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By: Jason Bent, MMATorch Columnist This week’s episode was not the one you would use to show others why you love "The Ultimate Fighter" so much. In fact, showing others this particular episode would probably do you more harm in their eyes than good. Think of having a young lady over to your place for the first time and snuggling up to watch a movie and then imagine that movie as being "Freddy Got Fingered" starring Tom Green.
Well, this week’s edition of "TUF" definitely belongs in the same category as the aforementioned film and could have sent any guests packing in the same manner. This was "16 Fighters, 1 Fruit Tray" which is probably MMA’s answer to “2 Girls, 1 Cup” as yet another thing most would not ever want to watch; at least not while having dinner.
We begin with learning that Team Nogueira has been feasting on Tom Lawlor’s fruit trays and that this has become an ongoing thing. At this point, as soon as your name is placed on an item of food it is a sure bet that someone else will want to eat it if only to piss you off. I look back on season 6 when Mac Danzig’s vegan food was getting eaten and that showed me enough right then and there.
You put hummus into a fraternity fridge and no one will eat it; slap someone’s name on it and others will be in line with chips to dip into it. Same goes for food on this show and this season it is Tom Lawlor who is the first to fall victim to food theft. Fighters from Team Nogueira were treating themselves to the fresh fruit and even feeding each other grapes while declaring how delicious the fruit tasted.
Tom Lawlor has officially had enough and decides to take matters into his own hands; or at least one hand to make certain that the next tray will be a juicier one. Lawlor unwraps his own fruit tray and pisses into it, while a few of his teammates look on in disbelief, while letting it be known that they wouldn’t mind joining in as they too could empty their bladders.
Four men proceeded to fill this fruit tray with their urine and Shane Nelson would let us know that the fruit was sufficiently soaked by saying, "it’s like two inches of piss in the bottom" which seemed to be the stopping point. I imagine this is like two scoops of raisins in Raisin Bran and that any more urine would simply be too much and could drastically affect the natural fruit flavors.
Nelson’s declaration by the way may or may not have been one of the rejected slogans for Dannon Yogurt as the ad executives determined that fruit on the bottom would be much more appealing. At any rate, it was time to cover this tray over and place it back inside of the refrigerator and wait to see who would actually eat it.
Before we get back to the fruit it was time to pick the next fight and Team Mir had control and would select the next bout. Frank Mir would select Dave Kaplan to take on Team Nogueira’s first pick in Phillipe Nover, and of the remaining lightweights this was definitely an odd decision for Mir, but one I respect. In Mir’s opinion Kaplan belonged at the top of the list in terms of lightweights on the show, and in that respect it doesn’t make his choice to match him up with Nover so much of a bad decision at all.
Nogueira definitely felt that Mir made a poor choice as he intimated that this was going to be a very hard fight for Kaplan. Kaplan understood the challenge which was before him and made no bones about ranking Nover as the toughest member of Team Nogueira. This one seemed to have the makings of a pretty good fight or at least could serve as a showcase for one of the two men.
We are taken back to the house and are treated to the joys of seeing Team Nogueira fighters raiding the refrigerator for Tom Lawlor’s special fruit tray. Ryan Bader, Phillipe Nover and Kyle Kingsbury ravaged this fruit tray as if they had not seen food in days and all were slurping with delight while dining on the soaked fruit. This was like a 1980’s Folger’s commercial, except this time the "Folger’s Switch" was not quite as well received, and it was Dave Kaplan letting them know that they had been dining on a special blend of fruit on this day.
Oddly enough, Ryan Bader smiled. Either the fruit tasted so delicious that he didn’t believe Kaplan or he really enjoys urine and the fruit actually tasted better, but this guy didn’t budge. This was made even more curious by Bader’s statement of "we were wondering why it was such a juicy fruit platter" as he continued to stare forward with that smile once more.
