I love these UFC Primetime shows. The current installment, for Rashad Evans v. Quinton Jackson on May 29, promises to be the best yet because of the history of trash-talking between the two parties. Episode 1 was exactly what I expected, full of training highlights, ego-massaging, and a whole lot of shittalking.

Head over to MMAWeekly and check it out.

“I don’t really like to say I hate people, hate’s a strong word. But I dislike that motherf—er.” – Rashad Evans

Despite what ended up being a very decisive loss to Minotauro Nogueira on Saturday night at UFC 102, Randy Couture proved that he still belongs in a UFC Octagon. At an astonishing age 46. After the fight, the UFC endorsed the notion that Couture still has ’it’ by extending his contract, leaving him with a six-fight commitment and 28 months of service remaining on his deal.

In other words, Captain American is going nowhere, and we can look forward to seeing him throw down for a few more years. Right up to age 48.

Yes, Couture’s overall record of 16-10 does not scream Hall of Famer, but when you look at his fight logs, you can’t help but stare in awe. Nogueira happened to be just Couture’s second non-title fight in 19 UFC bouts. So while Couture’s record may not be sterling, nobody in the history of the sport has faced tougher competition more consistently. He has taken all comers, avenged losses, granted rematches, and won titles in different weight classes multiple times over.

And yes, Couture got beat decisively by Nogueira on Saturday. A 30-27, 30-27, 29-28 scoring was a bit generous in my eyes, as Couture had trouble wearing down the strong chin of Nogueira and spent a good portion of the fight defending against submissions. There were three times (strikes, a D’Arce Choke, and a front head-and-arm triangle) that most thought the fight was over, but Couture persevered and escaped each time. His striking still looked strong, and his defense was generally impressive.

One would think, however, that Couture is due for a drop to Light Heavyweight. At 220 pounds, Couture is one of the lightest Heavyweights on the circuit and will give up weight to almost any competitor. For a wrestling specialist, this is a fairly large issue, though it hadn’t plagued Couture until recent fights against Lesnar and, to a lesser degree, Nogueira. A switch to Light Heavyweight could produce intriguing potential match-ups with Lyoto Machida, Tito Ortiz, Anderson Silva, Rampage Jackson, Shogun Rua, and more.

Regardless of where he heads in his next six fights, Couture is the face of Mixed Martial Arts past and one of the first true legends in the sport. The fact that he is still competing at age 46 puts him in a class with Julio Franco, Chris Chellios, Kevin Willis, John Carney, and Archie Moore as the ageless icons of sport. He is an ambassador for the sport and the UFC, but it appears too soon, still, to speak about him in terms reserved for the retired.

For Nogueira, a title shot may be on the horizon against Brock Lesnar, should he defeat Shane Carwin in November. While it hasn’t been confirmed, Nogueira is the last of the four men who took part in the de facto tournament for the Heavyweight title last year (Lesnar d. Couture, Mir d. Nogueira, Lesnar d. Mir) to get a shot at the non-interim belt, and a win over Couture is great for the resume.

For Couture, the future is bright but cloudy. Another title shot seems a few fights away, and without a move to Light Heavyweight, potential opponents (save for Mir) are difficult to get excited about. Still, there’s no questioning his continued ability to fight and draw a crowd – after all, UFC 102 was a fairly thin card at the top (albeit with great depth) and Couture v. Nogueira did a good job buoying the card as a main event.

I’d expect an announcement on Couture’s near-term future soon, as the UFC hype machine has been doing a good job announcing fights for their top guys well in advance of late.

And finally, on a non-Couture note, the next two UFC events take place September 16 and 19: UFC Fight Night 19 on the 16th, kicking off the next TUF season and headlined by Nate Diaz v. Melvin Guillard and Gray Maynard v. Roger Huerta; and UFC 103 on the 19th, headlined by Vitor Belfort v. Rich Franklin, Mirko Cro Cop v. Junior dos Santos, and Martin Kampmann v. Mike Swick.

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What? Hell yeah I self promote and cyber-stalk celebrities via Twitter! I sign on like twice a week, ya! You can follow me here.

So this is it, the last episode of the season, the episode that determined an opponent for Damarques Johnson at the Ultimate Finale.

