THE TORCH: THE #1 WORLDWIDE BRAND IN COMBAT ENTERTAINMENT COVERAGE - OVER 250 MILLION VIEWS & LISTENS PER YEAR REREACHING MORE FANS EVERY WEEK THAN ANY OTHER INDEPENDENT SOURCE • VIA THE WEB, MOBILE, PRINT NEWSLETTER, AND ITUNES
Sep 16, 2009 - 11:21:00 PM By Frank Hyden, MMATorch Contributor
The Ultimate Fighter report
September 16, 2009
By Frank Hyden
The episode starts with coaches Rashad Evans and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson arguing and trash-talking. It's a lot of, "You got knocked out!" and "You haven't fought anybody!". It's pretty funny. The fighters start slowly entering the training center. There's some huge dudes on this year. And I don't mean fat guys, though there are a few of them. Some of these guys are just plain enormous. Some of the fighters dwarf Rampage and Rashad. They continue trash-talking until Dana White comes in and tells everyone to line up. Dana introduces Kimbo Slice to the other fighters. Some of the other fighters start talking all kinds of crap about Kimbo. When they do that to his face, I'll actually start listening. Rampage says right away that he wants Kimbo on his team.
The way it's going to work is that the 16 fighters are going to be divided up and Rashad and Rampage will have a chance to train and evaluate each guy. Rashad has Greg Jackson to help him evaluate the fighters. Rampage is having his guys spar and roll with each other; while Rashad is having them work the bags. During the training, Rampage calls this one guy, "Titties". I didn't catch the name of the guy, but everyone says titties about 27 times in a minute. I've been in a strip club for hours and never heard the word that many times.
Kimbo shows some good takedown defense, but his ground game is lacking. His striking is, of course, pretty good. Dana busts out the big coin to decide who gets to pick the fights and who gets to pick the fighters. Rashad wins the toss, and elects to have first pick of the fighters. Rampage gets to decide the first 2 fights. If Rampage wants to keep control, he has to win both fights. Otherwise, Rashad gets to pick the 3rd fight. The fighter selections are-
Team Rashad- James McSweeney, Brendan Schaub, Justin Wren, Jon Madsen, Roy Nelson, Darill Schoonover, Matt Mitrione, Mike Wessel
Team Rampage- Kimbo Slice, Abe Wagner, Demico Rogers, Wes Sims, Scott Junk, Wes Shivers, Marcus Jones, Zak Jensen
Both teams are shown training at separate times. Both coaches are talking up their team like they're going to sweep. I expect that, though. It's not like they're going to trash their picks or say they'll only win half the fights. The only real happening of note is that Marcus has an extremely hard time with the cardio exercises that Rampage has his team doing. Marcus is a large man, and you can tell he's struggling to move his big body around. He's doing everything he possibly can, though. He's giving everything he's got. I'm sure Rampage appreciates the effort.
Rampage gets to pick this fight, and he chooses Abe to fight Jon. Rashad is thrilled, he says that Jon will crush Abe no problem. Jon is a good wrestler, while Abe has no wrestling skills. Abe is more of a puncher. I smell a boring lay-and-pray coming. I hope I'm wrong. Both guys are shown training hard. Abe doesn't go as far as Amir Sadollah would, but I really like the fact that he doesn't talk all kinds of crap before this fight. He just says that he has nothing to say to Jon. Jon's pretty confident in his own abilities. While Rampage is giving him a pre-fight pep talk, Abe throws up into a trashcan. Ew.
FIGHT- Abe Wagner vs. Jon Madsen
Abe has a 4 inch height and a 5 inch reach advantage. Steve Mazzagatti is the referee.
ROUND 1- Jon gets a quick takedown and lands a few punches. There's very little action going on. Jon hits some big elbows. Abe is bleeding huge. It's pooling around him. There's not much else going. Jon just stays on top of Abe for the rest of the round. For the second time tonight, I see that funny Burger King commercial where the King blows an airhorn at the sleeping guy. That dude freaks out like a spaz. That almost makes the usually stupid Burger King commercials worth it.
ROUND 2- Abe reaches out to touch gloves and Jon cowardly takes him down. What a douche move. Jon lays on top of Abe until Mazzagatti mercifully stands them up. Jon gets another immediate takedown. It's another few punches here and there until Mazzagatti stands them up. Jon gets another takedown. This is so incredibly boring. The only excitement is the amount of blood pouring from Abe. This is like Edwin Dewees from Season 4, except Abe isn't winning this fight. Mazzagatti stands them with 24 seconds left. Jon gets another immediate takedown. Rampage walks off because he feels Abe isn't listening to him. The round ends and you can see how massive a cut Abe has on his head. That thing is nasty. This makes the cut Vitor Belfort gave Marvin Eastman look like a paper cut. Okay, maybe not, but my point stands. They show footage of the doctor stitching up Abe and, oh my God, that cut is literally all the way down. I think I hear the doc say that he fractured his skull. I hope I'm hearing things. Regardless, that is the nastiest cut I've ever seen in sports. That's even worse than the cut Lennox Lewis gave Vitali Klitschko a few years ago.
WINNER- Jon Madsen by Decision
This was a fairly good episode. The fight dropped it bigtime, though. That fight was absolutely horrendous. In a fight like that, there's no winners, just losers. The biggest losers are us viewers at home who had to sit through that crap. Jon going for the takedown when Abe was trying to touch gloves shows no class. If you don't want to touch gloves, don't, but you shouldn't go for a takedown or throw a punch. It's like pulling hair in a fight, you just don't do it. I can't respect a guy who does stuff like that. And on top of that, the fight sucked. It's a double whammy. I hope the coming weeks have fights way better than this one.
ALERT: Every Tuesday night, listen to the MMATorch Livecast from 9-10:30 p.m. ET or listen now to the most recent shows by clicking here. Listen live this coming Tuesday as Jamie Penick, Rich Hansen, and Matt Pelkey discuss the latest MMA happenings. Online listen at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mmatorch or call into the show at 646-716-8090 to either just listen or participate.
"There's still a large contingent of people, that they just want to see these guys almost die, or the other guy almost die and come back, and sometimes fights are like that. Certainly they are. But sometimes you get technical masterpieces too, and to hate a beautiful, technical fight - you're not really a fight fan...
Diaz has a granite chin, possesses perhaps the best recovery in the sport, his pace and conditioning are second to none and he sets records with the volume of his punches almost every time he steps into the cage. Nick Diaz is simply designed to fight the way he fights, and not many other fighters are...
"There was a lot of poison going on around there and I'm really disappointed because we had a good thing going. It was a good thing and I think people's egos got in the way. Well, not people just Javier, his ego got in the way, and too many cameras in the gym and him trying to build himself up and his brand, his AKA brand...
PART OF THE USA TODAY UFC GROUP