The Ultimate Fighter 2

[Conspiracy_Victim 0]

Well, before last night I didn't really have a favorite. However, I now want Jason to take it all then laugh in Matt Hughes' face. Sure he might get twisted into a pretzel for it but Hughes was nothing but a dick to Jason his entire time there then he kicks him to the curb after he beats the other team's best in class. Total dick move.

 

Yes I know I'm probably being too sensitive about the whole thing but ingratitude irks me.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Oh, I'm with you on that. I didn't really like JVF before this, but now I can't help but root for the guy.

[Guest Brian]

Oh come one. He's from Chuck's camp. How could you not like the guy from first sight. I even loved the way Hughes reacted to that when he said he was from San Luis Obispo.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

I think it was the Cena-isms that made me dislike him. Or maybe I liked him... I forget... I imagine I said something about him in an earlier post. But now there's motivation. Now there's feeling. This is why Koscheck/Leben was a successful feud. They were fighting for a reason. And with Von Flue, heres this situation where he was (a)The Underdog who (b)Fought hard and won, and ©No one gave a shit about it. These 3 elements make for a relatable, sympathetic, character. And if Hughes challenges Jason to fight next week, they should make it a double episode, cause that could make for an awesome storyline.

[Conspiracy_Victim 0]

I liked Von Flue ever since he first came in, Hughes worked his ass off, then Hughes said that he questioned Jason's work ethic. It just seemed like Matt had it out for him unfairly ever since the start.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

I KNEW Hughes was gonna send him over because:

 

a) Hughes is smart enough to send over the weakest fighter (which JVF probably is)

 

b) He has stitches and was in a brutal fight, of all the guys to let go he is the smartest choice as he is pretty much hurtin'. Matt knew what he was doing, and really eliminated two guys from Franklin's team in that fight.

 

I can't see Von Flue getting past Stevenson, or even Sammy Morgan.

 

I still want to see Sammy fight, he would have creamed that guy in the first episode I thought.

[starvenger 0]

I liked Von Flue ever since he first came in, Hughes worked his ass off, then Hughes said that he questioned Jason's work ethic.  It just seemed like Matt had it out for him unfairly ever since the start.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

When was TUF2 taped? I'm just wondering if Hughes was hard on JVF because it was taped at the same time that Horn was training to face Liddell...

[Brush with Greatness 0]

Am I the only one that thinks that Hughes is a whiny hypocrite bitch?

 

First off, he damn well better fight not to take a heavyweight from Ace's team. I mean, "this isn't fair, I have 6 and Rich has 5, and now I have 5 and Rich has six." Fuck, wait to the end of the show, because you know you're losing another heavyweight buddy.

 

Furthermore, what fucking head BUTT was he yipping about? What a whiner.

 

It's too bad he can't make the distinction between being a fighter on the show and being a coach. Because it seems like he's constantly trying to put himself over at the expense of the others on the show when really, the show should be about, I don't know, THE FIGHTERS. Hell, not only does he shit talk and put down fighters on the other team, he talks shit about the guys on his team.

 

It seems like Joe's the only guy on his team that he really likes, but I bet if on the outside chance that Joe loses, Hughes would be quick to turn around and talk shit about him too.

 

Fuck, I hope Rush pounds his face in.

[Golgo 13 0]

Man, Rich should've given Rashad to Matt's team and really fuck with him.

[KingPK 0]

Oh man, that was a GREAT kick Cummo delivered at the end of that fight. He just shoved his foot right into his face.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Luke is SCARY. That man just got better as the fight went on. Good fight, with some sweet stand up from the young Jedi. I like how they are packaging his character as el nerdo. Next week doesn't look so good, though. The look on Danas face screamed disappointment.

[Golgo 13 0]

I swear, if Jedi or Skywalker isn't his official nickname when the show is over... but I wonder if there could be legal problems with it.

[Guest nWoCHRISnWo]

Wow... Luke is brutal. To whoever said he better turn out to have a Jeckyll/Hyde side to him, he really does.

