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THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER REPORT

According to previews for this week’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter, tonight’s fight will end with “a shock result no one saw coming.” Let me guess – someone actually makes it through the first round without gassing out? The show’s producers put together a nice cliffhanger preview that ends with fighters and coaches yelling things like “he’s out” and “wake up” at a downed opponent. Only one problem: They decided to use footage that shows Team Rashad’s coaches standing over the presumably unconscious fighter. Unless this is a swerve – which is entirely possible, given the sympathy Team Rashad’s coaches showed to Demico Rogers last week – it looks like maybe Team Rampage might finally pick up its first victory.

Wasting no time recapping Demico’s pathetic loss to Brendan Schaub last week, tonight’s episode begins at the UFC Training Center . As coach Rashad Evans savors his squad’s 4-0 start, the team works ground drills. Suddenly, Matt Mitrione appears to aggravate a shoulder injury, at once grimacing and insisting he’s OK. A former NFL player, Matt credits his “old football mentality” with his gut-it-out attitude. Matt tells his coaches he’ll be OK once he gets a cortisone shot, but Rashad persuades him not to do it. Instead, the coach recommends ice and a massage.

Later, Team Rampage heads to the gym, with Marcus Jones claiming to want to fight next in spite of a nagging knee injury. At the training center, Marcus even asks Team Rashad’s coaches (who for some reason are still lingering around) to pick him next. Marcus walks away convinced that he will get his wish, a feeling he describes as “insane.” Unfortunately, that’s not the only thing insane about this segment – it’s impossible to make out any actual words in this discussion, with everyone involved interrupting each other and slurring their words. What, no subtitles?

Coach Rampage Jackson is upset with his team’s 0-4 record, saying that it is negatively affecting both his personal life and his sex life. Yeah, that’s something I want to think about. Rampage expects that Zak Jensen will be the next on his team to fight, and tells us that he has a long way to go if he’s going to even be competitive. As Rampage tries to teach his team an escape maneuver called a wall-walk, Zak openly admits that he’s not good at it…or anything else, for that matter. Even his own teammates agree, with Scott Junk saying that Zak talked a lot of junk for a while, but now can’t back it up. Rampage tells us he won’t get his hopes up too high. I smell the “shock result no one saw coming.”

Speaking of coming, back at the house Wes Sims finds “a family of Jensens” on the floor of the shower, and calls out Zak in front of everyone. Zak admits to leaving the gooey substance in the shower, but claims it was the result of blowing his nose. Yeah, OK. Sounds like Rampage isn’t the only one whose sex life is being disturbed by the team’s losses. As the day progresses, Zak’s teammates continue ribbing him, with the clearly humiliated heavyweight seeking solace in the pages of his journal. Man, I hope those pages aren’t stuck together.

Back at the gym, Team Rashad is going through its workout, and Matt’s shoulder seems to suddenly be feeling much better. Matt tells Rashad he wants to fight next, which seems to contradict his previous complaints about the shoulder. Rashad is annoyed with Matt’s indecisiveness, referring to him as a “drama king” and talking trash about him with his assistant coaches. In a rather surreal-looking scene, Rashad talks to Matt about his alleged injury, all while Matt – whose arm has been immobilized inside a blue cellophane body wrap – runs on a treadmill.

It’s time for Team Rampage to take over the gym, and we go from fighters running on treadmills to fighters running their mouths. This time it’s Wes Shivers, who dishes to Rampage that Zak has had a tough day because of Wes Sims’ accusations. Without missing a beat, Rampage asks if the shower-floor substance in question was “some kids,” then says he doesn’t understand why Zak would be embarrassed. Moments later, Zak goes from being the choker to the chokee, as Wes Sims puts him to sleep during a mat exercise. Rampage is disgusted, and says that if he were Zak, he would move to another planet. On the bright side, maybe he could finally find a place where his mumbled, broken verbiage is actually understandable.

