques and grind him down.

I could tell on the day that Dean wasn’t right on the day of the fight, though. He seemed a bit nervous and just wasn’t his usual bubbly self. Part of that was due to Mike (Bisping) not being there, but Dean just
didn’t seem in the right frame of mind.

During the fight itself, Dean actually started well. He threw a couple of leg-kicks and seemed to be doing alright on his feet. He didn’t stick to his game plan, though, and that was to stay on his feet and keep it
standing.

Dean got the takedown off the single leg and that proved to be his undoing. I think Dean was actually hurting DaMarques on his feet, but his instincts told him to shoot for the takedown and that was the beginning of the end.

The defeat was hard to take for all of us. We’d all grown very close at this stage and nobody wanted to see Dean lose like that. Realistically, though, it was only a matter of time before someone left. There was no
way we were going to just walk it 8-0.

In hindsight, the defeat probably helped to actually put us all back on track. It made us re-focus a little bit and train even harder.

After we all watched Dean lose, it was a natural fighting instinct to want revenge. We all wanted to get in there and take it out on the Americans. The reaction to Dean’s loss was pure anger on our part. We
all wanted a piece of them.

Looking back, it was actually really useful to fight first. Everyone else was unsure when they were going to fight and therefore had to constantly monitor their weight. They could be called to fight at any time. That’s quite stressful on both the body and the mind. I got my first fight out of the way and then I knew I had at least three weeks to wait before the semi-finals. That gave me a good idea of when I needed to make weight and provided me with some kind of schedule. I was pleased it worked out that way.

I wasn’t too surprised to be picked first by Team USA. I remember I felt pretty tired after my elimination bout with Tommy Maguire, and I figured Team USA probably thought my fitness wasn’t what it should have been. Maybe that’s the reason they picked me.

Later on, while talking to the coaches, we decided that made Dan Henderson liked the idea of Mark Miller getting somebody who would stand with him. We all knew Mark was a striker and perhaps Team USA saw me as Team UK’s weakest striker.

That didn’t bother me. I can fight standing and on the ground. For the majority of my fights in Britain I’ve started standing and then taken the guy down and beaten him on the ground. I was happy to fight Miller wherever he went.

During the fight, things didn’t exactly go how I expected. Straight from the off I became involved in a brawl. All game plans went out the window. I got a bit excited and was enjoying things a bit too much. I’ve never actually done that in my career before.

I should have been using my range more, but I was just getting stuck in and fighting his fight. That was a risky tactic and he actually caught me a couple of times.

We were both a little nervous and we both really wanted to win. That’s probably why things got a little scrappy and hectic in there. He was actually a little better on the ground than I expected, and I was surprised I couldn’t secure a dominant position against him on the ground.

It worked out fine in the end, though. I was over-the-moon with the high-kick to finish matters. The high-kick is probably the most exciting way you can finish any fight and I was delighted to knock him out with it. It was actually the first kick I’d thrown in the fight and it did the job. I was just glad to just put the guy away and finish the fight, to be honest – I needed a bit of a rest.

It was the first time I’d ever knocked anyone out with a head kick in MMA. I’d put a few people away with kicks in kung-fu, but it was my first in MMA. I was so pleased to win like that.

A lot of the Americans were backing Mark to win the whole thing and they all saw him as one of their strongest competitors. Mark and his coaches were just expecting him to run through me with ease. It was nice to prove them all wrong.

After that fight, the mood in the house changed dramatically. The Americans always saw us UK guys as the underdogs, and my knockout of Miller provided them with a rude awakening. We were all buzzing after it. It gave us a lot of faith and confidence and told us that we belonged at that level. All the other UK guys were raring to go after that first fight.

I wasn’t impressed with the Americans’ idea to start writing on our clothes. I didn’t find that funny at all. I’m all for doing pranks and playing games so long as they’re funny, but scribbling stuff on our clothes was neither funny or clever. It was pretty pathetic and we didn’t even really get caught up in that stuff. They hadn’t won a fight yet, and that’s where it all counts. That’s the real scoreboard.

My win over Miller got us off to a 1-0 start and, to be honest, it was probably the proudest moment of my career so far. I was representing my country and I overcame adversity to beat one of the favourites in the tournament…

The first I knew of Rob being in the house was when he launched an egg at me. Thankfully it bounced straight off and didn’t explode. Before long everyone else knew who he was and what his game was all about. He was pretty small, but he made up for it in stupidity. I felt sorry for the Americans and all the guys that Rob targeted with his antics.

I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt to begin with. But when your first introduction to someone is them throwing an egg at you, what can you do? He was probably even more annoying than his brother (Junie) was in the previous series. Rob knew he wasn’t sticking around and he just wanted as much attention as possible.

I got on with all the American lads, aside from Rob. We were all pretty much united by our hatred towards Rob, as bad as that sounds. He just didn’t get along with anyone at all. I didn’t get to know the Americans too well at the beginning, simply because we just seemed to be training and sleeping all the time. We didn’t have much time to just chill out and chat. They all seemed like good guys, though.

I was really pleased with the house, too. It looked great. It was proper massive with loads of rooms. Because we had to share rooms with three or four other guys, I was expecting the house to be a lot smaller. It wasn’t, though. It was more than big enough for the two teams. It also had a wicked swimming pool, basketball court, pool table and football goals. It was brilliant.