The show opened with Henderson having a rib dinner with Team US and talking war wounds with Frank Lester. Lester says he doesn’t want cauliflower ears, but Henderson says he likes them.

Bisping also has dinner with his team, though on a different night it seems, and after he leaves Andre Winner tosses some curry at Dean. Dean proceeds to toss Winner in the pool, and then Dave Faulkner hits him with a face full of flower. Everyone had a good English laugh, but that toss into the pool seemed rough on the ribs and could have turned out poorly.

The episode revolves around Frank Lester, who is fighting James Wilks in a rematch of the fight that cost him his front teeth.

I’ll admit that I couldn’t stand Lester in the lead up to his first fight, but he has grown on me. He proved that he has a ton of heart, and in this episode he explained that he doesn’t have the anger he had in his first fight. Lester said that he usually hates his opponent and can’t relax but he got to know Wilks and thinks he is a good guy. The two are shown talking about Lester’s daughter and signing each other’s jerseys.

The fight itself starts off strong for Lester who I think won a very close first round. After that though, it became obvious that he had taken a beating in his last few fights (this was his 4^th in 34 days). Lester slowed down and while still stuffing every takedown attempt; he couldn’t gain the advantage striking. By the third round James was beating him to the punch (literally and repeatedly) and eventually put him away with multiple knees to the head.

Throughout the fight James seemed to be mocking Lester a bit, which angered Team US, especially Damarques Johnson. Personally I think that when you know your opponent gets sloppy when emotional it’s just good sense to try and push his buttons.

Lester was upset about the loss and the loss of financial security for his daughter. But based on how Dana White was gushing over Lester’s fighting spirit, I doubt this is the last time we see him in the octagon.

The show closed with the coaches having a few choice words to the camera about one another. Bisping felt Henderson underestimated his team, and that he was going to smash him since his time has passed. Henderson said that the show has motivated him to beat Mike, who is a nice guy sometimes but can only be categorized as a douche bag.

Overall, I must say, this has been one of the best seasons yet. The show wasn’t full of house nonsense; it simply showcased a bunch of guys focused on fighting (and Jason Pierce) set within a healthy international rivalry. While I am excited for the all heavyweight season coming up, I hope they revisit this format and we see Team Brazil, Team Canada and Team Japan.

So that is all for this season, but follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/RaysMMAThoughts where I will be posting my thoughts about the Finale as it happens.

It was week two of the semi-final fights, and I must say it was a fun but simple episode all about the fights.

This week saw two of the last three fights to determine who would compete on the season finale.

First up was Cameron Dollar from Team US vs Andre Winner from Team UK. The fight saw Andre Winner win due to the fact that he was simply better than Dollar in all aspects, his striking was crisp and he was able to repeatedly stuff Dollar’s shot. The end came when Winner was taken down but landed in the mount and rolled it into a triangle choke to finish in the first round.

The second fight was Ross Pearson of Team UK vs Jason Dent from Team US. I must say the editors fooled me this week. When we saw Ross dislocate his shoulder in practice and have it fixed Martin Riggs style, I assumed it would factor into the fight.

It did not.

Ross beat Dent via Unanimous decision, and just like Winner vs Dollar, Ross won because he simply seemed to be better at the entire game. Standing there were multiple exchanges, but Ross’ combinations were just a bit crisper and packed a bit more power. I have to say, Ross worked some fantastic body shots throughout the entire fight. On the ground Dent was able to work his way up for a while, but as time went on Ross simply muscled him back down and controlled him.

Dent did gain Dana White’s respect with the fight though; Dana stated that Dent did more to impress him with that loss than he did with his two previous wins. Dent explained that he had previously stuck to a conservative game plan to stay fresh for the semi-final.

And that’s it for this week; we will have an all UK Lightweight final, and Frank Lester may get some more teeth knocked out again next week. Check back here to see if he did, and follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/RaysMMAThoughts for all kinds of merriment and ballyhoo.

This week was the beginning of the semi-finals and started with the coaches meeting with Dana about the fights. Both guys didn’t see a need to meet with the fighters since they could agree on all the fights, but Dana wanted to anyway. All the discussions went fine and then Cameron Dollar said he wanted to fight his teammate, Jason Dent.

