mma

The Ultimate Fighter 16, Episode 8: Lots of bark, a little bite

We recap last week’s fight, and Dana is still mad about the decision. But he’s also mad about the fights. If the judges suck, he says in roughly so many words, don’t let the fight go to a decision. And these fights have been d-u-l-l.

Last week’s winner, Michael Hill, and his coach, Roy Nelson, aren’t impressed with Dana’s bonus money of $5,000 for a finish. Hill says he didn’t come here to win $5,000 and break his hand.

Dana stops by the house to reinforce his message: “I’m here to tell you what you need to do to get in the UFC. You need to start fighting.” He warns that these guys won’t make the finale.

I’m giving this argument to Dana. The number of people who’ve gotten a few good UFC fights (including the finale) after an exciting run (winning or not) on The Ultimate Fighter is higher than the number of people who’ve snoozed their way through the show and won. Stephan Bonnar parlayed an exciting fight into a long UFC career and commentary gigs.

Mike Ricci, one of four guys who hasn’t fought yet, tells everyone not to let Dana ruin their focus. But Hill gets upset with himself and decides to hit the bottle. Several bottles, to be precise.

Hill starts telling Neil Magny he’s going to beat him in the next round. Magny finds that funny because Hill can’t beat him on the ground. Or standing. Or, presumably, suspended from wires. Or in zero gravity.

Dom Waters steps in to calm Hill down. But then Julian Lane, Hill’s drinking buddy, gets mad at Dom.

Just as Dom starts to remove his microphone, the sure sign of an impending fight in the house, we abruptly cut to commercial. And it’s the one in which the guy with a Mohawk — a bit more pronounced than Julian’s — struts around as he enters the cage before getting KO’d by the no-nonsense, NOS-drinking guy who vaguely resembles Georges St. Pierre.

Somebody — looks like Jon Manley? — gets in the middle trying to calm things down. “Won’t somebody help me?” he pleads. Colton Smith takes him up on it. Dom finally storms away, not saying a word but throwing and kicking things.

Colton tells Julian: “I’m not letting you do it.” Julian bangs the back of his head against the door and screams like he’s in an afterschool special about PCP.

Julian continues into an epic meltdown. Somewhere, Junie Browning is watching this and thinking, “Whoa, this dude makes me look like Nate Quarry.”

We check in with Julian the next morning. “I kind of feel like a jackass.” Dom is forgiving, figuring Julian will leave him alone the rest of the season.

But look at it this way: Dana White said he wanted to see more aggressive fights. Well, Lane is out of the tournament. So maybe he was trying to impress Dana with an aggressive fight against his own team’s top pick? Would that help?

But first, it’s the coaches’ challenge. Clearly, Dana picked this one specifically to embarrass the pudgy Roy Nelson. It’s track and field. And there may be nothing uglier in TUF history than Roy Nelson attempting to do the long jump.

Carwin isn’t bad at all. His shot put effort goes 46-3. He hits 120 feet with the javelin, which would rank third among Nevada high school athletes.

Nelson basically quit in the backstretch of the 400. Some Carwin fighters think it’s a big deal. So does Nelson fighter Nic Herron-Webb, the early agitator of the season who has been pretty quiet in recent weeks.

And … oh wait, we have a fight! James Chaney wears all black before a fight. Including a leather jacket. Even if it’s 120 degrees. Must be fun to do the day after a weight cut.

The fight stirs up an awesome irony. To Dana’s surprise and obvious delight, Chaney and Jon Manley come out swinging from the start. And it’s Carwin’s corner yelling that they don’t want that. Nelson, Mr. “Win First, Be Exciting Later,” is quieter.

Chaney pulls guard and gets a strong triangle attempt. Manley needs a minute and change to get out. But when he does, he lands in a great position and immediately gets a guillotine. He holds on for the brilliant finish, taking the bonus money for the finish and putting himself in position for Submission of the Season by default. So far, it might even be the Fight of the Season.

Except for one thing: Chaney sunk his teeth into his escape attempt. Literally. He bit Manley in an effort to get him to let go of the guillotine. I’d guess Dana won’t reward that. And the Colton Smith-Eddy Ellis bout wasn’t bad at all.