Funnily enough, the way they decorated the house was causing a lot of people to have weird dreams and nightmares to begin with. We had lots of skeletons and coffins on the walls and it was messing with our heads a little bit. The way the place was lit was also a little bit creepy. We also then had the cameramen following us around all the time and that took some getting used to and disrupted us a bit. After a week or so, though, we all just got used to it.

The living arrangements weren’t half as bad as I thought they would be, either. I was very worried about sharing a house with a load of idiots, but everyone was really level-headed and fine to get along with. I think the two teams were a lot more serious this season because they knew what was at stake for their countries. There was a lot more dedication and discipline involved this series.

None of the British guys drunk alcohol while they were still in the competition. We were all taking it very seriously. The Americans went ahead and did their thing and we didn’t hold it against them. If they can go away and get drunk and then still have the cardio the next day, good luck to them. I wish I functioned that way.

We weren’t even tempted to start acting up through boredom, either. Due to the sheer amount of training, you don’t really have time to be bored. There’s always something to do.

In order to keep myself entertained in the house, I basically just did a lot of gambling. I love to gamble. Dean “The Queen” Amasinger and James Wilks were my two main gambling buddies. We just made up lots of games to keep us entertained in there.

I loved the experience so much that I pretty much forgot to miss anything back home. The weather was nice, the surroundings were great and I just enjoyed every second of it. I was actually surprised at how little I missed things like television. It didn’t even dawn on me that we didn’t have a television until a few weeks in.

Basically, I was there for a reason and I had a massive incentive to make all the sacrifices I did. I had my eye on the prize throughout.

Editors note: For more Nick Osipczak news and info, you can visit his website slicknickmma.com

In episode two I thought the U.S. team looked a lot less prepared than us and didn’t seem to be as ready for the competition as Team U.K. appeared to be in episode one. The U.K. guys all turned up for that first day ready to do anything to get on the show and live their dream. We would have fought anyone to get through. The U.S. guys didn’t seem as keen, though. You had guys not making weight and then other people not wanting to fight their friend. It all seemed a little more half-hearted from them.

It was really encouraging to hear that Dana was using Team UK’s quality and determination to motivate the US guys. That told me we must have been doing something right in episode one. It was nice to know that Dana thought we all impressed in the elimination process and that he used our desire and determination to try and spur on the U.S. guys.

Watching the U.S. elimination process back, DaMarques Johnson probably looked the best of the bunch. He possessed some nasty elbows and really made a mess of his opponent with his ground-and-pound. He definitely looked the most well-rounded and aggressive out of the American team.

Santino DeFranco’s fight was amazing to watch, too, but, to be honest, I think it should have been stopped in the first round. He was taking an absolute battering for five minutes and barely knew where he was at the end of the round. Then he comes out for the second round, catches Waylon Lowe with a knee and chokes him out. It was a really crazy turnaround. That was the kind of thing that makes MMA such a special sport, I guess. You don’t get turnarounds like that in many other sports.

Despite some of their boasts, I didn’t fear of any of the Americans going into the house. I don’t ever judge a book by its cover and I basically just took all the U.S. team on face value. None of them had me wary or worried. To be honest, I knew very little about any of them. I don’t really follow the American scene too much and wasn’t aware of any reputations they may have had.

The only stuff we knew about the final eight were the boasts that came from their jaws. You can never judge anyone on what they say about themselves, though, because it’s usually just a load of rubbish that comes out.

All in all, I thought Team U.K. looked a lot better than the Americans in the elimination process. I read a lot of negative reviews of our elimination process on MMA websites, but I think they’ll see the light now that they’ve watched the Americans in action. We were much, much better than the Americans in the first episode.

I think people will now start to realize just how good the team was that we brought over to Las Vegas. We weren’t going over there to just muck around and come off second best. We all went over there with the intention of winning the competition and showing just how good we all were. We were never afraid of the Americans or too respectful of them. I was always confident that I’d be able to not only compete with them but also beat them.

I don’t think Team U.S. realized just how hungry us Brits were to begin with.

James “Colossus” Thompson’s next scheduled fight is with TKO Championship Fighting of Canada on October 3 at the Bell Centre in Montreal. His opponent will be former hockey player Steve Bosse.

The news is according to the website TKOExtreme.com, which is attributing the announcement of the Thompson vs. Bosse fight to TKO CEO Stephane Patry.

Bosse, who is extremely popular in Canada, is 3-1 since making his mixed martial arts debut in June of 2007. He recorded his most notable victory to date during his last fight on June 7 at TKO 34. In the fight, Bosse was able to submit former UFC heavyweight Wes “The Project” Sims in the first round.

Prior to turning to MMA, Bosse was a leading enforcer in the North American Hockey League. He began his martial arts training with Mark Colangelo and with Stephane Dube.

Thompson, 16-9, last fought in the main event of EliteXC’s first-ever telecast on CBS against Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson on May 31. In a bout filled with controversy, Slice was declared the winner at 0:38 of round 3 via TKO. However, many pundits have deemed the stoppage as an early stoppage.

Currently training with London Shootfighters in the UK, Thompson holds notable career victories over Hidehiko Yoshida, Don Frye, and Dan Severn.

Other announced bouts for TKO 35 include Hatsu Hioki taking on Stephane Vigneault in a featherweight contest along with UFC and WEC veteran Mark Hominick squaring off against Thierry Quenville. According to the report by TKOExtreme.com, IFL lightweight Chris Horodecki is slated for the card as well.