This gives Dana the idea that they should have teammate vs. teammate to ensure the finale is guaranteed US vs UK. The coaches disagree completely, Bisping says “they” are worried about not having a guy in finale, which causes Hendo to laugh and say he must mean Dana when he says “they”. Dana tells them not to say anything to their guys.

Dana announces the fight and decided to leave it with US vs UK, to Dan Henderson’s obvious surprise. The semi-finals are Damarques vs Nick, Cameron vs Andre, Ross vs Dent and Wilks vs Lester.

At the house both teams celebrate being tied 4 -4 and starting the semis by having an intercontinental barbeque. During this we see Pierce talking to Faulkner about how great the UK guys are and how much he dislikes his team, which Richie hears and confronts him about. Richie questions if Pierce actually tried to get Dana to let him fight. Pierce tells him to come up in weight and they can settle it. So maybe we will see them in the undercard of the finale.

An interesting thing that came out of that confrontation was Pierce saying that the US guys were acting like animals drinking and breaking things all the time. So either Pierce is exaggerating or the UFC made a conscious decision to edit out the house shenanigans due to the last few seasons, which actually caused some concern with the Nevada State Athletic Commission for this season.

Pierce is shown telling more training tactics of Team US to Team UK, and then we cut to the next morning where Richie lets the team know. This leads to Hendo questioning Pierce in the gym and Pierce adamantly denying it. The funny thing is that Dan says to the camera that if he is lying everyone will see that when it airs, and we did.

Damarques is shown grappling and he states that he came with good hands and good ground skills, but due to the time on the show he now has a good clinch and good ground and pound. Which makes complete sense after working with Dan Henderson.

Nick explains that he thinks Damarques is just average and that he (Nick) will have the mental edge.

Great pre-fight editing this week as we intercut between Damarques warming up with strikes as well as praying in the octagon.

Damarques won the fight via unanimous decision based on his control of Nick on the ground and hist superior striking. But the fight was rather close the entire time and Nick almost won it in the first round when he rocked Damarques. This lead to a great 20 seconds of Nick and Damarques just swinging wildly like Rocky vs Apollo. If Damarques is going to win in the finale, he will need to do much more damage than he did in this fight.

That is all for this week, be sure to follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/RaysMMAThoughts for regular updates about the world of MMA, like this week’s news that Kimbo (yes that Kimbo) will be a contestant on the next season of The Ultimate Fighter.

I know I have missed a few weeks, but let’s get caught up before the semi-finals.

So if you haven’t been watching, you have missed: the steady rise of Damarques Johnson as Team USA captain, Michael Bisping getting under his skin, Team UK getting along great and Team US’s feelings towards one another changing after every loss or win.

In Episode 5 Andre Winner from Team UK beat Santion Defranco in convincing fashion. Once the fight moved to the ground Santion turtled the same way he did in the qualifier, but this time Winner didn’t let up and the red stopped the fight in the 1^st round.

Following this fight Team US’s morale was at an all time low, and when a fight almost broke out in the van after training, Henderson had to be called in to lay down the law as if they were children. In contrast to this, Team UK had a fun day playing on the trampoline back at the house.

The second fight of the episode was Damarques Johnson vs Dean Amasinger and in a weird twist, Bisping didn’t show up to corner Amasinger. Johnson won the fight with a triangle choke in the first round. If you recall from the elimination bouts, Dean was almost caught in a triangle repeatedly in his fight.

Hendo felt that Bisping missed the fight because he knew Dean would lose, it turns out he slept through it due to his lingering jetlag.

One of the bigger growing trends is the editor’s enjoyment of ironic foreshadowing, and we received a double helping in episode 6. First we saw Cameron Dollar depicted as a terrified ball of nerves when preparing for his fight against Martin Stapelton. Stapleton was depicted as the ultra prepared UK marine, so of course Cameron took his back and finished it with a rear naked choke in the first round.

The second fight was Frank Lester vs James Wilks. We got to find out that Frank Lester is pretty much out of his mind. In the van Damarques tells Lester that for every one of Wilks teeth knocked out, he will give him $100.00.