Next week, Shane Carwin hates the quarterfinal matchups so much that he almost shows emotion. Almost.

mma, olympic sports, winter sports

Monday Myriad: When figure skaters attack

The weekend in myriad sports …

Figure skating: If you like seeing Americans in fourth place, the Cup of China was the Grand Prix event for you! Mirai Nagasu, Adam Rippon and the ice dance duo of Madison Chock/Evan Bates all took fourth. Chock and Bates set a personal best with 149.54 points.

One surprise: Tatsuki Machida upset fellow Japanese skater Daisuke Takahashi.

And in warmups, this happened:

Ouch.

If you prefer your figure skating routines crash-free (more or less), see the rest of Universal Sports’ YouTube offerings.

Speedskating: The U.S. championships are complete, and the World Cup team will include a lot of familiar names — Shani Davis, Heather Richardson, Tucker Fredricks, Elli Ochowicz and more. Richardson won every distance at those championships.

MMA: The World Series of Fighting debut on NBC Sports Network (after an MLS playoff game) featured three quick knockouts (Andrei Arlovski, Anthony Johnson, newcomer Tyrone Spong) and one upset (Marlon Moraes over the increasingly indifferent Miguel Torres). Spong beat a guy with almost as much belly fat as I have.

Bellator also was knockout-heavy. Richard Hale advanced to the heavyweight final over winded opponent Thiago Santos, and Shahbulat Shamhalaev swarmed Mike Richman to advance to the featherweight final.

Up this week: U.S. women’s hockey in the Four Nations Cup.

olympic sports, winter sports

Myriad Questions for … Sarah Hendrickson, ski jumper

By Sarah Brunson / U.S. Ski Team

This is the first of a new series called Myriad Questions, in which we’ll try to ask athletes a few questions a little more candid than their official bios and a little less technical than the specialty sites. We’ll learn how athletes are just like us (school problems, travel issues, etc.) and not like us (climbing a rope upside-down, a pole vaulting exercise).

Up first is one of a handful of people who have shared a ski lift with me: Sarah Hendrickson, who featured in this 2009 USA TODAY story and video about women’s ski jumpers fighting to get into the Olympics. They’re finally going to the Olympics, and they finally have a World Cup circuit — which Hendrickson dominated in the debut season of 2011-12, winning nine of 13 events.

This season, she’ll be the defending World Cup champion AND a new high school graduate. Yeah, she’s that young.

She answered email while prepping for the new season and her last days of high school. Here goes …

What’s the biggest difference between World Cup competition and Continental Cup (the top competition for women before World Cup events started)?

Although the girl competitors are basically the same between the two circuits, there are definitely some major differences between the two. Obviously the media coverage with TV and reporters that are constantly at our WC’s and awesome for getting media coverage. As well as prize money, which is another bonus. As far as the first WC season and the difference between the COC seasons before, the level has gotten much high and the number of girls have also increased.

In back-to-back competitions on the same weekend in Hinterzarten, Germany, you finished ninth and first. What was the difference between the two?

The competition on day one in Hinterzarten was very weather-depending. The wind and snow played a huge role and I also didn’t jump that well technically. This happens in ski jumping and I wasn’t upset with that result.

You did some competitions outside the World Cup, including New Years Day in Calgary. What drew you there?

For New Years I had to go to Canada with the younger women’s team to qualify for World Jr. Championships based on Women Ski jumping USA standards/qualifications. It’s important to have the whole Jr. qualify at one competition so younger girls can see what they are pushing for to make the team in the future.

How did you end up doing commentary for Eurosport?

I was honored to do commentary for EuroSport after my win in Lillehammer and I honestly don’t know who asked me but it was an amazing opportunity.

You had surgery just as you went back to school. Was that aggravating?

Surgery was a huge priority this spring and although it was a bummer starting with school they understood. It was nice to have a distraction away from not training and could focus on school.

If Winter Sports School had a soccer team, would you crush everyone in the state?

It would be close to impossible to have a team but there are some talented kids that go here so it would be interesting!

How did the ACT go?

The ACT is hard and I wish I had more time to study for it. I have never been good at test taking so I struggled but truthfully I am happy it is over.

