mma

The Ultimate Fighter 16, Episode 11: Blame Canada!

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
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.