This of course leads to a wonderful moment in the fight where James Wilks knocks a few of Lester’s front teeth out with a knee. The real beauty of this moment was hearing the ref tell Lester’s corner to “put the teeth on ice”. Wilks finished the fight in the second round with an armbar.

Episode 7 was the silliest episode of a season that has been refreshingly focused on the training and fights. We saw Jason Pierce continue to pout around the house, Henderson beat Bisping at tennis and David Faulker managed to hit himself in the leg with a sledgehammer while training.

In the fight, Ross Pearson defeated Richie Whitson in the first round with an armbar.

The Jason Pierce pout train rolled continued rolling into Episode 8 last week, as he complained of a staph infection and gave vague reasons from several doctors about why he probably shouldn’t fight. Pierce’s attitude and lack of cooking (along with Jason Dent) caused some friction in the house among Santino and Lester.

The fight was between Jason Dent and Jeff Lawson, and Lawson was prominently featured as a fun guy who kept his teammates entertained, while Dent kept to himself and couldn’t stand living in the house.

In perhaps the sloppiest fight of the season, Jason Dent submitted Lason with an Anaconda choke (or gator roll, or Nog choke, whatever you want to call it) in the second round.

Pre fight Dana met with Jason Pierce about his staff infection and Pierce showed no enthusiasm while stating that he was “mentally able to fight”. Dana didn’t buy it and let him know after Dent vs Lawson that he wouldn’t be fighting. Pierce was upset, but it was far too little too late.

Episode 8 made Bisping look like a bit of a child. In fact while they were arguing over Hendo’s supposed right to change training times, Dan compared his behavior to how his kids act when they don’t get their way. Bisping actually squirted Damarques in the face with a water bottle after the training time argument, tried to accuse him of a racist comment that Cameron actually made (white as a band-aid? Who does that offend?) and then had to try and apologize.

Team US wasn’t shocked when they heard that Pierce couldn’t fight, and Santino made the episode when he compared Pierce with Piggy from Lord of the Flies. Luckily, despite missing some teeth, Frank Lester was cleared to fight Dave Faulkner and Dana was stoked on his fighting spirit. In fact Dana had the second best moment of the episode when he explained that normal people don’t want to fight after getting their teeth knocked out, and that’s what earned Lester the second chance.

This was the best Hendo episode so far. He stayed calm and kind of funny when arguing with Bisping, and kept poking at Lester’s wrecked nose for what seemed to be his own amusement. His final motivation for Lester pre-fight was the fact that it couldn’t turn out as bad as the last one.

The fight itself was kind of rough, Faulkner was obviously bugged by his mouth guard (despite the hypnotherapy earlier in the episode) and Dent was pretty beat up. But they still managed to win a round each, Faulkner wouldn’t get out of his corner to start the third though and the fight went to Frank Lester.

So that’s what you’ve missed, the show is tied at 4 – 4. Come back Wednesday night when I resume weekly columns going into the semi-finals, and as always you can follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/RaysMMAThoughts. Trust me, it’s good times.

I know I have missed a few weeks, but let’s get caught up before the final qualifier to the semi-finals.

So if you haven’t been watching, you have missed: the steady rise of Damarques Johnson as Team USA captain, Michael Bisping getting under his skin, Team UK getting along great and Team US’s feelings towards one another changing after every loss or win.

In Episode 5 Andre Winner from Team UK beat Santion Defranco in convincing fashion. Once the fight moved to the ground Santion turtled the same way he did in the qualifier, but this time Winner didn’t let up and the ref stopped the fight in the first round.

Following this fight Team US’s morale was at an all-time low, and when a fight almost broke out in the van after training, Henderson had to be called in to lay down the law as if they were children. In contrast to this, Team UK had a fun day playing on the trampoline back at the house.

The second fight of the episode was Damarques Johnson vs Dean Amasinger and in a weird twist, Bisping didn’t show up to corner Amasinger. Johnson won the fight with a triangle choke in the first round. If you recall from the elimination bouts, Dean was almost caught in a triangle repeatedly in his fight.

Hendo felt that Bisping missed the fight because he knew Dean would lose, but it turns out he slept through it due to his lingering jetlag.