In the meantime it was Phillipe Nover who proceeded to vomit and I was just waiting for him to faint for a second time as he really turned three or four shades of green while trying to rid his body of the foul fruit. Bader also vomited but in his case it truly seemed as if he felt he ought to or would risk being questioned for not having this bother him. As for someone who was not bothered by the urine it was Kyle Kingsbury who declared that he did not care and I for one believe him.
Although in a way I have to question that belief as it is hard to fathom that someone would remain so happy-go-lucky after gargling urine and grapes. Even Mikey from the Life cereal advertising campaign would have probably pushed the bowl away and opted not to keep eating after being told that his cereal was drenched in piss. Perhaps this would have provoked Mikey to shut himself in his room and off from the world for a few years and then plot to kill those nasty neighborhood kids who always seemed to enjoy watching him gorge himself on food.
Mikey didn’t speak but I for one do not believe he really liked that damned cereal; I believe he liked the attention from his friends and the feeling of acceptance and this is why he ate whatever they put in front of him. As for Kingsbury, I have to believe that he didn’t care but I found this to be disgusting. He should have at least feigned some anger and maybe poured a shot of booze to simply get the taste out of his mouth.
Kyle didn’t get mad at all and even said that the fruit tray may have “tasted better than normal” which led me to wonder if Junie Browning was one of the fighters who urinated into the tray. Junie’s piss is probably at least 80 proof and he may have made this fruit tray seem like someone poured a bottle of vodka into a watermelon and then sliced it up for the gang. This could also go a long way towards explaining Bader’s everlasting smile.
Team Nogueira didn’t even have to look long for a way to get even as the opportunity presented itself so quickly that it led me to wonder if the production team of Spike TV chimed in with ideas of their very own. Phillipe Nover’s sushi was missing, and this sent him over the edge as the normally calm Phillipe raised his voice and seemed to actually get angry for once.
I imagine there is nothing worse than eating someone else’s urine, puking and then finding out that your dinner is missing. It turned out that Nover’s upcoming opponent was the one who had been eating his sushi. That’s right, Dave Kaplan is the sushi thief! Before we can even get to the fight between the two men we had another issue to settle and that was how best to handle the matter of the sushi thief.
Dave Kaplan can thank his teammate Tom Lawlor for giving these guys an idea as the whole pissing into his own fruit tray served as the impetus for Team Nogueira deciding to take care of matters in a similar fashion. Similar in that they were going to ruin their own food but much, much worse in how they would go about it.
Kyle Kingsbury decided that they should "spunk" on the sushi and everyone looked at him as if he had just made an off-color joke at a children’s hospital before suddenly making sure it was ok to agree with him. Once it didn’t seem so offensive, it seemed as if this would be their way to get revenge on Team Mir for the pissing of the fruit.
At this point we were treated to a little clip of Team Mir training in the gym and the focus was firmly on Junie Browning. Junie apparently is mad because no one wants to roll with him and he is going off in such a manner that you wonder if they brought along a few bottles from the house to the training center. The way Junie stomps off of the mats and begins to fling things around is absurd when you take into account that you have just watched men eat urine and not even be phased by this. Frank Mir writes it off as saying that, “Junie had a little fit” and that he pretty much just keeps his distance during this little tantrums until they pass.
From Junie’s perspective it appears that no one wants to work with him and he even declares that he would like to switch teams if only to maybe find some more suitable training partners. From his teammates’ perspective it seems as if Junie simply gets frustrated by failures in training and rather than stick around to learn how he can become a better fighter, he would rather stomp off and sulk.
In my opinion it is probably a little bit of both and I think that Junie just may be too much of a high motor guy for his teammates to deal with. Browning is a perfectionist and can rarely handle being wrong so it is believable that if he gets handled in practice that he would go nuts but his teammates probably do not want to go over the same thing again and again with him after the fact. Which if you take into account how he acts is understandable.
