THE FUN HOUSE MIRROR EPISODE 31
By Craig Roll on 9/26/2010 4:10 AM
Welcome back to the Fun House Mirror, the column that looks at an MMA show that has the feel of an old school territory professional wrestling show and a United States company that wants to put out a Lucha Libre influenced product.
Last week we had a colorful crew of under 155 pound fighters fight their way into the house.
Could this crew take on the Mini's? I think some of them might have trouble against Mascarita Dorada.
So, who will wind up on which team? Who will be the number one picks? Who will be the last pick? VTR come on!
We are first treated to a pre-barbarian invasion view of the grandeur of the fighters house, a grandeur that almost certainly will be tarnished by the end of the season.
We then get some character development on Jeffery Lentz. Jeff boasts of being a never say quit kind of guy who would never submit even in an arm bar or a choke. On the other hand, this Jersey Shore kind of guy should consider tapping out to his cigarettes and drinking habit.
Bruce LeRoy on the other hand has the vices of telling tall stories and playing harmonica.
We then get the coach's actually working on their strategy for their picks. Koscheck has everyone ranked 1-14 with Michael Johnson at number one.
GSP not only has his list, but also has a fake list that he thinks he can use to get Koscheck to waste his picks on inferior fighters.
Koscheck wins the flip and chooses to pick the first fighter, which means that GSP will choose the first matchup.
Koscheck falls for the bait and chooses Marc Stephens. Which, really isn't that bad a pick considering that he TKO-ed out his first opponent in thirteen seconds.
GSP on the other hand is gloating all the way to the bank by picking Michael Johnson.
The picks:
Team Koscheck Team GSP
(1) Marc Stevens (7-2) (1) Michael Johnson (8-4)
(2) Sevak Magakian (8-3) (2) Johnathon Brookins (11-2)
(3) Sako Chivitchian (5-0) (3) Spencer Paige (7-2)
(4) Andy Main (4-1) (4) Alex "Bruce LeRoy" Caceres (4-2)
(5) Nam Phan (16-7) (5) Kyle Watson (13-6-1)
(6) Aaron Wilkenson (6-3) (6) Cody McKinie (10-0)
(7) Jeffery Lentz (6-1) (7) Dane Sayers (7-1)
So, Dane's suspect cardio and sloppy looking sleeper hold lands him the last pick, while Jeff's impressive win but suspect attitude lands him next to last.
Lots of "boring ass wrestlers" near the top pick. Oh, and in case I forgot to mention, "boring ass wrestler" was a term used by Chris Lebon to describe none other than Josh Koscheck.
And, off to the training. GSP let's us know that he's going to let his coach, Greg Jackson, coach the team and he will be a training partner. Well, just so long as he doesn't stretch the boys in the basement like Stu Hart.
Assistant Coach John Danaher is an ideas man. He looks a little like the late Jack Brisco.
We then get Team Koscheck's training session. Koscheck's head coach is Bob Cook. Teddy Lucio is an assistant who looks like a grizzled older boxing trainer for training people in boxing. Daniel Cormier, an Olympic Wrestler is there to coach wrestling.
It's time for GSP to pick the first fight. Will GSP go the traditional route and have Michael Johnson take on Jeffery Lentz, or will he go for the Matt Hughes route and have someone try to take out Koscheck's boy Marc Stevens?
But, no! GSP must be trying to pop a rating because he goes for his personality man Alex Caceres to take on Jeffery Lentz. So, it is the battle of the class clowns to kick off the season.
But, before that can happen, we have LeRoy and Dane sparring with gloves outside at the house. However, they are obviously not trying to hurt each other. Jeff watches and smokes and says that Bruce's technique looks good but is of no value.
It's fight day and Bruce is styling and profiling in a Ranama 1/2 Chinese peasant shirt. Jeff on the other hand has so far gone through three packs on camera and who knows how many off camera.
And, it's time for a rumble! The tale of the tape is even except for the records.
The first round is pretty boring as Jeff pushes Bruce against the cage and tries to maul him there for most of the round. Jeff also gets a surprise take down at the end of the round so Jeff probably wins the first round.
In the second round Jeff again pretty much has his way with Alex. Then Alex gets a take down but gets reversed. Jeff winds up in full guard. Alex goes for the slow set up for triangle choke and Jeff helps him by giving Alex a body slam. Once sunk in, the smack talking, chain smoking, Mister "I would never tap", taps quickly.
"You tapped out! You tapped out!"
All and all, not that bad a fight for Alex as his take down defense was good and he didn't get mauled by strikes. However, I think I might have seen this same fight several times so far on TUF where a guy on the bottom in full guard takes forever to set up a triangle choke and has his opponent ignore it until it is too late.
So, what can Chikara do to fight back against the yellow and black attack of Bruce LeRoy?
Well, as we point and click on the YouTube hosted Pod Cast-A-Go-Go, we pick up coverage of the tag team tournament from day three of King of Trios. It is a gauntlet match with the winner getting a shot at the CHIKARA Campeonatos de Parejas. We pick up action in the middle and it's Team Green versus the Unstable, Dragon Dragon and Super Turtle versus Stigma and Vin Gerard.
Dragon Dragon (some guy in a full length Barney/Dragon outfit) gets most of his stuff in (a dragon screw leg whip, dragon suplex, and dragon sleeper) on Stigma but in the end is forced to tap out to Gerard applying a STF to his tail.
Dave Meltzer is probably not talking about guys tapping out to hold applied to a part of their costume not attached to their body this week. Just saying!
The other clip is the conclusion of the Gauntlet where Daizee Haze and Sara Del Rey of the BDK take on Incoherence (Hallowicked and Frightmare). The BDK brutalize Frightmare, but their pinning attempt is broken up by Hallowicked. Sara goes to the top rope but is caught with a running jumping knee to the side of the head. Hallowicked then pins Daizee with the Sky High (Rydeen Bomb).
So, in short, a pretty good week. Even though the first quarter final match was kind of dull, we at least had some entertaining stuff leading up to it, and while the action on the Podcast wasn't blow away amazing, we at least got to see a lizard wrestle.