What’s your top college choice?

Since I am on the (U.S. Ski Team), Westminster is my top college pick followed by U of U.

How do you possibly have time to use Pinterest?

I love love love Pinterest! I love cooking so my main search is the food and drink!

What’s your favorite jumping hill?

My favorite hill is Lillehammer’s large hill. I have not jumped it in a few years but I have my personal record on it along with some other good memories on it

Worst travel experience?

A couple years ago we had to fly to Japan but tickets were cheaper to fly via Europe. To say the least it took about 3 days to get there since our first flight out was delayed! After sleeping in many airports and long van rides we finally made it without bags. I love Japan but it’s a long travel day(s).

If you could build a ski jump facility anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Somewhere in South America! Although this is a winter sport I don’t love the cold so a tropical location would be a nice training summer hill!

Follow Sarah Hendrickson on Twitter at @schendrickson

mma, soccer

The EPL, the UFC and musical chairs on cable

NBC’s purchase of Premier League rights will affect your viewing habits even if you care about nothing but MMA and don’t even know what a “Premier League” is.

Fox has never hesitated to spend money on sports. The network vaulted into respectability when it landed NFL rights nearly 20 years ago. They let the NHL slip away after a few years, but they have aggressively bought rights to everything else in sight.

In 2011, Fox made two more big moves. The deal with the UFC took them in a new direction. The rights to men’s and women’s World Cups from 2015 to 2022 were a perfect fit for the soccer-happy company in the same corporate umbrella as Britain’s Sky Sports.

And Fox started revving up its cable affiliates. Fuel, formerly an obscure action-sports network, got a steady stream of UFC programming. Fox Soccer, formerly the esoteric Fox Sports World, built itself up as the channel of choice for international soccer, adding the World Cup rights to its audacious swipe of the Champions League a couple of years ago. The question mark was Speed, the motorsports channel that had lost Formula One rights to NBC but still had plenty of NASCAR programming.

Now Fox has another question mark. Fox Soccer’s programming is essentially Premier League, more Premier League, and Champions League. Without the Premier League, can Fox justify keeping an all-soccer network along with its all-motorsports network and an MMA/action sports network?

If I were running Fox, I’d combine Speed and Fuel into a motorsports/action sports channel, then rebrand Fox Soccer as Fox Sports, which would still be the source for Champions League and other soccer but would also be the home for any UFC action aside from the occasional show on Fox (the full-fledged Fox, the one with The Simpsons and so forth).

That would solve a recurring complaint about UFC fans — network confusion. One week, it’s a UFC pay-per-view with prelims on FX. Then it’s UFC on FX, with prelims on Fuel. Then UFC on Fuel. (And Spike thinks MMA fans still think everything is airing on Spike, and they won’t notice when it becomes Bellator instead of UFC reruns next year.)

But with Fox’s history of aggressive bidding, perhaps they keep Fuel and Speed as is, then buy more properties for Fox Soccer or Fox Sports or whatever they want to call it. Maybe they’ll actually show some of the rugby they currently hold over for Fox Soccer Plus.

Meanwhile, NBC has become a soccer and international sports fan’s dream — Olympics, Premier League, MLS, cycling, Formula One, etc. They also have the sporadically available Universal Sports.

Oh — and the World Series of Fighting, debuting right now.

Exciting times for the sports we love at Sports Myriad, even if we’re wearing out the “Guide” function on our remotes just trying to keep up with it all.

cycling

Lance Armstrong and the truth-tellers … well, sort of

The NYT has a curious piece hailing the independent media as the sole source of truth in the years before Lance Armstrong was buried under 1,000 pages of U.S. Anti-Doping Agency evidence.

Nice shoutout to NYVelocity.com, home of the ever-classic Tour day Schmalz, but it’s a little unfair to split the cycling media into “brave, truth-telling, low-profile underdogs” and “those who were unwilling or simply scared to tell the truth.” (Or even worse, “enablers.”)

The issue: For journalists to print doping allegations, they have to have something called “evidence.”

The main reason we wait for evidence: It’s simply ethical to do so. The other reason is one I supposed you could file under “scared,” but legitimately so: Lance Armstrong wasn’t just suing his critics over the years. He was winning.

