Tag: jon manley

mma

The Ultimate Fighter 16, Episode 11: Blame Canada!

Posted on by Beau Dure

Time for the showdown of friends and teammates — Jon Manley and Joey Rivera. They praise each other and hug. And Team Carwin thinks Team Nelson hasn’t bonded …

Colton Smith is cornering Manley. Cameron Diffley is cornering Rivera. Dana White is giddy. Denny’s is the sponsor. Herb Dean is the ref. They’re both 7-1. We haven’t heard anything from Julian Lane yet. This is exciting stuff.

After some standing exchanges, Manley rushes into Rivera and pushes him to the cage. Smith and Diffley keep up steady streams of positive reinforcement, like coaches who just walked out of a Positive Coaching Alliance workshop. (Hey, it’s a good program. Based on John Wooden’s ideals, so you can’t say it’s not old-school.)

Rivera reverses and gets a grip on a guillotine, but Manley reverses and finally gets the takedown. But somehow, he ends up in awful positions. The momentum swings back and forth like a table tennis referee’s eyes following the ball. (Sorry — I’ve seen that “bad high school analogies” meme maybe 10 times this week on Facebook.) Rivera gets Manley’s back and goes for the choke. Manley slips out and gets back on top. Rivera gets a triangle attempt. Manley escapes. Rivera goes for an armbar. Manley gets side control. That’s where Round 1 ends, and that probably means Manley took it 10-9.

In Round 2, Rivera spends the first 3:30 showing off his outstanding takedown defense. Manley finally gets the takedown and gets in side control. Somehow Rivera gets a triangle attempt. But Manley slips out.

Dana White recap: Rivera looked like he was on Xanax.

Jarman had it 19-19, but the other two judges correctly scored it 20-18 for Manley. Not a great fight — the friendship certainly played a factor. Manley, who has THE ONLY FINISH SO FAR THIS SEASON, is disappointed in his performance despite the win.

Then we go to the former best buds from Canada, Mike Ricci and Michael Hill, who start arguing in the house over something having to do with sauce being sabotaged. This leads to one of the dumbest trash-talk exchanges in TUF history.

Ricci: “You’ll get your chance.”

Hill: “You’ll get YOUR chance.”

Then we have an ad for the U.S. Marines, with Mike Ricci. Who’s Canadian. This is the most embarrassing moment for Canada since Bryan Adams released “Summer of ’69.”

Hill actually reminds us of a mulleted Bruce McCullough character from Kids in the Hall.

The fight starts with some modest fireworks, and Hill lands one or two decent shots. But when Ricci gets Hill to the ground, Hill’s defense sags. Ricci looks like he’s posturing up to try the Michael Scott “spit in Dwight’s mouth” technique, which is indeed illegal under the Unified Rules of MMA.

But instead, Ricci does a bit of damage. The horn sounds before he can do any significant work toward a submission.

In Round 2, Ricci gets it to the ground quickly and takes Hill’s back. Hill stands, but Ricci drapes himself on Hill’s back as they do the Pilobolus. They fall to the mat with Ricci punching away, and coach Roy Nelson is reduced to profanities. Hill manages to stand again, but Ricci gets a good solid grip on a rear naked choke and … loses it. Hill actually stands and lands a couple of consolation strikes before the horn sounds.

Judges couldn’t get it wrong if they tried. 20-18 x3 for Ricci.

Shane Carwin speaks for the first time in the episode. Don’t remember what he said. Dana White isn’t impressed with Hill’s ground game.

In the three remaining minutes, we get the semifinal pairings:

Jon Manley (Nelson) vs. Colton Smith (Nelson). Another buddy vs. buddy.
Mike Ricci (Carwin) vs. Neil Magny (Carwin)

On the next episode … the semifinals. And they say one thing is for sure — there will be a knockout. That means there’s another thing for sure — a semifinalist is getting the Knockout of the Season bonus, unless they give it for one of the prelims.

But before we leave, let’s forget about Ricci and Hill, remembering some of the many good things about Canada:

  • Sarah McLachlan
  • Rush
  • Whistler
  • Kids in the Hall
  • Toronto
  • Dwayne De Rosario
  • Christine Sinclair
  • Kara Lang
  • Health care
  • European candies not available in the USA
  • The CBC
  • Curling
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mma

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

Posted on by Beau Dure

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.

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