The Ultimate Fighter
THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER LIVE REPORT 5/4: Pelkey's random thoughts on ninth episode on FX
May 4, 2012 - 9:26:37 PM THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER LIVE REPORT 5/4: Pelkey's random thoughts on ninth episode on FX

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By Matt Pelkey, MMATorch Columnist

-Jon Anik welcomes, the fighters enter, we recap last week. Yada, yada, yada. You know the drill by now.

-Its time for this season's coaches' challenge. They're out on a military obstacle course. They have to, like, run and shoot stuff and shit. They have to shoot an f'n grenade launcher. This is pretty intense stuff for a coaches challenge.

-This year Tapout has matched the $10,000 winner's share to make it $20,000. The winning team gets their usual $1500. Normally I'd argue that the fighters deserve a bigger share since they're poor nobodies, but considering the challenge at hand, I think the winning coach will deserve every penny.

[Commercial Break]

-Ok that was pretty crazy. Shit exploding everywhere. Faber wins when Cruz chokes on the assault rifle portion. That's right, assault rifle. He and his team celebrate accordingly.

[Commercial Break]

-We get some training footage of Andy Ogle ahead of his fight with Mike Rio. As a Brit, his gameplan is always the same: sprawl-n-brawl.

-Mike Rio is an American, thus he employs a different strategy: wrestlehump. He's (according to him, at least) a two-time state wrestling champ in high school, and a three time national champ in college. Something tells me Ogle's getting put on his back.

[Commercial Break]

-We get a look inside Dana's office as he talks with his coaches about quarterfinal match-ups. Um...I feel like we still have one fight left. Am I wrong here?

-The fighters make weight and we get the staredown and last words. For the record, I got Rio.

[Commercial Break]

FIGHT: ANDY OGLE (TEAM FABER) VS. MIKE RIO (TEAM CRUZ)

ROUND ONE: Alright halfway through the first round, this has been a fun fight. Rio's been chasing Ogle down while Ogle darts and dances and lands clean shots. Rio finally cuts him off and presses it against the cage. Not sure why it took this long for him to initiate some grappling. Once they separate its back to the beginning of the fight. Rio finally gets the takedown as the horn sounds but that wasn't enough. 10-9 Ogle

ROUND TWO: Rio goes for the takedown much earlier in this round and gets it. If he can hold onto this for three minutes he'll at least have assured himself of that third round. Ogle has other plans though and stands. Rio takes his back, but Ogle reverses. All of a sudden he's two minutes of top control away from winning this fight. It would be surprising if he's able to hold this position, but Rio might be tired. He takes Rio's back! He lands some big punches loosening him up for the choke. He locks it in and Rio taps. Holy shit!

WINNER: Andy Ogle by submission at 4:19 of round 2

STAR RATING (***) Really good, albeit shockingly one-sided fight. Ogle has been a fun character on the show, but that was a pleasantly surprising performance from him. He looked great on the feet in the first, and took advantage of a tired opponent to get the tap in the second. Good stuff.

-Quarterfinal match-ups: Vic vs. Proctor, Lawrence vs. Chiesa. That's all we get so far. Sounds like they're both next week. Lawrence vs. Chiesa should be a helluva lotta fun. Til next week...