[Guest Reservoir_Kitty]

Luke is awesome. He's been my favorite since the show started, actually, with JVF as a close second... just because I think he got the shaft with Hughes giving him the cold shoulder after his fight, and then getting booted off Team Hughes completely.

 

*sniff* I love that dorky little bastard. I was happy to see him be a machine in the fight like I thought he'd be.

[Lei Tong 0]

Cummo looked good when he finally let his hands go standing, but as was pointed out, he has something of a weird guard, and his wide-open half guard is begging to get passed by a better ground fighter like Morgan or Stevenson. Torres, despite being horribly limited, showed that Cummo can be put into trouble on the ground, and let himself down with soem terrible back control that made Penn weep.

[Guest Brian]

Yeah, he was leaving that half-guard totally open most of the time and only hooked the leg a couple of time, and I was sure Torres was going to pass.

[starvenger 0]

Cummo looked good when he finally let his hands go standing, but as was pointed out, he has something of a weird guard, and his wide-open half guard is begging to get passed by a better ground fighter like Morgan or Stevenson. Torres, despite being horribly limited, showed that Cummo can be put into trouble on the ground, and let himself down with soem terrible back control that made Penn weep.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was thinking that too. Presumably Luke has gotten better with the ground game for his Ultimate Finale match. Assuming that they have enough welterweights to have the matches, that is.

[starvenger 0]

Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I enjoyed the 'Unleashed' matches aka 'The Rich Franklin Show'. Tanner's strategy in the last match almost seemed to be "I'll bludgeon Ace's fists with my face".

[Lei Tong 0]

Tanner's never been a great stand-up fighter, and quite frankly it's a knock on Baroni's that he was undone by Tanner's "spinarooni" defense. Hell, even Tito probably could've obliterated Tanner standing had he not gone for the bodylock takedown.

[Guest Brian]

Tanner has some decent knees in the clinch but it's mostly just all to set-up his takedowns.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Tanner's probably the least intelligent fighter, he should have matched up very well with Franklin and been able to take him down at will, pounding out a victory. But he just doesn't gameplan well.

 

This is another point I have wanted to make; the MW division is the most watered down of any. There's no clear cut favourite, as well as the fact that it's highly possible that anyone from 15 down could probably beat the number one guy. It's probably the worst in MMA. Almost everyone has a bunch of flaws that could be exposed by any other fighter. If BJ Penn REALLY wanted to solidify his P4P legend (because it's not like he's gonna solidify his stomach anytime soon) he could probably step into the UFC, pudgy 185 and all, and beat Franklin. I like Franklin, but his lack of wrestling and the fact that I don't think that's a good weight for him leads me to believe that he'd probably be beaten by BJ.

[starvenger 0]

Tanner's never been a great stand-up fighter,

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, I think Rogan and Goldberg may have mentioned that a couple dozen times. Still, I'm not sure if the fight says how much better Franklin was at standup, or how bad Tanner is...

[KingPK 0]

Now it's time for "PK Rips off the Weekly 'He Said, He Said' from Spike's Website", brought to you by Right Guard Extreme.

 

I’d first like to start out by congratulating my counterpart Forrest. He finally rambled on longer than me in the last He Said/He Said.

 

All right, congrats on your win over Elvis, too.

 

As usual, we pick it up right where we left, the last fight. Seth knew he had the 1st two rounds in the bag, Dan didn’t go after him in the 3rd, so the 3rd round was boring. Dana reminded him about the 5 grand he could’ve had for a stoppage.

 

That must have pissed him off because later we see him and Mike teaming up on poor Anthony. Get his pants off...get his pants off! And we blame convicts in the joint for acting the way they do. See what happens when you lock men up! Dana, send these poor fools some girls.

 

In the most anticlimactic challenge yet, team Hughes pulls off another win. I like how the combos go from a 1-2-3-6, to 1-3-2-5-4-7-9-7-1-3-4. How about a rule that says you have to hit with a little power? I’m glad to finally see the winners of the challenge get a prize. How great are sponsors?

