MIXED MARTIAL ARTS

PORTAGE | Being stuck in a house for six weeks with no phone, no Internet and no contact with the outside world is sure to bring out frustration in even the headiest of people.

Being stuck in the house with 15 other people who are ready to get into a fight at a moments notice might just drive someone crazy.

For Portage native John Kolosci, he got to experience frustration as well as a bit of lunacy during a six-week stay in a Las Vegas home as part of Spike TV's hit reality series, "The Ultimate Fighter."

"They call it reality TV, but it's not reality at all," Kolosci said. "We were stuck in a house for six weeks, almost like a jail, where we would train with world-class trainers, and after a week, the novelty really began to wear off."

Kolosci, a trained fighter in Mixed Martial Arts, was one of 16 participants picked from a pool of thousands who were selected to appear on the sixth season of the show. The prize was a six-figure contract with UFC. The show debuts on Spike TV on Wednesday.

"We would wake up in the morning and you'd be sitting there eating breakfast next to the guy that you'd be fighting that night," Kolosci said. "But we were all professionals, there was no machismo, we just wanted to get in and fight and prove what we had."

Kolosci auditioned for the show on a whim, even though he was 15 pounds heavier than the required 170-pound limit. After two months of interviews and medical tests, Kolosci was informed that he had to leave his fiancee and daughter for six weeks.

"It was definitely an once-in-a-lifetime experience," Kolosci said. "What I did, I started to write a lot, I wrote a journal that explained all my thoughts, almost like I was talking to my fiancee. She had a lot of reading to do when I got back."

Because the show has yet to air, Kolosci is not at liberty to discuss the outcome, but he is eager to watch the episodes at Round the Corner Pub in Hobart each week. The show will run on Spike TV from September to December.

"The show taught me a lot about myself," Kolosci said. "I'm absolutely motivated to do better. I'm just riding the wave right now and I want to see where it leads. It's like a dream come true."