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It’s time for this week’s episode to get under way, and immediately my prediction for sameness is proven wrong by the show’s decision to completely redo the opening sequence and music. We get a quick recap of who won their fights last week, then watch them arrive at the TUF house. Several of the guys literally run into the house, presumably to get a good room, and Clayton McKinney and his new roommate celebrate their cohabitation with a shug and “yeeeeahhhh boooooy.†Is this The Ultimate Fighter, or Flavor of Love?
Not everyone is in such high spirits, though – Court McGee looks like someone clubbed him across the forehead with a tire iron, and Chris Camozzi says he is now dealing with an infected tooth. Clayton, meanwhile, has been told by the doctor that he may have torn his rotator cuff. Great – with a shoulder injury, how is he going to spike up his hair? All their whining will be for naught, however, as we see that a plaque has been installed on a wall inside the house, bearing a Season 1 quote from UFC president Dana White: “Do you want to be a f**king fighter?!†I don’t know – if you can’t choose your own nickname, should you be able to quote yourself?
As some generic ’80s anthem plays in the background to get us pumped up, coaches Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz, along with their assistant coaches, file into the UFC Training Center, followed by this season’s 14 contestants. Dana is there to congratulate the elimination-round winners, then explains that it’s time for team selections. Dana will flip a coin, and whichever coach wins the toss can either select the first fighter, or the first matchup. After the first fight, the winning coach will retain control of the fight selections until his team loses. The coin comes up Team Ortiz, and Tito decides to pick the first fighter, drafting Nick Ring. Chuck’s first choice is Kyle Noke, the fighter who opened a gusher on Warren Thompson last week. The coaches then alternate picks until all 14 have been selected.
Tito says he has assembled the team he wanted, adding that he wanted to pick guys who have both great stand-up and a great ground game. Gee Tito, good thing you picked Jamie Yager, whose elimination bout stayed on the feet and basically consisted of five kicks. He sounds well-rounded. Dana confides in Tito that he agrees that Chuck had some questionable picks, apparently forgetting that Season 2 runner-up Luke Cummo was chosen last. Chuck, meanwhile, says that Tito kept choosing the guys he wanted, but also claims that he made his choices based on having looked up some of their records online. So, Chuck, exactly how badly did Rashad Evans and Shogun Rua scramble your brain?
We join Team Liddell at the UFC Training Center, and meet assistant coaches John Hackleman and Howard Davis Jr,, both of whom specialize in striking. Wow, sounds diverse. Next, we are introduced to Tito’s assistants, Saul Soliz and Cleber Luciano, the latter of whom is a BJJ black belt. Tito’s team then works out, with Clayton exercising little more than caution due to his injured shoulder. Clayton believes that either he or Chris will be selected to fight first, based on their injuries.
It’s time for our first fight announcement, and Clayton gets the nod. He will be taking on Chuck’s top pick, Kyle. Chris breathes a sigh of relief, then throws his teammate under the bus by declaring Clayton as mentally not all there. As an uber-confident Kyle walks away from their faceoff, Clayton stands alone, trying to convince himself that he is excited to fight.
Back at the house, “the only three brown people†living there – Jamie, Chris McCray and Brad Tavares – have decided that they won’t be able to contain their desire to break out the shenanigans, vowing that no one will get a full night’s sleep. Sure enough, the three pranksters break the 3 a.m. silence by blasting air horns throughout the house, angering and/or annoying everyone inside. Several fighters confront the guilty parties, with Jamie saying that, having to live in the house for six weeks, guys should lighten up. Yeah, that might make more sense IF IT WASN’T JUST YOUR SECOND NIGHT IN THE HOUSE.
At the gym, Clayton gets a visit from the doctor, who lets him know that his MRI has revealed a bruised bone in his shoulder, but not a torn rotator cuff. Tito takes the news to mean that Clayton is not seriously injured, and immediately starts riding him for not being tougher. Clayton vows to go all out, saying that fighting to avoid injury will only increase his likelihood of losing.
It’s time for Team Liddell to train, and for us to meet Kyle, an Australia native who now trains with the prestigious Greg Jackson camp in Albuquerque. Kyle takes pride in representing his home country, and says he hopes to open the door for other Australian fighters. Oh, you mean like George Sotiropolous already did, five seasons ago? Chuck praises Kyle’s well-roundedness, while John Hackleman says he does not have any weaknesses. Chuck then turns his talk toward Tito, explaining his anger over allegations made by Tito several months back that Dana had planned an intervention for Chuck over his supposed alcohol abuse. Chuck then says that he might not be able to wait until the end of the season to knock him out. Call me a skeptic, but I smell work.
It’s time for Team Ortiz to train again, and Tito is excited about his team, saying that they all appear to be in excellent shape. Um, wasn’t Tito just criticizing Clayton for sandbagging during a workout? He then announces that it’s his birthday, and a piñata in the form of Chuck is lowered from the ceiling. Tito goes to work on the piñata, breaking it open with a series of punches and kicks. Dollar bills come flying out of the broken piñata, sending fighters scrambling for singles. I hope they find their dignity while they’re down there. Tito thanks his fighters for helping him celebrate his birthday, then says his birthday wish is to go undefeated. Hey Tito, don’t you know that if you tell people what you wish for, it won’t come true?