Satire, such as NYVelocity’s inside joke-heavy “Toto” cartoons, has broader protection. And in a lot of cases, satire is better able to tell the truth than the “media.” Just go back a couple of years to the classic Onion story “Lance Armstrong Wants To Tell Nation Something But Nation Has To Promise Not To Get Mad.”

Sure, a few people pursued the Armstrong case when it wasn’t cool to do so. A lot of people in the cycling community owe Betsy Andreu an apology. But “enablers”? That’s a little harsh. And unfair.

soccer

Sermanni makes good impression in first U.S. call

New U.S. women’s soccer coach Tom Sermanni didn’t break out into song. Nor did he start calling out rival soccer coaches.

Instead, Sermanni came across as a level-headed guy who seems to appreciate the complexities of his new job without rushing to judgment on how he wants to proceed.

He wants to play a positive, attacking style, continuing the efforts Pia Sundhage made to eliminate “kickball” (in the words of Mark Ziegler).

“The game’s changing at a rapid pace,” he said in response to Brian Straus’s question about whether he needed to overhaul the team or just keep a steady hand on the helm of the fastest boat in the fleet. In other words, Sermanni knows every team, no matter how good, will have to evolve.

And he’s going to keep an open mind about the player pool. Asked about integrating young players, Sermanni said he wants to have greater competition not just from the U-20s on their way up but players already IN their 20s. If you have a particular favorite from WPS who never got much of a chance under Pia, that has to be heartwarming.

But he hastened to say he hasn’t made any decisions yet. He doesn’t know if he’ll start a drastically different side in his first home friendly. He’s not rushing to push out Shannon Boxx or Christie Rampone, saying he’s not going to make decisions based on “chronological age.”

Basically, he managed to come across as open-minded without being ignorant. Impressive.

We’ll see how long of a honeymoon period he gets — my guess is it’ll tough for him to pick a roster that offends no one on Twitter — but he came across quite well in this first impression. Friendly, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and sincere.

Too bad women’s soccer doesn’t have a major offyear tournament. (Copa America for whole Western Hemisphere would be fun.)

soccer

U.S. Soccer chooses Sermanni, not symbol, as women’s coach

Tom Sermanni is, on paper, the most impressive candidate the U.S. women’s soccer team has ever had as head coach.

The U.S. women have never had an experienced international coach on the bench. After Anson Dorrance stepped down, the USA has had a steady succession of assistant coaches moving up — Tony DiCicco, April Heinrichs and Greg Ryan. That line of succession ended with Pia Sundhage, a head coach at youth national level in Sweden and a club coach with the Boston Breakers (WUSA version) and KIF Orebro in Sweden. (And, like Sundhage, Sermanni was a WUSA head coach.)

Sermanni was Australia’s head coach from 1994 to 1997, then again for the past eight years. That includes two World Cup quarterfinal appearances with a perpetually young team. As Julie Foudy put it:

Foudy also has tweeted plenty of compliments about Sermanni — “GRT coach and GRT human being” — and she elaborated by email: “I have known him for many years and think he is a great coach. And that he is a player’s manager type of coach. But is a strong personality who can also “crack the whip” (quote from many of current players) as many of the current players want.”

ESPN’s Adrian Healey had an interesting thought on how Sermanni might be able to deal with the large personalities on the U.S. squad:

Most other folks in the women’s soccer community seem happy with the hire. Then there’s Philip Hersh, veteran Olympic sports journalist for the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. His take:

That led to a few arguments with people in the WoSo community, such as our good friend-in-blogging Jenna Pel. But he stuck to it.

Hersh echoes Christine Brennan’s recent thoughts on the matter, though Brennan took more of a long-term view:

In a nation of 314 million people, with millions of girls and women playing or having played soccer, if not one of them is deemed good enough to lead the U.S. women’s national team in 2012, isn’t that a terrible indictment of the feeder system for girls and women in leadership positions in the game?