Back at the house, Team Rashad relaxes poolside, while Matt shoots baskets into a hoop floating in the water. Citing his supposed injury, Matt’s teammates openly question his heart, thinking that he’s milking his injury as long as possible in order to postpone the inevitability of having to fight. Brendan is particularly annoyed with Matt, and says that between Matt’s goldbricking and earlier disclosure of Team Rashad’s fight selections, he can’t wait to see Matt in the cage.

Later, in the midst of a workout, Matt asks to be excused in order to ice his shoulder. Rashad says no, and tells him he can simply ice it later. Once again complaining about his shoulder feeling “tired sore,” Matt tells us that he might have to cut off his injured shoulder and put someone else’s on there. You know, like Ram Man, from the old He-Man cartoon. Huh? Can you get any more random, Matt? Oh, apparently you can – now you’re saying you want to replace your shoulder with that of Cringer, He-Man’s pet cat. This segment is now officially weird.

It’s time to hear this week’s fight announcement, and we learn that Rashad has selected Justin Wren to fight Wes Sims. Rashad is confident in his choice, believing that Wes has more experience, but that Justin is “far more superior.” Jeez, are Rampage’s grammatical skills contagious or something? After the fight is announced, Marcus pulls a Jorge Gurgel and sulks, disappointed that he was not picked. Marcus confronts Rashad and claims the coach had promised Marcus he would be next. Looks like you’re got another week to rest that knee, Marcus.

We meet Justin, a 22-year-old protégée of Travis Lutter. Yeah, that’s a good name to drop around UFC executives. Justin says the fight will be a youth-versus-experience matchup, with Justin putting his youth and wrestling pedigree to work for him.

Wes, meanwhile, tells teammate Kimbo Slice that he wants to put on a show for the fans. Kimbo is unimpressed with Justin’s wrestling background, saying that Justin is “a Greco-Roman wrestler, whatever the f*ck that is.” Way to know the sport, Kimbo. Wes isn’t worried about being outwrestled, claiming to regularly train with big names like Mark Coleman and Kevin Randleman. Wes then takes off his shirt during the middle of a confessional interview, saying he wants to either “win viciously or lose devastatingly…dummy.” At first I was going to be offended by the name-calling, but then realized that listening to Wes Sims speak for more than a few seconds really has made me dumber…or, as Rashad would say, far more dumber.

It’s time for our Castrol GTX advertisement…I mean, official weigh-in. Both Justin and Wes make weight, with each guy stepping on the scale wearing a wholly inappropriate pair of underwear. Justin has on some hot pink “panties” (as Rampage calls them), while Wes approaches the scale in French-cut briefs. Rampage says the guys seemed excited to see women’s underwear for the first time during their time in the house. Well, at least we know that Zak probably was.

It’s fight day, and as Wes walks into the locker room, Rampage announces that “the champ is here.” As Wes puts his game face on, Rampage shouts encouragement at him. Somewhere, Demico is shaking his head, having been abandoned by Rampage both before and after last week’s fight. Over in the Team Rashad locker room, Justin is ready to take his first step toward eventually achieving his goal of being a UFC champion. Justin vows to take the fight to Wes, who as the men stand in the cage is already wearing the eye of the tiger. The tale of the tape shows Wes will enjoy a huge reach and height advantage.

The action gets under way, and right off the bat Wes’ stance looks horrible. Almost immediately, Justin ties him up and pushes him into the fence, where Wes pretends that Justin’s feet are Frank Mir’s face, and starts stomping away. After exchanging knees in the clinch, the fighters separate, and Wes’ stance is looking even worse than before. Justin runs right through a front kick and pushes Wes into the cage again, this time taking him down against the fence. Hey, what a great time to utilize that wall-walk that Rampage taught his fighters. Nope – instead, Wes is easily mounted, and ends up going unconscious when Justin secures an arm-triangle. Team Rashad has gone 5-0, and Rampage can do little more than sit outside the cage and lament his bad luck.