 

I’d also like to nominate Joe Stevenson for an Emmy award in his shameless Xyience promotion when talking to Anthony.

 

Dana decides to give the fighters a pep talk with very few F words. Strange, I’m still confused; why no F words? It’s just not the same, Dana!

 

Guys, let it all hang out in there. Don’t get nervous and choke. Remember, there are millions and millions of people watching.

 

Luke chooses to fight Anthony. Sammy the traitor gives Anthony advice on how to beat his teammate Luke. A traitor named Sam...what a funny coincidence.

 

We hear Luke in the most mundane voice say that he is so excited to fight. It sure sounds like it. I wonder if the unibrow helps keep his chi centered.

 

We see Luke’s artistic side and it looks like he is drawing...some boobs. I know it gets lonely in there Luke. I thought about putting a wig on Diego.

 

Then we see Luke come into the ring wearing a black ninja mask. And I thought he was a Trekkie.

 

This is a pretty good fight. Luke dominates all three rounds. Anthony looks like a sitting duck at times and never poses any real threat standing or on the ground. I bet Marcus Davis feels pretty stupid now.

 

And by the way Anthony, a skinny nerd kicked your ass.

 

All right!

 

This week we have a welterweight fight to look forward to and maybe some stir-crazy related drama in the house. Actually, the fighters in this season seem remarkably well-adjusted. Somebody needs to tell them that well-adjusted is really boring.

 

I mean, come on. Good natured water balloon throwing just isn't going to cut it. Where are the screaming arguments? Sleeping with each other’s girlfriends? Or even some teary-eyed confessions that are so prevalent in other reality shows? But no, we have none of that.

 

What we have is people acting like professional athletes and mature adults; it’s garbage I tell you. I hope these guys know what they’re doing to the sport. Now it will no longer be the norm for guys like me and Stephan to just be ourselves.

 

Anyway, on to the challenge: it seemed good but a little complicated (for Jason Von Flue anyway). This challenge makes me wonder what the creative process is like for Randy when he comes up with this stuff.

 

So we find out that team Franklin is completely incapable of following instructions, and team Hughes wins the challenge.

 

We don't really get to see the process by which team Hughes selects who will fight whom, but it is decided that Luke Cummo of team Hughes will fight Anthony Torres of team Franklin.

 

But before we can have a fight Rich Franklin has to give up a heavy weight to Matt Hughes’ team...and Brad Imes is chosen. That’s what I would have done--no offence, Brad.

 

Meanwhile, more Xyience and right guard extreme in the episode. Did you ever think the UFC would have real sponsors? Well, I didn't but damn, it's nice.

 

Now to the highlight of the show. We have Luke Cummo, who Matt Hughes describes as an unorthodox striker (Luke? Unorthodox? No way!) against the grappling specialist, Anthony Torres.

 

I like the stick up mask Luke comes to the ring in. I also like the way Luke smiles when he gets hit. Luke has the perfect mentality for fighting; you can tell he wants to be in the cage.

 

All in all, it was a good fight. You can see Anthony’s heart fall out when he can't finish Luke with the rear naked. You can also tell that Rich Franklin used to be a school teacher by the way he coaches and calls everybody ‘buddy.’ But like in the challenge, Rich’s instructions are too much for Anthony to follow and he is unable to keep Luke on the ground. As a side note…fighting is really hard and I'm not sure why.

[Guest Brian]

I know it gets lonely in there Luke. I thought about putting a wig on Diego.

 

Words.Cannot.Describe.

[starvenger 0]

I know it gets lonely in there Luke. I thought about putting a wig on Diego.

 

Words.Cannot.Describe.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Agreed. Especially since Fratboy was RIGHT THERE crying like a girl...

[Guest AndrewisyourHero]

I also like the way Luke smiles when he gets hit. Luke has the perfect mentality for fighting; you can tell he wants to be in the cage.