One of the growing trends on the show is the editor’s enjoyment of ironic foreshadowing, and we received a double helping in episode 6. First we saw Cameron Dollar depicted as a terrified ball of nerves when preparing for his fight against Martin Stapelton. Stapleton was depicted as the ultra-prepared UK marine, so of course Cameron took his back and finished it with a rear naked choke in the first round.

The second fight was Frank Lester vs James Wilks. We got to find out that Frank Lester is pretty much out of his mind. In the van, Damarques tells Lester that for every one of Wilks’ teeth knocked out, he will give him $100.

This of course leads to a wonderful moment in the fight where James Wilks knocks a few of Lester’s front teeth out with a knee. The real beauty of this moment was hearing the ref tell Lester’s corner to “put the teeth on ice”. Wilks finished the fight in the second round with an armbar.

Episode 7 was the silliest episode of a season that has been refreshingly focused on the training and fights. We saw Jason Pierce continue to pout around the house, Henderson beat Bisping at tennis and David Faulker managed to hit himself in the leg with a sledgehammer while training.

In the fight, Ross Pearson defeated Richie Whitson in the first round with an armbar.

The Jason Pierce pout train continued rolling into Episode 8 last week, as he complained of a staph infection and gave vague reasons from several doctors about why he probably shouldn’t fight. Pierce’s attitude and lack of cooking (along with Jason Dent) caused some friction in the house among Santino and Lester.

The fight was between Jason Dent and Jeff Lawson, and Lawson was prominently featured as a fun guy who kept his teammates entertained, while Dent kept to himself and couldn’t stand living in the house.

In perhaps the sloppiest fight of the season, Jason Dent submitted Lason with an Anaconda choke (or gator roll, or Nog choke, whatever you want to call it) in the second round.

Pre-fight Dana met with Jason Pierce about his staph infection and Pierce showed no enthusiasm while stating that he was “mentally able to fight”. Dana didn’t buy it and let him know after Dent vs. Lawson that he wouldn’t be fighting. Pierce was upset, but it was far too little too late.

So that’s what you’ve missed, come back here this week when I resume weekly columns, and as always you can follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/RaysMMAThoughts.

I’ll start by apologizing for missing last week: I’m sorry, let’s get caught up. The younger Browning may be worse than his brother, since he started being a jackass before he even earned his spot in the house. The upside was that it sparked a discussion in which everyone else agreed that people would respect one another and their things, and that the use of bodily fluids was off limits.

Frank Lester KO’d himself going for a takedown, which earned Kiel Reid his spot in the house. Post fight we got to watch a groggy Lester trying to trash talk Kiel Reid who was celebrating like he had just beat Fedor.

Thankfully Jason Dent only took a couple minutes to feel out Rob Browning’s skills before just beating him up until the ref stepped in. Dent utilized some fantastic knees to the body on the ground.

So our teams are now set as we begin the first regular episode of The Ultimate Fighter: US vs UK.

The episode opens with Team UK training hard and establishes what I am sure will be a running theme of the show – Bisping making cocky comments and Damarques letting them get under his skin.

Damarques seems to be stepping in the role of a leader, but also in the role of instigator. In this episode he draws on a Team UK shirt and a member of Team UK’s wrestling shoes. The first was simply laughed off, but Ross wasn’t happy about his shoes being marked up. Even a few members of Team US seemed to feel it was against the pre-established rules.

Luckily this is the extent of childishness in this episode as Bisping quickly tells his team not to retaliate so that they “don’t look like dicks on TV.” Solid advice from Bisping, who witnessed a good share of marker pranks escalate between Kendal and Rory in season 3.

I also felt that this episode was great to show how a fighter and his team prepare for their opponent. We saw Bisping and his assistant coaches study tape on Mark Miller and then work strategy with his Team UK opponent for this week’s fight, Nick Osipczack.

We saw some of Dan Henderson with his four assistant coaches (I always thought they only got to bring 2?) but from a training perspective the episode was mostly Team UK. The Two coaches are a great contrast with Bisping talking and Henderson remaining calm and quiet, but I worry that the dynamic will result in Dan not getting much screen time.