We go to the gym for this week’s weigh-ins, where both guys barely make the maximum weight limit. After they face off, we hear from Rich Attonito, who like Clayton is having a problem getting along with Jamie. As the room clears, the two exchange words, most likely foreshadowing a matchup down the road. For someone who seems like such a personable guy, Jamie sure does rub a lot people the wrong way.
It’s fight day, and we spend time in each dressing room, watching the fighters warm up. We then go to the octagon, where Kyle enters first and tells us he is not getting worked up about the fight. Clayton is the next to enter, and tries – unsuccessfully – to imitate Kyle by using a horrible Australian accent. As Clayton walks to the octagon, we see that the other fighters are all sitting in bleachers positioned outside the cage. So much for the old days, when the guys waiting to fight had to actually stand during the bouts.
The tale of the tape shows that Kyle has more than three times the number of fights that Clayton has, but also that their height, weight and age are fairly similar. We get started, and the first two minutes or so feature a very slow getting-acquainted period that sees neither man coming even close to engaging his opponent. Finally, Kyle steps forward to land a punch, prompting Clayton to dodge and move behind Kyle. Wasting time and energy trying for a spectacular slam – with a bad shoulder, no less – Clayton loses his position but ends up on top of Kyle, switching between half and full guard. Slow to advance or react, though, Clayton falls right into a triangle choke, and taps out to end the fight. Well, so much for Tito’s birthday wish. Afterward, Clayton refers to his own performance as “pitiful†and storms away from the cage, but Tito begs him to come back, then shows him how to avoid getting caught in the same move again.
Team Liddell, meanwhile, celebrates Kyle’s win in its dressing room, with Chuck believing he will keep on winning as long as he retains control of the fight selections. Dana still believes Tito has the more talented team, but wonders whether Chuck might be able to win by employing the better strategy. Yeah, because no one else would think of pitting his top guy against an opposing fighter with a significant injury.
Random thoughts:
During the show-opening segment recapping who won last week, wasn’t it funny to see Charles Blanchard and Nick Bryant shown back-to-back, considering they have virtually identical shoulder tattoos?
At the end of this preview segment, after Chuck and Tito were shown, who was the guy whose eye they showed as a closeup?
When he was running into the house, why was Clayton high-stepping, as if his pants were on fire?
How weird was it to hear a fighter say he was dealing with a “mouth injury�
If Clayton was indeed dealing with a torn rotator cuff, why did he think that cortisone and a Band-Aid would be a sufficient remedy?
When they showed the “f**king fighter†plaque, wasn’t it funny to see that, even when he wasn’t live in front of a camera, Dana was still able to find ways to get on TV?
Given Dana’s disdain for Strikeforce, how surreal was it to see that promotion’s middleweight champion, Jake Shields, walk in as part of Team Liddell?
Did you notice Dana totally no-selling Tito’s lame joke, when he said “don’t drop it†as Dana prepared to toss it?
Not to mention, what would be so bad about him dropping the coin? It was going to end up on the ground anyway.
Why did Dana keep prefacing every part of the coin-toss rules by saying, “And the way it’s going to work this season is…,†when everything he mentioned has also been done in previous seasons?
When Tito said he had the team he wanted, was I the only one who couldn’t remember any time in this show’s history where a coach didn’t claim to have exactly the roster he wanted?
Was Chuck drunk when he was trying to explain his team-selection strategy, or did he just sound that way?
Did I really hear Tito calling out guys like Clayton for always “looking for excuses� This coming from the same guy who blamed his last loss on a cracked skull?
What was with Tito’s bizarre smile during the fight announcement?
During the commercial break, why did Tito say he’d bought his team matching running shoes, when the boxes he was carrying in looked totally different from one another?
How pathetic-sounding were those air horns?
And, how were the fighters able to order them so quickly?
Why was Tito being so hard on Clayton, knowing he had just been in a pretty intense slugfest only a couple of days earlier?
Did I really hear Kyle already talking about a UFC title shot?
Why did Tito tell his guys they were “on the wrong f**king show†if they just wanted to be on TV, considering that they are all in fact on TV?
Was Tito embarrassed that it took multiple shots for him to rip open a papier-mache piñata?
It was generous of him to share money with his team, but really, singles?
Considering he wound up coming in at 185.5, do you think Clayton might have been exaggerating just a little when he claimed to be 20 lbs underweight prior to this week’s fight?
Do Marine Corps recruiters cringe every time they see a doughy Dana promoting their branch of the service with a USMC hoodie?
In the early moments of the fight, what did Tito hope Clayton would do when he called out “bing-bing†to him?
I’m sure experiencing a fight inside the cage is infinitely harder than watching it on TV, but seriously, how did Clayton did not see the same triangle choke I noticed a mile away?
As much of a tool as Tito can make himself out to be, doesn’t he seem to be a pretty great coach for up-and-coming fighters?
Mark Carpowich can be contacted at markcarpowich@hotmail.com.