Back to "Kitchen Stadium" and we find out that it shall be "Iron Chef" Kyle Kingsbury working diligently in the restroom to whip up a batch of special sauce for the California rolls. I am thankful that the boys didn’t all gather in a circle in order to create this nefarious white gravy. Kyle worked alone but of course we all knew what he was doing in there; and I am just amazed he was able to work under such pressure, which tells me that this wasn’t his first time doing such a thing.
We often hear horror stories of restaurant kitchens and it would seem to me that Kyle has at least worked one fast food job in his life with the sheer zeal he exhibited and the steel reserve he possesses which allowed him to get the job done. When I was growing up, if my mom even so much as knocked on the bathroom door while I was fantasizing about some girl from third period, it was over and I simply was not able to finish. Not Kyle.
Kyle had a peanut gallery of other men outside of his door and they all knew he was in the middle of saying hi to his monster and this man not only got it up but got it out and was unaided by pictures or video during the process. When Kingsbury walked out of the bathroom he was congratulated by his teammates for what seemed to be a useful batch but I am thankful to have not seen anyone shake hands with the man.
Thankfully we were not treated to seeing just how they prepared the California rolls but anytime a group of guys are giggling inside of a kitchen is the time you should decide to eat nothing that will come from said kitchen. The sushi was carefully placed back into its container and inside of the refrigerator as it was time for everyone to wait and see who would choose to dine on this dish.
These fighters were more wide eyed and excited than a group of five year olds on Christmas Eve in hopes of catching a glimpse of Santa and they wouldn’t have to wait long as Dave Kaplan failed to let them down and proceeded to take the sushi to the kitchen table in short order.
Dave Kaplan ate the sushi.
After having been told that he just swallowed Kyle Kingsbury’s finest load, he remained calm and relatively unmoved. Which is even more peculiar than Bader having grinned after drinking urine in my opinion. Should semen touch the back of your throat you had better be able to stand proud as a gay man or tell us how big your cell mate was and how you couldn’t avoid it because you were being held down by three other convicts and it was a matter of life or death. Not Kaplan. He sits there and it seems as if he is going to ask for a toothpick or perhaps tell Kingsbury to eat more artichokes in order to remove the acidity from his fluids but then it seems like he has a moment of clarity and finally realized just what in fact had happened.
He first seems to try and make it not seem like such a bad thing as he explains that he had only eaten one piece which is not hardly enough of an excuse to make all of this go away. That’s right Dave, it was only just a taste of semen and that’s nothing that a little bit of Scope can’t take care of. Kaplan also let us know that this wasn’t the kind of sushi he likes and this is in fact the reason why he only ate one piece. I have to agree with Dave as I too love sashimi and sushi and would have no desire to have mine topped with semen. Kaplan remained so cool and calm that it shocked me and I am surprised he didn’t flip out and begin to break things or attempt to attack other fighters after this big reveal took place.
If you recall correctly, Chris Leben wanted to commit murder because someone soaked his sleeping bag with water from the garden hose. Can you imagine what Leben would have done if Josh Koscheck and Bobby Southworth would have instead chosen to masturbate onto his sleeping bag? I really do think we would have seen someone’s life threatened in a very real way and this show probably wouldn’t have lived to return for an eighth offering. So it is amazing to me when I see fighters swallow urine and semen and act as if someone just gave them a wedgie and it really makes me wonder what would have to be done in order to actually raise their ire.
Kaplan doesn’t let me completely down but he takes things to another place altogether as he lets everyone know that they shall not be safe from his waste matter. He actually does threaten them by stating that, "you will have fecal matter on your person in the next three days" which is much scarier than Jigsaw telling me that I have fourteen minutes to dig a key out of someone’s stomach in order to escape the room. This would make me sleep with one eye open and I would be sure to watch what Kaplan is in fact dining on as an increase in bran muffins and coffee would surely make me tremble at the notion that my bag might be heavier when I carry it to the gym the following morning.
