The Ultimate Fighter

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Paul Georgieff Vs. Jonathan Goulet

You have to do a double take when you see this match. What did Paul Georgieff do to Joe Silva that angered him enough to put him in their against Goulet? He’s the only TUF guy to get a fight against someone who wasn’t on TUF. Interestingly enough, Goulet has lost in all 3 of his appearances on an Ultimate Fight Night. However, he was fighting reasonable competition. Paul is inexperienced and will probably lose quickly.

Prediction: Jonathan Goulet via TKO (Rd. 1)

Roman Mitichyan Vs. Dorian Price

Roman was the crazy guy who had to leave early due to an injury. Dorian is the crazy guy who stayed and got beaten in his first fight. While they’re both crazy, Dorian seemed to be one dimensional on the show, but if you check his record he does have submission victories. Roman is relatively inexperienced, but seems to be strong with submissions, and he does seem crazier than Dorian. I’ll have to give a slight edge based on craziness to Roman.

Prediction: Roman Mitichyan via Submission (Rd. 2)

Matt Arroyo Vs. John Kolosci

I have absolutely no faith in John Kolosci. Yes, he fought twice against a far superior fighter, but the way he fights with his look of inexperience and his lack of mental toughness is enough to make you want to pick against him in any fight. Matt has great Jiu-Jitsu and John’s game is on the ground as well. John got subbed twice on the show, and will probably lose the same way here.

Prediction: Matt Arroyo via Submission (Rd. 1)

Troy Mandaloniz Vs. Richie Hightower

This should be a stand-up war. If Richie was smart he could probably take Troy to the floor and sub him, but I doubt he’ll try it. Richie is more experienced, so I’ll give him the nod.

Prediction: Richie Hightower via Decision (Rd. 3)

MAIN CARD

Ben Saunders Vs. Dan Barrera

This is a rematch of the fight they had on The Ultimate Fighter. I wasn’t impressed with Dan Barrera at all on the show, I thought his striking wasn’t that impressive, and he doesn’t listen to his coaches. Ben is mildly crazy, and I like me some crazy fighters. They fight until the death. Ben will probably take this one.

Prediction: Ben Saunders via Decision (Rd. 3)

Billy Miles Vs. George Sotiropoulos

Billy Miles folded under the pressure faster than an Origami master makes a flying crane. George will be looking to avenge his loss against Farmboy, and he’ll take it out on Billy. George should win this one easily.

Prediction: George Sotiropoulos via Submission (Rd. 1)

Jared Rollins Vs. John Koppenhaver

Jared Rollins looked like he was going to be someone contending for a shot at the contract, but put on a disappointing performance, and got his lights turned out on the show. John almost pulled out an upset against FARMBOY, but lost via decision. Rollins is more experienced, and has a better head on his shoulders. He should be able to redeem himself.

Prediction: Jared Rollins via TKO (Rd. 2)

Tommy Speer Vs. Mac Danzig

The easy pick here is Mac. By all accounts, the winner should be Mac, but Tommy has one advantage. FARMBOY STRENGTH. Tommy actually has an impressive record, and this fight will be more competitive then people think. Mac brings a lot of experience and confidence to the table, and his skill set should be enough to get him passed Tommy.

Prediction: Mac Danzig via Decision (Rd. 3)

Roger Huerta Vs. Clay Guida

No one can say that they’re protecting Huerta anymore. Unless he’s been training nothing but takedown defense and wrestling, he’s going to have a tough time with Guida. Although, I have a gut feeling that Huerta might pull this off. Maybe even by a judges decision, that have seemed to go the way of anyone, but Guida. If Huerta can keep this standing, he can win, because Guida’s stand up is pretty damn ugly, but this will be a tough task. Guida has great takedowns, a great chin, and cardio and tenacity for days. He won’t be outworked by anyone.

Prediction: Clay Guida via SPLIT Decision (Rd. 3)

TRAINING MONTAGE – Featuring Mac Danzig

TRAINING MONTAGE – Featuring Matt Arroyo

Matt gets his rib busted.. Could this lead to… Sexy consequences?! The X-Ray says he has a small crack, and deep bruising. He’s debating about fighting or not… COMMERCIAL! Oh god the dramatics.

A UFC 79: Nemesis commercial, the first one I’ve seen. Great marketing UFC.

Matt talks to… Matt about his rib and he doesn’t sound too positive about it. Dana comes in and tries to give Matt the pep talk of a life time, but it doesn’t sway him. Matt Arroyo is out.

