My Take On: The Ultimate Fighter Finale

On Sat­ur­day we marked the end of another sea­son of The Ulti­mate Fighter, and while I was excited about the fights on the finale, I was left unim­pressed with the sea­son as a whole. If you remove Kimbo  and Ram­page I think the sea­son wouldn’t have been as suc­cess­ful . I expe­ri­enced many emo­tions as I watched this sea­son - many times it was anger, but it was only because of what was going on with Ram­page and the UFC as well as the over­all lack of con­nec­tion with any of the heavyweights.

At the end of the day, the right guys won and lost and gave us some high­lights which will be talked about for a long time. Moments like:

• Ram­page call­ing Schoonover “Tit­ties” on national tele­vi­sion the first time
• Kimbo and Ram­page dancing
• Kimbo’s debut in the cage
• Justin Wren dominating
• The many ver­bal alter­ca­tions between Ram­page & Rashad
• The “power of the belly” get­ting Nel­son to the finals
• Big Baby snapping

All of these moments and fights cul­mi­nated with a great card that gave us a new heavy­weight TUF win­ner and put Kimbo on the map in the octa­gon. Here is My Take On: The Ulti­mate Fighter Finale -

Mar­cus Jones vs. Matt Mitri­one– After their heated exchange on the last episodes of TUF, I expected Mar­cus to come in there and kill Mitri­one dead. Sadly, Mar­cus got knocked out by Matt. Mar­cus had very robotic standup and it showed in his per­for­mance. With a good camp behind him though I see Mar­cus being a major player in the heavy­weight division.

Frankie Edgar vs. Matt Veach–Edgar and Veach gave us a great fight and Edgar con­tin­ued to move up the rank­ings, cap­tur­ing the sub­mis­sion vic­tory. I see Edgar in the title pic­ture in 2010 if he keeps hav­ing such solid performances.

Kimbo Slice vs. Hous­ton Alexan­der–The fight I was most excited to see of course was this one. While I have always liked Kimbo Slice, I admired how he car­ried him­self in the house as well as the hum­ble­ness he dis­played at hav­ing this once in a life­time oppor­tu­nity. Hon­estly, I expected some­one get­ting knocked the fuck out but sadly that did not hap­pen. In the 1st round, Alexan­der danced around the cage being elu­sive and try­ing to bait Slice for the KO. In the 2nd though it was all Kimbo and he was show­ing some of the new tools in his arse­nal such as this :

In the end, Kimbo got the deci­son win and showed us some of the things we fans can look for­ward to in future fights. Well done Mr. Slice.

Bren­dan Schaub vs. Roy Nel­son– I fully had Schaub tak­ing this given my dis­like for Nel­son, but I have to admit I was wrong in my assess­ment of Roy Nel­son. I con­sid­ered Roy an hon­est to good­ness tub o’ shit that used his girth to squeak by, but I have shame in admit­ting that the big man has power and knows how to use his size not only to smother oppo­nents, but to aid in his punch­ing power. These tools are what got him the KO vic­tory. While Roy Nel­son is by no means a won­der­ful phys­i­cal specimen, he, my friends is an Ulti­mate Fighter! I was sur­prised at his sub­dued demeanor upon being awarded his tro­phy and dur­ing his post fight speech.  As some­one who hates to be under­es­ti­mated, I really felt bad that I failed to look beyond Roy Nelson’s physique  to see an ath­lete that is a stu­dent of the game. I owe Roy Nel­son an apology.

Matt Hamill vs. Jon “Bones” Jones — Matt Hamill has been a favorite fighter of mine since his stint on TUF. As some­one who is rais­ing hand­i­capped chil­dren,  it is inspi­ra­tional to watch him fight with only four senses at the ready and be suc­cess­ful at it. Jon Jones came in to this fight ready to make a state­ment - and boy did he do so by dis­man­tling the fan favorite with his unique offense . Sadly, the hunger for the vic­tory ended up get­ting Jones dis­qual­i­fied due to an ille­gal elbow strike from the 12–6 posi­tion. In addi­tion, Hamill suf­fered a dis­lo­cated shoul­der. Jon Jones impressed me with his unique moves and strikes. The DQ was unfor­tu­nate for sure, but the sky is the limit for the 22-year old Jon “Bones” Jones. As for Hamill I wish him a speedy recov­ery and look for­ward to see­ing him fight again soon.

Awe­some take­down by “Bones”

As always these are my opin­ions and if you agree or dis­agree by all means leave your com­ments below.

Rich

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