For the second week in a row, Team Rashad’s coaches check on Rampage’s guy while his own coach sits outside. This irks Rashad, who sees it as a sign of disrespect to a fighter. Wow – if you’re taking lessons from Rashad Evans on sportsmanship, you know you’re doing something wrong. In defense of his own coach, Wes Shivers says that Rampage isn’t a coach, but a fighter. I guess you can’t be both. Rather than coach this season’s contestants, Wes says Rampage “tries to prepare us mentally.” Gee, it looks like he’s done a great job with that.

This week’s episode wraps with a verbal battle between the coaches in a gym hallway. Rashad calls out Rampage on his lack of coaching acumen and respect for the people on his own team; Rampage says that he stays out of the cage after fights because only doctors should be allowed inside. The remainder of the exchange is reserved for comments like “you don’t even know,” and names like “idiot.” Yeah, this is mature.

Random thoughts:

When the introduction for tonight’s episode started with a mention of Zak, was I the only one who immediately said back to the TV, “Who?”

When are the producers of this show going to spring for some decent microphones, so conversations won’t be overpowered by background noise?

Given the disinterested attitude Rampage has shown this season, does anyone really believe that his team’s losses carried over into his personal life?

When Rampage “violently” pushed annoying assistant coach Tiki Ghosn’s head during the wall-walk drill, was anyone else wishing he would have done it even more violently?

Even though the shower-floor incident was gross, wasn’t it at least better than when the same substance was hidden in someone’s food a couple of seasons ago?

Why did Brendan think that Zak was “socially awkward,” simply because he didn’t want to get involved in the typical juvenile house behavior?

Wasn’t Matt’s flip-flopping reminiscent of another drama king, season 5’s Gabe Ruediger, who claimed to want to compete despite being on the verge of an ambulance ride to the ER?

Why did Rampage say he wouldn’t be embarrassed about leaving “some kids” in the shower, yet would be embarrassed by being choked out?

Did you notice that all three of tonight’s commercial-break vignettes featured Wes Sims?

And did you hear Kimbo dropping an uncensored s-bomb during one of them?

What was with the UFC 104 ad claiming that Shogun Rua stands between Lyoto Machida and infamy? Is Machida infamous?

What in the world was Matt thinking with his He-Man references?

And why would he say he wanted to put a cat’s shoulder in the place of his own?

Did you hear Rashad at the fight announcement, referring to his squad as “Team Rashad Evans”?

Why would Marcus think that the opposing coach would make a promise to him, let alone keep it?

Considering this show has not explained the rules for TUF bonuses for a couple of seasons now, were newer viewers confused when Justin said he wanted to be $5,000 richer by the end of the night?

When Kimbo was telling Wes Shivers and Sims that he wanted to fight again, did you notice that Wes Shivers didn’t look too interested in getting the chance to redeem his loss?

Why was Wes so interested in putting on a show for the fans, when there were none present for his fight?

During the Rhapsody commercial featuring TUF stars, did Demico really say that he listens to Metallica as a way to calm down after his workouts?

Considering that most of the fighters are not pushing the 265-pound weight limit, do we really need to see weigh-ins for this show?

Between his comments tonight and during Season 7 (when he asked a doctor if he was related to Shawn Michaels), isn’t it pretty obvious that Rampage is a WWE fan?

And once the “A-Team” movie is ready to promote, wouldn’t he be a great guest host for Raw?

After what he did during practice to Zak, wasn’t there a sense of poetic justice in Wes getting put to sleep in his fight?

When Rampage said he never expected Wes to get submitted with an arm triangle, did you want to yell back at the TV, “He didn’t get submitted, he lost via ref stoppage”?

Then again, was this any worse than referee Herb Dean announcing that Justin won via “side choke”?

Did Dana give Rampage the kiss of death by comparing his TUF coaching tenure to that of abysmally bad season 3 coach Ken Shamrock?

On the other hand, hadn’t Team Shamrock won at least one fight by this point in the season?

Mark Carpowich can be contacted at markcarpowich@hotmail.com.