 

I'm glad I wasn't the only one that noticed that..There were multiple times the camera caught Luke with this "I'm gonna fuckin kill you" smile on his face during that fight.

 

I agree with Rudo-This dude is scary as hell. It would not suprise me at all to see him in the finals.

[Guest Brian]

From MMAWeekly:

 

MMAWeekly has learned that Jorge Gurgel will not be competing on "The Ultimate Fighter" season two finale. Gurgel set the stage for how he'd be portrayed on season two of the Spike TV original series in the first episode declaring, “Nobody pisses on my bed;” a reference to the infamous season one Chris Leben "spritz" incident.

 

Jorge Gurgel went into "The Ultimate Fighter" with a torn ACL. His knee problems were chronicled on the show. In week two Jorge had his knee drained, and was advised that he would be risking serious injury if he continued to compete on the show. He responded, “I don’t care if I have to have a knee replacement later. I’m not getting out of that house until somebody beats me in a fight." Jorge emerged as one of the stars of the show, but was eliminated in episode six by Jason Von Flue, who replaced the injured Josh Burkman in week three.

 

When Gurgel last spoke with MMAWeekly, he said, "Going into the show I completely tore my ACL. I knew I had no stability, but I still believed I could beat everybody in that show with one knee. And I went in with that attitude. I'm a professional, and I was not going to skip on the opportunity to show my skills even though I was very injured."

 

Since his departure from The Ultimate Fighter house Gurgel has had his ACL replaced from a cadaver and a full meniscus repair. He was hopeful that he'd be able to compete in the season finale live on Spike TV, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

MMAWeekly recently spoke with Gurgel's manager, Monte Cox, and Cox told MMAWeekly, "He's still messed up. He won't be fighting in the year end show. He can't straighten his leg yet. He had everything done. It was all gone. There was no ACL. There was no MCL. There was nothing. He had the cadaver surgery and stuff, and he still can't straighten his leg, so we're looking at next year sometime."

 

Discussing the loss to Jason Von Flue, Monte commented, "Jorge had no ACL. He had nothing in his knee going into the fight. Jorge is a really powerful kicker and one of the harder kickers I've ever managed. And he couldn't even kick. He had a hard time getting under the jab and stuff like that. He said the thing was he had no mobility. He can't go side to side. I mean you got to see Jorge basically just out there with heart, but he didn't look near as good as he has in his other fights."

 

Less than a month ago Jorge remained optimistic telling MMAWeekly, "I'm sure if I'm not able to fight in the finale...I'll fight the next one, or the January card, or some other time. I feel like a winner already because before the show even aired, percentage wise, I was the favorite, and I felt a lot of love from the fans...People want to see me fight, and that's all that matters to me."

 

If heart, confidence, and desire made the body heal quicker Jorge would be competing in the season finale, but the body heals at it's own pace. Mixed Martial Arts fans will have to wait until that healing process has run it's course, but there's not doubt in my mind that Gurgel will be back. He didn't pass up on one of the top business schools in Brazil to move to America with dreams of making it in the UFC for nothing. He hasn't worked on his skills day in and day out, joined an MMA reality show with a serious injury to not showcase his skills in the premier promotion of MMA in the United States.

 

100% healthy Jorge Gurgel is a dangerous man. He just wants the opportunity to prove it. They say time heals all wounds. Jorge Gurgel just needs a little more time.

 

I was really looking forward to seeing a healthy Jorge fighting. Good luck to Jorge, hopefully they give him a chance at an Fight Night (and resurrect the lightweight division while they're at it).

[starvenger 0]

If they bring in Jorge, then their LW division would consist of him, Florian and Karalexis. And I think Jens Pulver if you're counting the "titleholder"

[Guest Brian]

Yves is still contracted from what I've heard. And I was thinking Mayhem could probably drop down in weight, since he's a light welterweight.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Mayhem is actually a really big welterweight, he fought recently at 195(not a typo) lbs. I heard he might actually move *up* to Middleweight.