Tag: julian lane

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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mma

The Ultimate Fighter, Season 16, Episode 4: Fix the scales!

Posted on by Beau Dure

Previously on The Ultimate Fighter: Bleeep … Bleeeeppp! …. Bleeeeeeepppp! And Joey Rivera shocked No. 1 pick Alvey.

Several seasons ago, Forrest Griffin flipped a coin to set up the matchups. Now, Roy Nelson has his team drawing straws. Final draft pick Julian Lane gets the short straw, and he’s so pumped that his Mohawk is shaking. He’s leaning toward picking Mike Secor because Secor has been a jerk in the house. But maybe Mike Ricci (can he take a punch?) or Bristol Marunde (reasons unclear).

Dana White takes the guys for a special premiere of Here Comes The Boom. Dana pitches the film as a funny film, not a tough-guy film. (Can’t it be both? I’ve got this screenplay …)

We get to see a few snippets, especially the slow-motion of Kevin James knocking former TUF coach Jason “Mayhem” Miller.

Everyone had fun, but it appears Roy Nelson had an issue with it.

Nelson’s worried that Lane isn’t fully prepared to go three rounds, thinking he gets sloppy when he’s gassed. Nelson tries to keep Lane motivated through some conditioning work: “If my fat butt can do this, I know you can.”

Fight selection time, and Nelson gives the fake-out, hinting that it’s going to be Mike (Secor? Ricci?) but taking Marunde instead. Marunde gives a long staredown, then tells Lane, “Big mistake.” Lane’s response: “Yeah, for you.” Wait … what? Marunde didn’t do anything, mistake or not. It’s like the old Brian Regan bit where the gate attendant says “Have a nice flight,” and Regan reflexively responds, “You too … if you go somewhere … sometime …”

Marunde talks about how awesome everything is with Team Carwin. Then he weighs himself and stares in disbelief … 186 pounds. Let’s get those 15 pounds off.

The weight cut starts in a hot tub. Then Marunde gets in a hoodie and a sleeping bag in the backyard. In Vegas. That’ll do it. We get a montage later that shows considerable amounts of sweat rolling out.

Over to Nelson’s team, and Roy is having a lot of trouble getting Lane to realize he can’t just let Marunde push him to the fence.

Then back to the weight-cut montage, including a nice torrent of sweat.

Weigh-in time, and Marunde makes it. Or does he? A couple of people on Nelson’s team think the beam on the scale was up. As in, “Dude, he’s heavier than that.”

Both Marunde and Lane say they’re fighting for a financial future for their young kids. Anyone else get really uncomfortable when fighters say that? You know, unemployment’s down. You can get steadier jobs. With health insurance, pending Congressional action in 2013.

Marunde seems like the better-grounded guy. He’s down to earth. And yet he comes across like an ’80s movie villain. He does know his ’80s films:

http://twitter.com/BristolMarunde/status/254410421476409344

Tale of the tape: Marunde’s taller, older, more experienced … how exactly is Lane going to win this? He starts out swinging wildly and then being taken … you guessed it … up against the cage.

After 90 seconds of nothing, Marunde opens enough distance to land some knees. They break, and we get a view of Lane’s absurdly tight shorts. Why isn’t he wearing TUF standard issue? Can’t we put a black bar over that? And why is he taking so many knees?

Lane does succeed once or twice is turning it into a wild brawl, and that’s where he could succeed. Marunde’s face is somehow turned into a bloody mess. And yet the round ends with Marunde on top of Lane, pounding his ribs.

Between rounds, we see two gashes on Marunde’s face — one on the bridge of the nose, one on his cheek. Lane opens with a solid head kick. Then he slips throwing a wild right hand from about 20 feet away. Marunder responds with a sharp leg kick and combo. To say Marunde is the more fundamentally sound fighter is like saying Neil Peart has better drum technique than Phil Rudd.

A couple of minutes in, Lane again throws long-range bombs. One or two somehow land. Marunde again presses Lane to the cage, but Lane circles. Marunde regains control. Nelson keeps calling for Lane to throw an inside leg kick.

Round 2 ends, and there’s clearly not enough time in the episode for a third. I’d guess Marunde won, but the blood could sway the judges, and each round was close. But it goes to Marunde.

THEN Nelson brings up the weight issue. “Do you want me to make sure the commissioner does HIS job?”

White is stunned. And he tells Nelson he should’ve brought it up at the weigh-in. Which is what Nelson was asking! 

Yet White exclaimed, “You can’t fix stupid.” No, but can you fix the scales?

Lane is in tears, dealing with the reckoning of letting down his family. Dude, CareerBuilder. Monster.com.

Next week: Lane seems mad again.

Worth noting: Nelson’s bottom two draft picks have fought. So have Carwin’s top two. So Carwin leads 2-1, but don’t bet on him holding that lead.

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