We do not cut to a scene out of ‘Dumb and Dumber’ with Dave Kaplan replacing Jeff Daniels in the role of Harry Dunne and seated on a toilet. Thankfully it is time to watch Phillipe Nover work out in the gym and get a little back story on him as both a fighter and a person. It turns out that Nover is a registered nurse and he has seen everything you can possibly see in terms of gruesome sights involving patients at the hospital while working twelve hour shifts.
I have a lot more respect for Nover as he has made sure to have a life outside of fighting and actually enriched his life far beyond just walking into a gym every day. The fact that he can work grueling twelve hour shifts in a hospital and still have the energy and drive to train is nothing short of impressive to say the least. In the case of Nover and Kaplan we have seen that both of these men are educated and have actually cracked a few books along with a few bones in their day and this is something that should have received a little more attention in my opinion.
Phillipe Nover lets us know that he “lives for the cage” and while this is usually something that when said is known to make me roll my eyes did not make me groan in this particular instance. I believe it with Nover and I am pleased to know that he also lives for much more than what goes on inside of a cage for that matter.
Once again we are taken to the kitchen of the house and it is Phillipe Nover who is doing his best Rachael Ray impression by cooking some duck eggs for his housemates. This particular dish was said to be a Filipino delicacy and are duck eggs that were just about ready to hatch before being harvested. These eggs were then boiled and cracked open to reveal a duck fetus that had already developed with a visible head and eyes.
The fact that Nover vomited after eating urine-soaked fruit and then can eat this duck abortion as if he is Garfield with a slice of lasagna simply boggles my mind. These duck eggs looked disgusting and seemed like something that a pro-life picketer would choose to show a teen mother who was making her way into an abortion clinic. To put it mildly I am sure that many would rather do shots of Kyle Kingsbury’s baby batter than to sit down to a plateful of late abortion.
Joe Rogan should really have stopped by as this episode seemed like it was something off of the cutting room floor of ‘Fear Factor’ and for all I know Coach “Stankie” showed up with a tray of Rocky Mountain Oysters in a clip that didn’t make the final edit for this episode. Chris Rock’s “Tossed Salad Man” would have been a welcome addition to this kitchen.
Both fighters weighed in at 156 lbs. and both exude confidence going into this one. Kaplan, for one, notes that Nover is better than he at “being Filipino, at cooking and for having veins” but stops short of actually talking up Nover’s skills inside of the octagon. I have to agree that Nover is more Filipino than Kaplan and does possess more visible veins but I have to declare he is wrong in terms of praising Nover’s culinary skills. Although Kaplan is the man who ate semen smeared onto a California roll and was unmoved so maybe I would have to agree that Nover can cook but add that I definitely would not eat anything made by this bunch of guys.
Junie now crossed team lines and we would see him giving Nover tips on how to defeat Kaplan. Nover listened but it was clear that he was not taking everything in as if it were gospel and was simply getting a little insight on his opponent. I don’t know about honor in terms of what Junie did but it was his choice and he was perturbed enough at Kaplan to have taken a vested interest in seeing that he would lose his fight with Nover.
At a certain point the team allegiance will always dissipate as fighters begin to realize that they control their own destiny and it really does not benefit them if someone else comes out on top. I can understand Junie not wanting Kaplan to win in much the same way that I understand how not all of us will always enjoy the company of our coworkers but it was a move that was in poor taste and an unnecessary one at that. Nover needed no help whatsoever and this could be something that potentially harms Junie as the season progresses.
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira would stop by the house once again to be with his team the night before Phillip’s fight and enjoy another “Red Family Dinner” as he hangs out with his fighters and staves off his homesickness. I have a strong feeling that Nogueira shall forever pack his own food whenever he travels and that he shall never eat anything that he does not witness the preparation of. At this point I don’t think I would even want to use the silverware in this house and here is “Big Nog” breaking bread with the guys and having a grand time.
