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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 The Ultimate Fighter gave us a fight with a strong story line and logical action from start to finish. And, they're not even a worked sport! What will this week bring?
VTR come on!
We start with 0-3 coach Koscheck talking up his coaching system and saying that if the people follow the coaching system that they will win.
UFC Welterweight contender Jon Fitch is brought in by Koscheck to guest coach. Fitch has a commercial look, but a welterweight would look pretty small in a wrestling ring.
Alex Caceres continues his de-evolution into being Jamie Yagar from the previous season. However, unlike Jamie, Alex does not have a natural posse backing him up, so pranking people indiscriminately might get him shot on for real.
Alex puts bleach in Nam Phan's fabric softener, not realizing that Nam had given Michael Johnson permission to share his fabric softener. This upsets Johnson to no end. You don't mess with a brother's threads.
GSP brings into kick boxing coach Jean Charles Skarbowsky, but warns his team that they should not test this guy because Jean would not hesitate to knock your head off. Jean is kind of a weird looking guy, so it is plausible that people would not be intimidated by him when they should be.
We also find out that Jean is not straight edge and that he will get wasted on alcohol before practice and then lay waste to who ever he wants to during practice. GSP doesn't want his students to emulate this lifestyle which Jean picked up in Thailand.
Jean proceeds to stiff the entire GSP team while wasted, which gets him much respect.
It's time for the pick! My prediction would be Johnathon Brookins (11-2) versus Nam Phan (16-7), but what do I know? I don't have access to the fighters biorhythm charts.
I get it half right. It's number three pick Spencer Paige (7-2) to go against Nam. Maybe Brookins has a cold?
Nam predicts that the two of them will bang it out until one of them falls.
Spencer is confused by Nam's unwillingness to make eye contact after the announcement.
We learn that Nam is very dedicated to cardio and runs an hour a day. We also learn that Spencer and Cody have hard shins from their kick boxing backgrounds.
Josh and Cody then talk some smack in between practices. This doesn't quite have the vibe of Quinton "Rampage" Jackson picking on Darrill "Titties" Schoonover because Koscheck is larger than Cody.
Team Koscheck then gets a run in from Josh's old Ultimate Fighter coach Chuck Liddell, who looks like he just in a brutal fight (but I wouldn't want to see the condition of Chuck's opponent).
This was right after the Rich Franklin fight where Chuck was knocked out but Rich walked out of the fight with a broken arm.
Chuck says that it would be the hardest thing in the world for him to walk away from fighting, but if he has to he will. On the other hand, we would always want to come back to get a chance to smash the face of Tito Ortis.
At the weigh ins, Josh continues his out of the closet behavior taunting GSP to French kiss him. Seriously!
It's time for the fight. They show Nam back stage and HOLY CRAP! What the heck happened? The nice unassuming college guy now looks like a psycho killer.
The tale of the tape shows that Spencer is three years younger and has a height and reach advantage.
The first round is all 155 lb style action. Spencer throws some three hundred kicks at Nam who is content to stay with boxing. Finally with about a minute left Nam catches a kick and trips Spencer to the ground. Nam then tries to pound out Spencer from the top, but Spencer continues to counter with kicks. Nam then gets side control and locks in a SICK looking Kimura arm lock but Spencer does not give it up as the horn sounds.
But, has the damage been done? Will Spencer even be able to answer the bell?
Spencer seems to be able to go in the second round but he is clearly slowed by the punishment at the end of the first round. Nam pretty much picks him apart with his boxing in the second round which ends without a take down.
We then find out that Spencer has hurt his hand in the second round so was not really able to amount much effective offense.
Unsurprisingly Nam is declared the winner of the fight after two rounds. Moral of the story, don't mess with the Asian kids.
After the fight Team Koscheck show their maturity by banging on the locker room walls.
Next week promises less talk and more rock as two fights are scheduled. Since Koscheck has control of the picks, I can see the next fight being Marc Stevens (7-2) versus Dane Sayers (7-1).
How does Chickara counter this? With more Atomicos action!
On the podcast-a-go-go this week we get action from Aniversario Elf from Union City, NJ where Mike Quackenbush, Jigsaw, Dasher Hatfield, and Sugar Dunkerton take on the BDK's Sara Del Rey, Daizee Haze, Pink Ant, and Tursas. The story of this match is that Sugar Dunkerton was upset at Daizee punking him out on the previous card. Here he gets his revenge with a fireman's carry into a Falcon's Arrow.
The second match is a chop-a-thon between the current Young Lion's cup holder Tim Donst and Soldier Ant. Soldier Ant pulls Tim's t-shirt over his head to restrict his movement and to get in a series of clean shots. However, Donst shows his resourcefulness by escaping and early try for a Chikara Special and a Saluting Roaring Elbow.
So this week the action goes to The Ultimate Fighter for Nam's flurry at the end of Round 1. Will the two matches of next week be full of action or "boring ass wrestling"? We shall see.
