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Though its main purpose is to discover and promote up-and-coming talent, The Ultimate Fighter has also managed to turn out some pretty entertaining coach-versus-coach rivalries...in addition to some not-so-interesting rivalries. For every Shamrock-Ortiz, there’s been a Couture-Liddell, and for every Jackson-Evans, there’s been a Hughes-Franklin. Tonight, with just a single 2-hour episode left, Season 11 now features two of those lambs as competing coaches, and it’s not easy to tell which will be their greater challenge: getting their respective fighters into the finals, or trying to convince fans to buy their ho-hum, irrelevant pay-per-view bout this weekend. Either way, the countdown has begun – not to the finale, but to the end of what has been the worst season in the show’s history. Let us make it through the final 120 minutes of this season...and then never speak of it again.
We start tonight with a recap of Rich Franklin joining the show as a coach, replacing the disgraced (thanks to UFC president Dana White) Tito Ortiz. As Rich explains that no one bothered letting him know he would be coaching when he agreed to appear on the show, Dana tells the newly christened Team Franklin that he has overcompensated for the loss of Tito and his staff by bringing in a who’s who of assistant coaches, then introduces them. They are Forrest Griffin, Gray Maynard and Tyson Griffin. Hey, didn’t I just read that the winner of this weekend’s Chuck-Rich bout will probably face Forrest next? I’m sure Rich is real excited about training alongside his potential next opponent. For the record, Forrest has now been a contestant, head coach and assistant coach on this show.
Rich and his staff waste little time getting down to business, which is getting Kris McCray ready for his semifinal bout. Kris lets us know that the transition between coaches has been fairly seamless, and is pleased that his new coaches seem committed to helping him win. Tyson says he and his fellow coaches want to taper Kris’ training, which comes across as a humanitarian alternative to the slave-driving that Team Ortiz was supposedly putting on guys like Kyacey Uscola. Yeah, there’s no way that was a subtle dig at Tito’s inferior coaching, right Dana?
Team Liddell arrives for its workout, and assistant coach John Hackleman seems shocked that Tito’s portrait in the gym has already been replaced. I’m actually surprised Dana didn’t decide to leave it up, but spray a huge X over his face. John discusses the fact that two of his guys – Brad Tavares and Court McGee – will have to fight this week, calling the situation “not as weird as it is just awkward, uncomfortable.” Hey John, check your thesaurus – those are all pretty much the same thing. Sure enough, moments later John contradicts himself by coming full circle and calling the whole situation “a really weird thing.” Not to be outdone, Chuck says the fight will be “the hardest thing to watch,” then 90 seconds later says the bout will be “fun to watch.”
It wouldn’t be a season of The Ultimate Fighter without the carrying out of some juvenile prank, so we head back to the house for some chicanery. Seeking to avenge the lack of sleep they have collectively faced during the season thanks to the self-dubbed “Minority Report” – Kris, Brad, Jamie Yager and Kyle Noke – the rest of the housemates join forces to wake them as they sleep by using airhorns and silly string. Brad takes the prank hard, vowing to break something, then makes good on his threat by dropping a chess set onto the floor. Wow, that’ll really show those guys.
After both guys make weight, it’s Fight Day, and Brad and Court are being relegated to the same dressing room to prepare. Court says he plans to put fear in Brad’s eyes, but after seeing them both at the post-weigh-in staredown, I don’t think Brad has anything to worry about. Brad says he is relaxed, and knows he needs to get to Court before Court can get to him. As they come to the cage, it looks like John will corner Brad, and assistant coach Jake Shields will corner Court. Chuck must have decided to stay neutral. Or, more likely, he had “prior commitments” that prevented him from showing up.
We’re ready to get started, and lo and behold, we see that Chuck really is in attendance. Both guys touch gloves, and we’re under way. After about a minute and a half of some tentative standup that shows the quickness of Brad’s hands but sees no damage caused, Court closes in and pushes Brad into the fence, taking him to the mat and settling into in half guard. Brad is effective off his back, however, keeping Court close until he is able to escape back to his feet. The remainder of the round sees the two exchange some shots, but Court likely stealing the round with an impressive (yet short-lived) takedown.
Both fighters look sharp at the start of round 2, with Brad once again landing the quicker, cleaner punches. Notwithstanding a couple of unsuccessful takedown attempts by Court, the round is spent entirely on the feet, with a frustrating level of inactivity. If this were happening in front of a PPV crowd, these guys would be getting booed out of the building by this point. The round ends with Court pushing Brad into the fence but not able to bring him to the mat.