Matt Serra, and Dana get together and try to pick a guy to replace Matt. Ben’s out, he’s got a broken nose. War Machine is the first to talk with them, but he doesn’t sound confident in his ability to cut weight. Rude Boy is worried about the weight and Hightower is worried about the cut as well. Hightower is hesistant, but says he wants the fight. Dana doesn’t believe him at all. John comes in and immediately tells them that he wants the fight. That’s exactly what Dana wanted to hear, they give John Kolosci the fight.

John lets Mac know, and Mac feels hesitant about fighting him again because he had already beaten him. Doesn’t make much sense to me, because he should be confident in the beating he put on John.

TRAINING MONTAGE – Featuring John Kolosci

FIGHT ONE

Mac Danzig vs. John Kolosci

John looks like a guy with nothing to lose, but that doesn’t mean he’ll win.

Make sure to buy Wahl products because Andrei Arlovski approves.

John is getting off first, shoots terribly. Mac looks a little tenative. John is throwing crazy kicks and falls on his ass, but gets up. Mac taunts him after throwing a jab for some reason. Mac looks tenative and cocky, if that’s possible. John keeps throwing leg kicks that catch nothing but air. John catches a Mac leg kick and they get into the clinch. John is looking better this fight, not that it means much. Mac takes John down, and gets into half guard. John is clinging to an arm for dear life as Mac peppers him with shots. Mac secures a back choke with no hooks in, and John taps. John does not look like a fighter, and is way too happy about losing.

TRAINING MONTAGE – Tommy Speers

They talked about a huge knockout last week, and now Matt Hughes is hyping Tommy’s super secret right hand. COULD BE A SIGN!

TRAINING MONTAGE – George Sotiropoulos

George is confident…

They show a weigh-in for this fight, and it’s brought to you by Playstation 3! I guess they needed to fulfill their advertising quota.

FIGHT TWO

During Tommy’s walk-in they play some fucking music that had to be picked out by Matt Hughes. It sounded a little bit rock and roll, and a whole lot of country.

Tommy Speers vs. George Sotiropoulos

Feeling each other out with small jabs. Still feeling each other out 1 minute in. Tommy tried to grab him and George shrugged him off. Tommy, just misses with a huge right hand. Tommy is bleeding a bit, which isn’t surprising due to his previous cuts. Tommy grabs out with an open hand and jams his finger right into George’s eye. They start back up, George’s eye looks pretty bad. Tommy punches in and gets the clinch, but it’s short lived. George eats two right hands, he goes down. Tommy gets on top and pounds him and George goes completely unconscious.

Serra and George blame the eye for the loss, and of course Hughes disagrees.

Matt Hughes feels redeemed. I’m sure he tells people he planned it the whole way.

Tommy Speers vs. Mac Danzig in the finals.

How do you go about improving a stale product? Here’s my attempt at television production.

Keep in mind that these are separate idea, they aren’t going to necessarily work together in tandem.

Pick teams at random, and rotate coaches in and out, that way you get exposure for more of your already established UFC stars, and you won’t bog down title pictures. Have two weeks with Rampage and Forrest, then Anderson Silva and Rich Franklin, etc.

Instead of focusing on the social dynamic, focus on the training. Each coach is going to have different training styles, be more involved in that aspect. Show the reps, amount of weight, and other exercise specifics that will encourage people at home to get off the couch. Do it like All Access just more intensive.

These guys are athletes, have them play Basketball, Football, Baseball, for prizes that they’d be interested in, like say… Money. Show that they aren’t just other sport washouts. Record their 40-yard dash times, vertical jumps, bench press reps at a certain weight, and compare them to other athletes, or previous TUF fighters. Prove that these guys aren’t just bar room brawlers.

Two fights per episode. Streamline the bullshit, don’t focus 90% on in the house and 10% on the fight. Make the show all about the fighting.

Scrap the house, and move the show every week to different training camps. Take the guys to Militech, the Pit, BTT, etc. Hell, take them to altitude, take them to the snow, take them to blistering heat, make them brave the elements during training.

Whatever they do, they need to do it fast. The show has gotten terribly stale, it’s gotten to the point where Monday Night Raw is starting to look appealing… Nah, not really.

FIGHT MONTAGE!

John proceeds to take his loss like a man. He gets drunk and takes his frustrations out on the house. They throw the foosball table in pool, and throw other random shit in the pool as well.

Serra keeps babbling about how he’s trained these guys for six weeks, and he doesn’t want to corner against them. So, he decides not to corner against them. Leaving the fighters he was supposed to corner, corner less.

Rude boy is jealous that Serra seems to be buddy, buddy with Matt.

