Mixed Martial B0nes

The Ultimate Fighter Heavyweights Finale rumbled in on December 5th, 2009 with a whimper and left with a big HONK! er Country. Yes, horror of all horrors, Roy “Big Country” Nelson emerged victorious and is now the newest Ultimate Fighter winner. I keep forgetting and, I think, everyone else keeps forgetting that this is a *GAME SHOW*. So Brendan Shaub getting nailed in the temple shouldn’t have been a surprise. He just doesn’t have the ring experience that Nelson has. At least he didn’t get his face smashed by Roy’s belly like all the other losers on TUF that got schooled by him. “Meathead” Mitrone took down “Big Baby.” I was really pulling for Marcus to redeem himself but he showed his inexperience as well. He’s got a few years to get better though. Kimbo won his first match as a UFC fighter. This shouldn’t have been such a snoozer. You can thank Houston Alexander’s camp for sticking to the most boring gameplan ever: Circle, circle, circle, smack Kimbo in the knee, circle, circle, circle, smack Kimbo on the knee, Oops! get owned by Kimbo Slice’s *ground game*??!?! The headliner fight between Matt Hamill and Jon Jones was easily the most exciting if you remove the win by DQ for Hamill. I’ve won by DQ before. You really feel like a bitch raising your hand in victory while you are bleeding your nose out. Hamill is better than that but Jones is something else. Watch out UFC, Jones is not going away!

Here’s your results in all their inglorious crappitude…

No Wanna See You Undercard Fights:

* Welterweight bout:  John Howard vs.  Dennis Hallman
Howard put the hurt on Hallman via KO (Strikes) at 4:55 of round 3.

* Light Heavyweight bout:  Brian Stann vs.  Rodney Wallace
Stann fooled the judges and beat up Wallace via unanimous decision. (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)

* Heavyweight bout:  Jon Madsen vs.  Justin Wren
Madsen fooled the judges and beat up Wren via split decision. (30-27, 28-29, 29-28)

Main Drunk on the Couch or Pub Spike TV Fights:

* Heavyweight bout:  Marcus Jones vs.  Matt Mitrione
Mitrione put the hurt on Jones via KO (Punches) at 0:10 of Round 2.

* Lightweight bout:  Frank Edgar vs.  Matt Veach
Edgar choked the fight out of Veach via Submission (Rear Naked Choke) at 2:22 of Round 2.

* Lightweight bout:  Mark Bocek vs.  Joe Brammer
Bocek choked the fight out of Brammer via submission (rear-naked choke) at 3:36 of round one.

* Catchweight (212 lb) bout:  Kimbo Slice vs.  Houston Alexander
Slice fooled the judges and beat up Alexander via unanimous decision. (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)

* Light Heavyweight bout:  Matt Hamill vs.  Jon Jones
Hamill dropped his hands and used his unguarded face to win against Jones via DQ (illegal elbow) at 4:14 of Round 1

* Heavyweight bout:  Darrill Schoonover vs.  James McSweeney
McSweeney put the hurt on Schoonover via TKO (Strikes) at 3:20 of Round 3.

* Heavyweight bout:  Roy Nelson vs.  Brendan Schaub
Nelson put the hurt on Schaub via KO (Punch) at 3:25 of Round 1 to become the The Ultimate Fighter 10 Heavyweights Winner.

Nokaut is reporting that Chris Leben, who was scheduled to fight in UFC 85 after Chuck Liddell pulled out due to injury will be going to jail. It’s not as though we were all googoo gaga about seeing him fight instead of Chuck. It is an indication that MMA has its share of losers just like the NFL has as of late. After watching a few The Ultimate Fighter episodes it shouldn’t surprise me but it does. What a lunkhead..