That’s a legitimate long-term question. That said, U.S. Soccer has now placed women — April Heinrichs and Jill Ellis — in charge of that very feeder system. Heinrichs, Ellis and Carin Gabarra are in charge of a sprawling effort to develop women’s soccer from the youth level up, with full-time youth national coaches on the way. They’re setting the tone for U.S. women’s soccer for years or decades to come.

Sermanni should fit well with both the long-term and short-term vision. He surely gets the long-term goal of developing players with breathtaking skill with ball at their feet. But, like Pia Sundhage, he surely understands that a team with the world’s best target forward (Abby Wambach) should make sure she gets a few chances to get her head on the ball in the box. (Hey, crossing like Megan Rapinoe is a skill, too.)

As for the importance of having a woman on the sideline in 2013 and beyond, I’d have to defer to those whose words and deeds carry a bit more weight. There’s Foudy, who isn’t exactly a Title IX opponent. Then there’s Mia Hamm and Danielle Slaton, half of the coaching search committee.

The concerns about developing women’s coaching talent in the long term are legit. But for now, there’s one symbol far more important — the USA’s first World Cup trophy since 1999. (No pressure or anything …)

olympic sports, winter sports

Monday Myriad: Ligety Ligety Ligety

Let’s rush out this wrapup before the power runs out:

Alpine skiing: The time it takes you to read this sentence is Ted Ligety’s margin of victory (2.75 seconds) in the season-opening World Cup giant slalom on the big glacier in Solden, Austria, the traditional opener of the World Cup season in which fans celebrate the first snows of the Alps, putting away for a moment their concerns about the state of the climate and the European economy, which continues to be plagued by crippling debt in a few countries while Germany, a traditional power in winter sports, ponders the fate of the Euro, which has never been fully supported in some portions of the British aristocracy, which was also concerned that Lindsey Vonn missed a gate and didn’t finish the opening women’s race, along with Julia Mancuso, whose mishap you can read about here.

Figure skating: Spain’s Javier Fernandez upset Canada’s Patrick Chan to win Skate Canada. Depending on your point of view, that’s either an inspiring first Grand Prix win for Spain or signs of trouble with one of Canada’s star athletes. American Ross Miner bounced back after a rough short program to finish fifth.

Better news for Canadian women: Kaetlyn Osmond edged Japan’s Akiko Suzuki by 1.29 points to win. Americans Gracie Gold and Caroline Zhang were seventh and ninth.

The U.S. pairs were the last two. The USA’s Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donahue were fifth in the ice dance, predictably won by Canadian greats Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.

But if you want to look ahead to the Big Ice Dance Throwdown and compare scores, Virtue/Moir won Skate Canada with 169.41; the USA’s Meryl Davis and Charlie White won Skate America with 176.28.

Short-track speedskating: J.R. Celski was second in the 1,500 meters and fourth in the 1,000, and the U.S. men finished third in the relay in an otherwise dreary World Cup weekend for American skaters in Montreal.

Bobsled/luge/skeleton: Wikipedia currently lists 17 current sliding tracks in the world, with two more planned. It’s about to be 16. The Torino 2006 track will be dismantled.

Oh, it was scheduled to host a World Cup luge stop in December? Too bad.

Shooting: Jason Parker won the World Cup Final in men’s three-position.

Beach volleyball: Jen Kessy and April Ross won in Thailand.

 

mma

The Ultimate Fighter, Episode 7: The worst fight in TUF history?

We’ve seen a bunch of decisions so far this season, two of them questionable. And we’re promised more controversy tonight. It’ll be hard to top tonight’s Bellator card on that front. Yeesh.

Roy Nelson’s team has control again. And again, he does it randomly, this time using the “Pick a number between 1 and 20” philosophy. The winner is Nelson’s top pick, Dom waters. But Waters wants Nelson to pick his opponent. Nelson doesn’t wanna. So Waters passes, and Michael Hill gets it.

And that’s how Michael Hill won the “Please Let Someone Beat The Crap Out of Matt Secor” sweepstakes.

Shane Carwin admits he has wanted to see this fight as well. Hill annoys Secor by walking around with his shirt off. (Note to Secor: Don’t go to the beach.) Secor annoys Hill by talking crap. So Carwin thinks this fight will “at least see one of them shut up.”