Round 3 starts with an inadvertent low blow from Brad, followed by a quick flurry of punches from both fighters that leads referee Josh Rosenthal to warn them to “watch the heads.” Yeah, because I’m sure they’ll be worrying about that the next time they’re in the middle of an all-out slugfest. A minute in, Court looks to have lost his spark, as he has slowed considerably and looks sloppy in his takedown attempts. Each guy eventually lands a big shot – Court a straight right, Brad a standing knee – which leads to a really exciting end to the round. Assuming, of course, that you don’t count the two low blows suffered by Brad. After he recovers from the second one, the action restarts, and Court unloads several huge shots that send Brad to the mat. Court takes his back and chokes him unconscious, bringing an end to the bout with just 18 seconds left.
Following a recap that seems to include more reaction shots of Dana than actual action from the fight, a disappointed Brad is consoled by Dana inside the cage, who tells the young fighter four times that his effort was “awesome.” Jeez, for a guy who never shuts up, you’d think Dana would have more words to choose from. Court, meanwhile, has a vocabulary moment of his own, pulling a Chuck by saying “there are no words to describe how I’m feeling right now,” then immediately following up with, “I feel fantastic.” Now that this episode is almost half over, so do I.
Before we can move on to our next bout, Dana has a surprise for both teams. No, it’s not yet another new assistant coach for Team Franklin; instead, he has brought in five U.S. Marines to roll with the fighters. Dana claims to love and support the troops, which is nice but doesn’t really explain why he insisted on walking in front of them all when they entered the room together. We are then treated to a lengthy exchange between the fighters and Marines, who share fighting and training tactics in a way that might have been kind of cool had it not probably been part of the same marketing deal that included the Marines’ sponsorship of the first fight’s weigh-ins.
Just when you think the segment has ended, however, the Marines are now showing up at the TUF house for dinner. We are treated/subjected to several more minutes of mutual admiration, including Kris claiming to know about serving in the military by being the son of a serviceman and a former Army reservist. One of the Marines flatters the fighters by comparing the TUF experience with military boot camp. Give me a break. I guess that when I was on active duty, I must have missed the day when someone came into our barracks and invited us all to play video games for several hours.
It’s time to get back to business, as Team Franklin turns its attention toward helping Kris redeem his earlier loss to Josh Bryant in tonight’s second semifinal bout. Rich and his assistants have watched tape on Kris’ earlier fights, and have come together to maximize his preparations based on those observations. Rich is confident that taking a more efficient approach will help Kris come out on top this time around.
Back at the house, Jamie and Brad have spent several days trying to come up with ways to avenge the silly-string-and-airhorns prank, and have come up with the perfect revenge: toss a handful of beans and rice at a couple of the guys sunbathing outside. Huh? James Hammortree takes exception to the flying starch, and walks back in to confront Jamie. James dumps a bucket of cleaning supplies into Jamie’s room; Jamie retaliates by sprinkling more rice and beans on James’ bed. Man, just when I though this season couldn’t get any more lame, this happens. The two then get in each others’ faces, before Jamie walks away and immediately gets into a confrontation with both Kyacey and the long-injured Clayton McKinney. Kyacey challenges Jamie to fight in the backyard, but Jamie decides not to go. Instead, Kyacey and James both beg to face Jamie at the TUF finale. Do I smell a triple-threat match?
It’s time to get back to the fight that will actually be happening in the octagon, as Team Liddell is at the gym to help Josh prepare for his semifinal match. Chuck is optimistic about Josh’s chances, and the rest of the team is solidly behind him as well, as evidenced when Team Liddell breaks from a huddle with the unifying shout of…um…what was that that they said?
It’s fight day, and both guys are feeling confident. Josh thinks he will pick up his second win this season over Kris, while Kris feels he has made the necessary adjustments to move into the finals. For the fifth time in 11 weeks, Kris appears in the tale of the tape, and we are ready to start – that is, once Kris and Josh are done hugging in the center of the cage. Kris holds steady to his plan to not rush things…until he gets caught rushing in, and is dropped with a single punch. He recovers, though, and even earns a couple of hard-fought takedowns. Josh escapes, though, and the fighters spend the remainder of the round standing up. Both guys land good shots, though Josh makes the bigger statement by blasting Kris with a left hook with only a handful of seconds left in the round. To his credit, Kris is by and large sticking with his game plan and remaining patient.
Kris comes out aggressively at the start of round 2, hitting Josh with a couple of solid shots and backing him into the fence. Kris is unable to bring him down, but continues to pepper Josh with punches until his gas tank appears to run low about halfway through the round. Josh’s cardio isn’t much better, though, as the pair pretty much hang on each other until the round ends.