Mac on the way over to training makes fun of Hightower about how he didn’t want to train with Team Hughes, and how he wears his hat like a moron. Hughes feels that Serra not cornering his guys is unprofessional. He and his other coaches sit around making fun of Serra’s decision.

This years Coaches challenge is bowling. Hughes sucks at bowling, but Serra might be even worse. Hughes tries to persuade Dana into doubling the money won by the fighters whose coach wins. Dana says that if Hughes can throw a strike, he’ll double the money. Hughes starts to throw, CUT TO THE BALL, CUT TO THE FIGHTERS, BACK TO THE BALL, COMMERCIAL!@$ Oh god, the suspense.

And he……………THROWS A STRIKE. Hughes pulled a fast one on everyone, he actually might know how to bowl.

Dana does the color commentary, which is relatively entertaining.

BOWLING MONTAGE

Serra wins. He gets 10k, and his fighters get 3k each. Hughes leaves in a huff, he can’t take a loss!

Hightower and Rude boy don’t show up to practice, because they think Serra is favoring the other two. Serra thinks this is “BS.”

FIGHT ONE

Matt Arroyo vs. Troy Mandaloniz

FIGHT CLOCK BROUGHT TO YOU BY HITMAN!!!

Feeling each other out, Matt looks more confident. Matt shoots, and he gets the take down easily. Matt is landing some small elbows and punches while he’s in side control. He goes for the armbar, and it’s over. Matt dominated.

Hughes babbles on about how Serra could have done a better coaching job for Rude Boy.

Next fight is George vs. the lamb to the slaughter (Hightower).

Hightower complains more about favoritism.

FIGHT TWO

Richie Hightower vs. George Sotiropoulos

Jab, jab, kick, jab. Richie ties up with him for god knows what reason, George keeps it standing. Good knee in the clinch by George, they separate again. Richie throws a bad kick and George catches it and takes him down. George gets to side control, Richie pulls it back into half guard. George is setting up an armbar/kimura, he finally lands a couple punches then gets north south position. He then gets… Reverse mount? George slaps a brutal kimura on him and Richie yelps in pain while tapping.

On the next episode…

Team Serra plays a prank on Team Hughes that leads to SEXY CONSEQUENCES!

FIGHT MONTAGE!

Serra really wants to stick it to Hughes. I think his lust for any way to slight Hughes has grown to extraordinary levels. He’d kick Hughes’s dog if he given the chance. Serra wants to put Mac and Tommy together so that it isn’t possible for both members to get into the semi-finals, the only problem with this is, that it puts all his own guys against each other. They call in all the fighters and ask them who wants to fight who, and choose from there.

First fight is Mac vs. John. Second is Arroyo vs. Rude Boy. Third is Hightower vs. George (Serra SCREWED Hightower. He put his weakest guy against his supposed strongest guy). Fourth is Ben vs. Tommy.

After the picks, it’s announced that Hughes will be cornering two of Serra’s guys. This of course leads to Serra being unhappy about having any of Matt Hughes’s taint on his fighters. Hughes finds it funny, and of course thinks he somehow outsmarted Serra, because he believes both of his guys are going to the semi-finals.

Gee Mac is a dick. We’ve gone through this a few times. He is still one with nature as he decided to order a hummingbird feeder. He tries to rationalize his negativity, and thinks his negativity is why animals are staying their distance… This has to be one of the dumbest segments ever. Warhammer (whatever) moves Mac’s feeder to piss Mac off, it apparently works.

JOHN TRAINING MONTAGE

What we learn: John is nearly as experienced as Mac.

MAC TRAINING MONTAGE

What we learn: Mac has only sparred a few times while he’s been here, his teammates have been next to useless in that area. (Could be the precursor to him losing.)

More stupid Mac crap about being negative, and trying to take a “positive” approach to things. He writes a dumb message on his closet to keep himself from doing negative things, and to stop treating Blake like shit.

Serra’s team trashes Hughes, and none of them want to be put on his team to train and be cornered by him.

The weigh-in is sponsored by BEOWULF, YAY!

Hightower and Arroyo are moved over to Hughes’s team by flip of the coin, they meet with the coaches and try to explain how they don’t want things to be awkward and yada yada. Hughes finds this disrespectful somehow, and babbles on about how he’s here to coach and he doesn’t need to be told that.

THE FIGHT

Small exchanges, John shoots and eats a knee, gets cut. John tries relentlessly to get the take down and gets peppered with elbows and punches for his trouble. John looks like an amateur in there, Mac looks like a pro. John tries for another take down, and Mac is able to defend it. Mac gets on John’s back and sinks in the choke.