The fight between Nick and Mark was a pretty entertaining brawl for the first round. Nick followed the game plan to lure Mark in on their feet and then go for the takedown. However while Nick seemed to control the location of the fight, Mark was definitely doing more damage. At one point it looked like Mark tapped to a guillotine, however the fight continued and Mark worked back to his feet.

In the second round, two obviously worn out men exchange sloppy haymakers on their feet and try to catch their breath on the ground. Then out of nowhere, following a standup, Nick KO’d Mark with a big kick to the head.

Post-fight, Bisping talked a bit, he felt the game plan proved that his fighters should listen to him, and he explained that he was talking a lot in an attempt to demoralize Team US. Looking at the scenes from next week, it seems to be working.

So far I am impressed with the structure of this season, lots of time in the gym and not much time in the house. It should continue next week when we get two fights in one episode. See you then (I promise).

Until then don’t forget to follow me on Twitter where I say all kinds of insightful and hilarious things. Well… I say things.

Welcome to week two, in which we find out who will be joining Team U.S. coached by Dan Henderson.

Right away team U.S. looks foolish in comparison with Team U.K. when Jason Pierce faints during Dana’s initial speech. This wasn’t the result of simple overwhelming excitement; Pierce had just cut down from 180lbs to 169lbs.

Christian Fulgium is forced to quit before he even gets near the octagon when he is unable to make weight, which Dana kindly lets him know he will regret forever.

However the most unfortunate setback is for David Shackleford, who has a herpes legion on his forehead and is sent home by the doctor.

The fights begin once Dana White gives a final angry and bewildered speech about not being prepared and how hungry the U.K. guys are.

First up is Mark Miller (10-4) against his training partner Kevin Knabjian (10-3-1). Round one is spent on the feet with Mark as the aggressor but with little damage done. Round 2 however sees Kevin come out strong and drop Mark. Following him to the ground he is unable to finish Mark, who stands and unloads with forward moving combinations until the ref is forced to stop the fight.

Mark seems like a good guy, and apologizes to Kevin after the fight, which Dana and Dan are a bit entertained by. Mark however is so disappointed that he punches a hole in the wall of the dressing room.

Our next fight saw Richie Wilson (4-0) submit Paul Bird (4-1) with a rear naked choke in the first round. Dan Henderson described Richie as scrappy and I can’t think of anything better. I was glad to see Richie, a humble and excited fighter, ensure that I don’t have to listen to Paul Bird talk on a weekly basis about hurting people legally inside the cage.

Up next we saw Santino Defranco (13-4) turtle for most of the 1^st round while Sean Sherk look-a-like Waylon Lowe (5-2) peppered him with shots to the body and head. Due to a lack of real damage Santino made it to the second round, where he came out with a beautiful flying knee to the jaw followed by a rear naked choke, submitting Waylon in less than a minute.

The amazing story behind Santino is that he made it onto the second season of The Ultimate Fighter. However during the medical exam they discovered a brain aneurysm. Santino had it removed, has since been medically cleared and now gets his shot at the UFC. He should be an interesting guy to watch.

Due to the weight (and herpes) problems at the start of the show, we get two montage fights. Lucky us. The first saw Jason Pierce (6-0) win a decision against Berger, while the second saw Tom Hayden (2-0) submitted when Cameron Dollar (2-1) slid out from under him and transitioned into a smooth rear naked choke.

The final fight was Damarques Johnson (9-6) vs Ray Elbe (20-11). Elbe has been training his Muay Thai in Thailand for the past three years and was doing well on his feet when he attempted a takedown and landed with Johnson in the mount. From there Johnson unloaded with big punches and bigger elbows, splitting Elbe under the eye and gaining a TKO by referee stoppage.

With the episode coming to an end there were still only 6 members of Team U.S. and it was announced that the two remaining guys would still fight their way into the house. So next week we will see Kyle Reid vs Frankie Lester and Jason Dent vs Rob Browning. That’s right… Browning, Rob is Junie’s little brother and the preview for next week makes it clear that he is as big a fool inside the house. Let’s all hope Jason Dent has some skills.

That is all this week folks, but follow me on twitter throughout the week for some random MMA opinions and news, all kept to an ADD (or ADHD) friendly 140 letter limit.

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.