Kris is much slower at the start of round 3, as his punches have already lost both their snap and power. Josh fails to capitalize, however, and most of the round sees both guys winging punches at each other that connect with varying degrees of force. As was the case with the evening’s first bout, this is the kind of thing that UFC fans would boo out of any building. Hey, look, finally something cool – Josh just spit out a mouthful of blood. Maybe Kris isn’t hitting him with pillows after all. With about a minute left, Kris land a big left, the coolness of which is totally diluted by Dana’s obnoxious commentary. Kris spends the rest of round working unsuccessfully for a takedown, so the fight will go to the judges. By unanimous decision, Kris avenges his previous loss, and will compete at the finale against Court. Afterward, an uber-cool Dana tries pathetically to use hip lingo by predicting that Court and Kris will “put on an absolutely sick fight.” Which will be fitting, given that this season has left The Ultimate Fighter on life support.
Random thoughts:
Though they did at least have the foresight to alert us last week that tonight’s finale would be two hours, couldn’t TUF producers remember to tell us that this week’s show would be starting an hour earlier than its normal timeslot?
It sure didn’t take the graphics people long to get the show’s intro turned around to reflect the new coaching situation, did it?
If Dana was going to have Rich sign the contract on camera to fight Chuck, why not go all the way and have Chuck sign as well?
Even though he at least lost the creepy trenchcoat, why is Forrest still wearing that homeless-looking beard?
And why was he introducing himself to the team, when they had already met when he showed up at the house with “UFC Undisputed 2010” a few weeks back?
Doesn’t it bother John Hackleman to wear his glasses so crooked?
Was Chuck so confused about how to handle Court-Brad because, when he coached during season 1, teammate-versus-teammate matchups were avoided by having one guy switch teams?
And wasn’t that a better way to do things?
How did Rich Attonito think the prank was successful, when all they did was spray silly string on top of their comforters, which didn’t really affect the guys who were sleeping?
If you were fighting mad, would dropping a chess set onto the floor make you feel better?
Did the UFC 115 promo really refer to Rich as a “legend,” and Chuck as “the greatest light-heavyweight of all time”?
Does anyone have any idea what Chuck mumbled into his mic during the first round of Court-Brad?
How refreshing was it to finally see two guys (Brad and Court) not gas out during the second round?
Why did Dana insist on complimenting Brad for his chin, when the punch he absorbed at that moment wasn’t really that big of a shot?
Given his previous reaction at the house, how come Brad didn’t use the round-ending airhorns as a motivational tool during his fight with Court?
Or would that have been too “Festus”?
Does anyone else get distracted by Dana’s unnecessary commentary during the fights?
What’s worse: having to hear him during the fights, or seeing his reactions during the recap?
Based on his gritty performance, don’t you think we’ll probably see Brad in the octagon again?
If the Dana and the UFC love the military so much, why did they insult a gunnery sergeant by referring to him simply as “sergeant” in an on-screen graphic, a full two ranks below what his collar device indicated?
Even though his DQ against Brad was a scary thing to see at the time, wasn’t it kind of funny to hear Seth Baczynski laugh at himself during the combat drill by saying he’s “pretty good at kicking people when they’re down”?
When the Marine Corps segment ended with “hoorah,” did anyone else have a Miz flashback?
After seeing closeups of the cornhole boards and neon bar signs, do you think Miller Light might have paid the UFC for some product placement?
Didn’t the master sergeant (with 23 years of service) look a lot like season 10 assistant coach Phil Nurse?
Why did James say that Jamie was surprised someone actually stood up to him, when James totally backed down during their face-to-face confrontation?
Given that some of these guys don’t exactly seem like Rhoades scholars, isn’t it appropriate that the only books in the house are the ones painted on an upstairs wall?
After what happened to the UFC careers of Noah Thomas and Marlon Sims after season 5, wasn’t Jamie probably smart to not get into a backyard fight?
After spending an entire season mouthing off in the house, then doing things like quit on his stool and back down from a fight, does Jamie remind anyone else of John Bender from “The Breakfast Club”?
Has there ever been a semifinalist on this show who has remained as anonymous as Josh?
Prior to their fight, did you notice that Kris and Josh’s dressing-room signs still said “Team Liddell vs. Team Ortiz,” as did the logo on the octagon floor?
Could Amir Sadollah and Frank Mir have talked any faster during the “Inside the Octagon” segment?
If you were on the fence about ordering the UFC’s online on-demand service, would you be willing to pull the trigger if you saw Dana shilling for it, sitting in a room with Bruce Lee art on the walls and wearing an unbuttoned shirt?
I’m not objecting to Kris getting the win, but two of those judges gave him a 30-27 decision?
Wasn’t it pretty funny when Rich claimed to be the first-ever undefeated coach on TUF?
A “greatest hits” episode of TUF next week? No thank you.
Mark Carpowich can be contacted at markcarpowich@hotmail.com.