Speaking of TUF, I’m finding it hard to get into this season. I don’t know, maybe it’s the weight class but it seems like these guys aren’t hungry for the fight. Certainly, if you’ve watched any of The Iron Ring on BET then you’ve seen some **hungry** fighters looking for a shot at some MMA money. They recapped the last fight as they always do and the young kid without a car, Matt Riddle, was almost happy that he lost because his opponent, Tim Credeur promised him an XBox360 for his efforts! “Yeah! I totally bitched out and lost but the new UFC Game is coming out on Xbox and now I get to pretend to be in the UFC for real!” When his team-mates gave him some flack (“You don’t defend the armbar, you get an Xbox!”) for this he seemed miffed. I’m incredulous that he wasn’t upset at losing.

The next match between Team Forest’s Dante Rivera and Team Rampage’s Brandon Sene was pure torture. Thank you for fast-forward! Even Dana remarked that no one is going to say, “Thank God *THESE* guys are in the UFC!” after watching that fight. Dante won the fight but I think he lost the war. Unless he kicks some major aisssh next time, look for him on the long ride back to Palooka-ville. I hope rest of these guys give me a reason to watch the next show. It should be good since someone did the unthinkable and squirted lime juice in another guy’s chewing tobacco. I didn’t know people were still “chawing?” What is this the 1800’s??!? Anyway, them’s fightin’ words and the shoot-out is a coming this week.

The UFC Fight Night 13 has come and gone. I’ve been able to watch it, watch it again, and then re-watch it for good measure. I’ve come away with a few thoughts. The match ups were actually not too bad. There was a really good mix of fighters this time out and very few couch potatoes if you don’t count Tim Boetsch who got dropped in the second round of his fight. Our Ultimate Fighter Alumni fare ok although some of them could have done much much better. I’m talking to you Farm Boy! Just don’t hurt me or try to find me or… hey, how about I buy you a few beers buddy old pal! We also got to see the debut of the new season of The Ultimate Fighter. Was it everything we hoped and dreamed for?

Joe Lauzon was handled without mercy by Kenny Florian late into the second round of their fight. They were pretty even for a while there. This match easily scores as best of the night. That is, unless of course the un-aired Clay Guida or Manny Gamburyan fights were as action packed as this one. I remember Joe on the Ultimate Fighter 5 and he was one of the short listed guys to win it all. It’s funny that he headlines this event while the guys that advanced further than him are second and even no-billed at all.

Tommy (The Farm Boy) Speer was handed an embarassing loss to Anthony Johnson. It wasn’t a good sign when we saw Matt Hughes in his corner. Hughes probably handed Speer a Bible and his patented “gameplan” for Johnson. It was obvious that Tommy was going to try to take this one to the ground and then do some pounding or submitting from there. He did so by charging in with his head wide open and just got rocked by punches that kept coming. He ended up in a little ball on the side of the Octagon. He should have abandoned the gameplan when he discovered that his head was hurting a bit. I hope Tommy does better. He certainly was my pick to win last season. Of course, the mad Vegan Big Mac Danzig had something to say about that.

Nate Diaz is the real effing deal. As much as I can’t stand the guy and believe that he walked away with a fake win on the Ultimate Fighter 5, he is proving himself to be one of those elite fighters. His match with Kurt Pellegrino really proved that he can’t be beat even when he is soundly getting beat. Kurt controlled and layed the beat down on Nate for almost his entire match. Then somehow, he found himself in a triangle complete with double birds for good measure. Manvel the Anvil won his match as well. I will scream at the top of my lungs until it happens: NATE DIAZ VS MANNY GAMBURYAN MUST HAPPEN NOW!!!!

After all this bone crunching goodness, we got to see the new season of The Ultimate Fighter unfold. In a word best used by Forrest Griffin: Garbage. This was just the preliminary fights. 32 guys started shuffling into the gym and none of them had a clue what was going on. “Uh… usually there are only 16 guys on the show but all these other dudes kept walking in the door. We were all like, ‘WTF??!’” Hmmmm… you signed up for a show called “The Ultimate Fighter” and you know only 16 guys are on the show? Duh. So we saw some more fights by guys that were really really raw or “garbage.” So if they drag this part of the show out more, we’re looking at 2 more weeks of this junk. I can’t believe I’m jonesing for an upper-decker or a foosball table in the pool right now!