And … hey! We get to see one of Nelson’s assistants! It’s TUF 1 winner and former TUF coach Forrest Griffin. Has he always had that much hair on his chest? Forget Hill — maybe Griffin’s the one who should put a shirt on.

“You guys are like (bleep) robots.” Griffin says. Laughter. “Not good.” Oh.

Now we meet Secor, who was in the 82nd Airbone. Fort Bragg in the house! His brother was killed in Iraq. Then a little bit of training/trash-talk advice, and then we hear Secor telling the story of how his father died. It gets a little graphic. I’m not going into detail.

Then we get two straight ads for horror TV shows or films, which reminds me that I want to make a “found footage” film with a happy ending.

On fight day, Michael Hill makes eggs. He likes fighting. Secor is like the pet dog of the house, barking all the time.

Secor says for the second time this episode that he likes Michael Hill and thinks he’s a good kid, but … something about blonde hair and tattoos. Has Secor ever seen a UFC show?

“If you can only knock somebody out, that a $1.75 will buy you a cup of coffee.” Then he says something about having two hearts, which is either a symbolic shoutout to his relatives or a strange Dr. Who reference.

This episode is moving quickly, and we all know what that means — three-round fight! Right!

And Hill should be the overwhelming favorite, but we’ve been promised a shocker.

Ref Josh Rosenthal is sporting facial hair now, and we’re off.

Nothing’s happening …. nothing’s happening … finally, after two minutes, Secor tries a kick. Hill grabs the leg and dumps him. Secor grabs Hill’s head and tries to work his leg up for a triangle. Hill slowly works his head free and lands short punches while Secor lands even shorter punches. Hill makes a big effort to get out of guard but can’t do it. Secor gets a few warnings about hitting the back of the head with his two-inch punches. Rosenthal stands them up late in the round. 10-9 Hill in a snoozer.

Round 2. They touch gloves. Secor looks remarkably uncomfortable on his feet. He shoots for the takedown, but Hill ends up on top in side control. Then more of a north/south position. Secor finally gets a bodylock and takes Hill to the cage, then down. Secor advances as Nelson yells, “Danger, Mike! Danger!” And it certainly is — Secor gets a good grip on a rear naked choke. He lose it but gets both hooks in. Hill is bleeding from the nose and breathing heavily. But he’s defending well, keeping Secor’s arms off his neck. Secor settles for some rudimentary pounding. As the round ends, Secor yells something like, “Was I supposed to be up? Get the (bleep) out of here!” What?

For once, we don’t get a 10-8 round. It’s the ill-named sudden-victory round again.

Round 3, gloves touch, and we’re not doing much for the first minute. But Hill tries a spinning back fist, Secor grabs him, and Hill lands in Secor’s guard. This time, Hill, has a clearer path to lands punches and elbows to Secor’s face. Then he works his way out, and Secor tosses an acrobatic upkick to get up.

Then comes the sloppiest takedown defense in TUF history, and Secor easily deposits Hill on his back. Hill rolls but gives up his back. Secor gets the body triangle, lying on his back with Hill on top of him. But Secor gets nowhere near the rear naked choke, and Hill gets control of his arm. Hill can’t quite escape, and they end up in the same position, Hill lying with his back on top of Secor. Hill flings some big punches over his shoulder to pop Secor a few times before the fight ends.

So do you give the third round to the guy who got a takedown and did a tiny amount of ground-and-pound, or do you give it to the guy who got a takedown and a good position but did nothing with it?

And what’s the shocking ending? A draw with neither guy advancing?

Dana White has a pained expression as he walks in with the decision. They do a fight recap first, and White says the first round was one of the (bleep) in show history. In the third round highlights: “This isn’t (bleep) summer camp!”

Michael Hill wins the split decision. Dana’s pissed. He says the Nevada commission should be embarrassed. Nah. Just the fighters.

But Hill and Secor seems to respect each other now. That’s nice.

In the next episode, White visits the house to tell the fighters how underwhelming they’ve been in the fights this season: “If you want to fight in the finale, (bleep) turn it up a notch.” And it looks like Dom, who has been remarkably quiet, smashes something. And Julian, strangely silent in this episode, needs everything short of a Taser to restrain him.