END SCENE: A STUPID HUMMINGBIRD ON THE STUPID FEEDER.

If it wasn’t for a reasonably entertaining fight, this would have been the dullest episode of The Ultimate Fighter in a while.

The highlight outside of the cage was Matt Serra doing a Matt Hughes impression that was pretty funny. Everything else focused on War Machine beating himself up over every mistake, and all the emotional baggage he forgot to leave at the door when he entered The Ultimate Fighter house. His opponent Tommy Speer is the good ol’ FARM BOY. He’s got that FARM BOY strength, and that FARM BOY work ethic. His half of the episode was dedicated to making sure that you remember that he’s a FARM BOY, and he was brought up like Hughes.

Onto the fight.

The MACHINE comes out and throws a punch that tags FARM BOY in the face and opens up a gusher, he takes him down and gets on his back. He spends half the round unsuccessfully trying to sink in the choke. Eventually, the FARM BOY is able to turn the tables and he starts to lay down a beating that a cow milker could enjoy. Speers gets the mount, and if he threw better punches from the mount, he’d have won this fight in the first round.

The second round begins, and the MACHINE is malfunctioning, he throws a lazy leg kick and gets taken down. FARM BOY lays a beating down on him for the rest of the round, thus ending the MACHINE’S reign of terror.

Oh boy, the Matt Hughes hour. We start out with Matt Hughes bitching out Barrera, and continuing to bitch out Barrera. Then we move on to Matt Hughes sulking in the corner, and having a heart to heart with Dana. Dana tells him to put the Jesus on them. I don’t know what that means, but it can’t be good.

Hughes’s team doesn’t take too kindly to the hard training, and the shit talking about Barrera.

J-Roc vs. George is the announced fight.

George is shown as a heavy trainer, but kind of a dick. He didn’t wake up the rest of the team (They don’t have alarm clocks. Come on UFC get them in supply.) and the rest of the team didn’t appreciate it.

J-Roc gets injured during practice and breaks down emotionally, he’s worried that he won’t be cleared to fight. It turns out to be bruised ribs, so he’s cleared to fight.

George doesn’t wake people up again, and it pisses off more people. More BS drama.

J-Roc and George weigh-in and have a small little grapple/scuffle over who’s standing where. Yeah, I don’t get it either.  The morning of the fight, they’re sitting at the table together, eating breakfast. The interesting dynamic of the show, you are in the same house as the guy you’re about to fight.

J-Roc comes out tentative as hell and George is putting together nice punches here and there. J-Roc basically does nothing and then gets KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT.  J-Roc went down like a huge sack of potatoes, George dominated.

J-Roc throws a hissy fit backstage and throws a bunch of shit against walls.

Next week, does Matt Hughes kill himself? Stay tuned!

Fight announcement is first. Barrera and Ben are up to fight this time. Ben is crazy, but so is Barrera. One is wake up at 4:30 in the morning and train before training crazy, the other is just mentally crazy.

Barrera has been known to over do it in practice, so Hughes decided to give him a beatdown. Apparently giving people a beatdown is the only kind of punishment the bible subscribes for insubordination. After practice, Barrera shows off his balloon sized hand, it’s not broken, just swollen to the size of a Thanksgiving turkey.

After the hand business is all cleared up, there’s a nice Barrera loves his wife segue, to a Barrera’s wife could be dying cliffhanger. Turns out she had some kind of seizure, nothing that some praying couldn’t help.

Onto the fight!

After some exchanges, Barrera hits Ben with a big shot, and puts him to the canvas. Ben shakes it off and is down, while Barrera is up. The ref DOESN’T STAND BEN UP, for a LONG time. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen, sure Barerra stood relatively close, but stand him the fuck up, what are you waiting for? This happens multiple times during the fight.

More exchanging, it’s pretty clear Barrera wins the first round.

Second round, Ben comes out and tears it up, dropping Barrera once, and basically dominates the round. It looks like we’re going to a round three. Everyone else agrees with this… Except, for the judges. Ben takes this one, by majority decision.

Matt Hughes went so far as to talk to the NSAC guy, to question the judges call.

Dana hands over $5,000 to both fighters, for having a sick fight.

Matt Serra once again outclasses Hughes by going into Barrera’s locker room to congratulate him on a well fought fight.

On the next episode!

Matt Hughes is more self-absorbed than you think, and he looks to whine about his weak team, and basically wants to leave. Do we have a new Joe Scarola on our hands?! Tune in!