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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 on The Ultimate Fighter we saw the jocks Sevak Magakian and Marc Stevens go down to humiliating defeat against the nerds Johnathon Brookins and Cody McKinie.
Is team Koscheck going to match team Rampage's 1-6 start?
It's Dane Sayers versus Sako Chivitchian coming up next.
We start out with Koscheck trying to put lipstick on a pig of a season.
Then, we go to the fight announcement, which can be only one possibility (barring a training injury).
Sako "psycho" Chivitchian is universally regarded as the favorite to beat Dane Sayers. GSP even damns Dane with faint praise saying that he held off using Dane until the end so that Dane could get the maximal benefit of training.
On the wildcard side of things we find out that Spencer Paige (as speculated about last week) is too banged up to compete. He has a broken hand and has had surgery and is looking at three months of being in a cast.
A bunch of fighters then try to make the case that they should be in the wild card. Jeff brings up that Aaron "England" Wilkenson is banged up. England gets wind of this and confronts Jeff, implying that Jeff was only letting the alcohol talk for him.
Andy also makes his case, saying that he wants to prove that he is a better fighter than what they saw in his first round bout.
England says that he will be pissed if Jeff gets picked before him because Jeff chews tobacco and drinks all day which signifies that he doesn't want to fight.
We then get some character development with Dane. Dane is a native American who represents and is ready to throw hands to counter Sako's judo.
We then see Koscheck get heat with a 270+ pound African American medic. Why? Because Koscheck has no one else to pick on?
Josh, you fight in a weight class of 175 pounds for a reason. The reason is that if you fought some dude who weighs 270+ you would get squashed.
Sako has fought in the highest levels of the Judo world. He also was a party boy until he was nineteen when he got shot by a gang member. Now, he is serious about martial arts, just like his coach (cough cough).
Then we get the wrestlecrap segment of TUF, the coaches challenge. This time it is a baseball batting show down. Predictably, GSP, who has never played baseball before, doesn't do so hot.
It's fight time and we get some last minute character development and the guys get taped up. (Not that there is much character there to develop.)
The tale of the tape show that Dane is four years younger but has the same reach and height as Sako.
The first round is kind of comical. Dane, who is supposed to come out and throw fists, is surprised by the fact that Sako seems to like his game plan better than him. Sako comes out swinging and uses the strikes to get Dane against the fence. Sako also goes for a take down and gets caught in a guillotine, but weathers the storm to get into Dane's full guard. However, Dane also survives to make it back to his feet with minimal damage.
Sako probably takes the round because of the take down, but neither side did enough damage to feel comfortable.
The second round starts with Dane remembering his game plan of throwing hands. Unfortunately, Sako remembers his game plan of using his Judo to take Dane down. Sako controls most of the round with some classic "boring ass wrestling", staying in Dane's half guard and dropping elbows. Dane doesn't really get anything effective in, but at least lives to fight another day with minimal damage.
After the second round Dane is noticeably gassed and Sako is as fresh as a daisy.
To no ones surprise but Koscheck, the fight is over. All three judges score the fight 20-18 for Sako.
Michael Johnson correctly points out that Sako twice saved himself from being taken down by illegally grabbing the fence.
However, even if the cage grabbing had cost him a point, Sako would have still won 19-18.
We then get the wrangling for the wild card. Both GSP and Josh agree on Aaron "England" Wilkenson. Josh supports Mini-Josh and GSP supports Dane.
DW says that he needs the two best guys.
The decision is made and it will be England versus Aaron Stevens.
We then get some angry reaction shots from the fighters who were not picked.
Well, what did we expect? Dane did an okay job, but was never really in danger of beating Sako. And, you know that Josh was going to push hard for Mini-Josh.
I suspect though that England is going to embarrass Aaron with his boxing. But, I have been wrong before.
So, what does Chikara counter with on their Podcast-a-go-go? Well, since this week's UFC offering was mostly wrestling and jockeying for position on the fence, why not some Chikara style mat wrestling?
The first match sees a technico versus technico match with Lightning Mike Quackenbush taking on Green Ant from the show "We Must Eat Michigan's Brain". While the resilient rookie Green Ant does get to show some offense versus The Man of 1000 Holds, Mike is also resilient and eventually gets Green Ant in position for the dreaded submission hold, the Chikara Special. However, Green Ant blocks this, only to get hoisted in a surfboard variation that might not even have a name yet other than "I'd bet that hurts".
In the second match we have some tag team action as the Osirian Portal takes on the BDK team of Lince Dorado and Pink Ant (Pinkie Sanchez). In this match Ophidian, the venomous and vile serpent of the Nile, shows off some of his unique submission holds as the expense of Lince. However, to equalize this is Pink Ant's illegal tactics, like coming in to interfere without a tag and the ever popular Greco-Roman eye rake.
So, next week team Koscheck explodes with England versus Mini-Josh, and, as teased in the preview, Josh tries to pick a fist fight with the 270+ pound medic.
