The On Deck Circle

Hey, it’s been a while. Get ready to sit down with me for the 9^th season of The Ultimate Fighter. The spin this season is based in some good old-fashioned nationalism. I say if it is good enough to start a couple of World Wars, it should be enough to get us all fired up.

This season, lightweights and welterweights from Team America (coached by the man of many nicknames) “Dangerous,” “Hollywood,” Dan “Hendo” Henderson will square off against Team UK, coached by season 3 winner Michael “The Count” Bisping.

Our first episode is set inside the Wolfslair, Michael Bisping’s gym, where 16 men fight for a spot on Team UK. With 8 fights and only one shown in montage, it was an entertaining episode.

We start with Andre Winner (9-2-1) beating Gary Kelly (2-1-1) with a big knee from the clinch 2:45 into the first round. Poor Gary Kelly was not only the first man to lose a fight on the episode; he was also the first guy to be subtitled while speaking English.

He definitely was not the last though.

The next fight saw the more experienced Jeff Lawson (12-2-0) submit James Bryan (3-2-1) with an armbar midway through the first round. Lawson swept Bryan and simply worked toward the submission for the whole fight until he got it.

The next fight was the upset of the episode when James Wilks (5-2) submitted Che Mills (7-2) with a heel hook in less than a minute. There was a buzz around Che Mills who claimed we didn’t actually see him in the octagon.

Following that was another fight that didn’t escape the first round as Martin Stapleton (5-1) submitted Dan James (3-0) with a rear naked choke 2:48 into the first. Martin Stapleton wore an odd hat in his segments and had an ear cauliflower almost as bad as Couture. I like him so far, hopefully he doesn’t act like a jackass in the house.

A.J. Wenn (7-2) v. Ross Pearson (9-3) was the first fight to make it into the 2^nd round. Well, it barely made it to the 2^nd round. Ross and A.J. clinched against the cage, with Ross taking A.J. down and A.J. standing right back up every time. The round closed with a big knee that rocked A.J. who barely made it off his stool for round 2. When he did come out, he utilized the Rocky Balboa defense of hands down while taking punches to the face. Ross put him down with a TKO 38 seconds into the 2^nd round.

Since that fight was incredibly too long, Tommy Maguire (5-2) and Nick Osipczack (3-0) kept theirs within the first. Nick was excited to fight his first ginger, and after escaping a guillotine managed to TKO Tommy with a knee. Nick should be tricky for anyone if he can utilize his reach, and is my early guess for house maniac. I’ll admit I was rooting against him though, because Tommy Maguire is an easier name to spell.

Our one and only montage fight of the evening was Alex Reid (10-9-1) v. Dean Amasinger (4-1). The entire fight consisted of Alex showboating with his hands down, Dean taking him to the ground and working his way out of triangle chokes. In the third round, Dean did enough damage on his feet prior to the takedown and triangle that he was able to earn the decision win.

In the final fight, Bisping’s Wolfslair teammate Dave Faulkner (2-1) submitted James Bateman (2-1) with a heel hook. Bisping already expressed that Dave’s only weakness is mental. We will see if that plays a factor in the weeks to come.

So with Team UK all set, we go to Vegas next week to determine Team USA, where apparently a couple guys have some trouble cutting weight. This already makes me wonder if the UK guys are hungrier than the Americans. We shall see.