I imagine this is akin to us not really knowing what is inside of a hot dog but enjoying them anyway as Nog has a good time and seems to really enjoy the gang’s cooking. After the meal, Nogueira compliments Nover oh his punching power by telling him that he hits “super hard” and follows this up by declaring that Phillipe is one of the biggest pounders in the house. Nogueira is high on Nover and it would soon be time for us to see for ourselves why this was so.
It was now time for the fight and with only six minutes remaining in the broadcast it was a sure sign that we weren’t going to be treated to one that lasted more than a couple of minutes. This fight didn’t even make it to the two minute mark as Phillipe Nover forced Dave Kaplan to tap out due to a rear naked choke at the 1:06 mark of the first round. Dave Kaplan was never even in this fight and if anything this can be taken as a sign of how special Phillipe Nover is as a fighter.
This fight was simply Nover throwing a few jabs before putting Kaplan down to the canvas due to a right hand that really wasn’t all that graceful to watch, but effective nonetheless. It was only a matter of moments before Nover had Kaplan’s back and made this one official but it simply was a no contest in terms of it being a competitive bout. Nover would declare, "I am the toughest registered nurse on the planet" and I have to agree, although a 300 lb. RN named Bev who plies her trade at my local hospital could probably rank a close second as she looks like she could throw quite a beating on you if necessary. For now it matters not where Nover ranks in terms of registered nurses but he is clearly the number one lightweight for the moment in this competition. We still have two others who need to fight but Nover is in the driver’s seat after dismantling Dave Kaplan.
Dana White said that Phillipe Nover reminds him of Georges St. Pierre when St. Pierre was this age and this is one hell of a statement to make to say the least. It certainly isn’t too ridiculous to imagine either when you look at how Nover has dispatched of his foes with relative ease and has yet to be challenged by anyone. Obviously the day he is challenged will eventually come as it does to all fighters but it is a possibility that Nover could be challenging for a belt before this ever happens to him. This fighter has all of the tools and it is going to be fun to watch him the rest of the way as we try and determine if he can even be half as good as he is currently being advertised to be.
Frank Mir still believes that Dave Kaplan is the best lightweight in the house and said that he feels Nover didn’t necessarily beat Kaplan but rather took advantage of what was given him in the fight. In my opinion he wasn’t given anything as he simply took it to Kaplan and took his back with determination and sheer will but perhaps Mir is correct in that we did not see the real Dave Kaplan on this night. I for one am looking forward to seeing Kaplan compete again as I want to take another look at him and see where he goes after this loss and how he rebounds.
In my personal opinion, I still have Junie Browning at the top of the class in terms of lightweights from this season as he has yet to show what he is truly capable of and what I have witnessed from him in the past. I do believe that Nover is the real deal and I am anticipating a Nover vs. Browning showdown as a fight I really do hope we get to see.
We were treated to a preview of next week’s episode where we see Dave Kaplan drinking heavily and going nuts which leads me to wonder if perhaps he is going to blame his loss on swallowing semen and is hellbent on drinking the taste of both defeat and another man out of his mouth. The coach’s challenge is also set to take place and it appears that the two men will be taking turns attempting to kick soccer goals which seems to me to be a curious competition as I would have to believe this strongly favors Nogueira.
The fight for next week will pit Krzysztof Soszynski of Team Mir against Kyle Kingsbury of Team Noguiera in the final preliminary match in the light heavyweight division. I can guarantee you one thing and it is that Krzysztof will most certainly not be trying to get a hold of Kyle Kingsbury’s underwear in hopes of pranking him but should he do so all I can do is hope he washes his hands.
Right now I have a very strong desire to wash my hands, brush my teeth and make sure that I do not dine out for the time being. Be sure to do the same and may I suggest that you have your dinner already eaten before you sit down at 10pm next Wednesday to watch the next episode of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ on Spike TV.
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