The penultimate Ultimate Fighter Heavyweights last night featured a lot of action, leading up to this Saturday’s season finale. But the best brawl was a verbal one between opposing team coaches Rampage Jackson and Rashad Evans.
The two have had increasingly contentious arguments, but last night, their feuds over warring strategies and criticisms of each other’s coaching styles spilled over into a low-growl confrontation that had them inches from each other’s faces. Rashad dared Rampage to “throw it — let it happen.” Alas, it did not. Was this rage trumped up for the cameras?
Meanwhile, the best semi-final fight of the evening was between Marcus Jones and Brendan Schaub. The rangy, tall, but significantly older Jones got off a good high kick to Schaub’s face early on, but once Schaub took Jones to the mat, it was ground-and-pound all the way, with the referee calling a victory for Schaub before Jones’ face took more punishment.
Rampage provided the quote of the night after this defeat for his team: “I swallowed my whole heart,” he said in sorrow. “I don’t even know what it was doing there, but I felt it go down my esophagus.” Gulp.
This means that going into the finale — a special that will air this Saturday night on Spike at 9 pm EST — the big fight will be between Schaub and Roy “Big Country” Nelson, the blobby battler whom UFC honcho Dana White said with delight possesses “the worst physique in sports.”
This season of Ultimate Fighter has proven to be highly entertaining, even if its biggest media attraction, Kimbo Slice, has been a glowering, always boastful disappointment. (Kimbo will appear in an undercard fight on Saturday.)
Any EW readers out there watching this besides me? Will you watch the finale on Saturday?
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Photo credit: Spike TV
Two Corrections.
1. The term is “Ground and Pound”
2. Slice is fighting Houston Alexander. Jones is fighting Matt Mitrione.
Damn, Ken, where’d this recap come from? I follow your recaps and this is the first time I’ve seen one on “Ultimate Fighter”. You’ve been watching this whole time? It has been entertaining hasn’t it?
Yup, I’ve been writing about it, not every week, but periodically. Glad to see someone else who reads this website is watching this show!
This was my first season watching UF and I enjoyed it. I think the lower weights provide more action but it was good. I think Nelson is just going to lay on Schaub but I am rooting for Schaub. Kimbo was defintely a disappointment. Dana was really trying to give him a chance. Lets see what happens Saturday if he loses then its over for him.
This is the first season of this show that I watched and I really enjoyed it. My problem was the fact that they were showing commercials for the Saturday night fights DURING the show. The first commercial break(and every commercial break after) of a 2 hour show gave away the ending. That pissed me off.
Yeah, it’s ground and pound. I’d totally have to disagree that this season has been entertaining. I found it to be pretty boring both fight-wise and fighter-wise. I’ll be tuning in to watch the finale only to see Roy Nelson get his @ss handed to him on a platter, but that’s it.
This season was actually been the worst. Most of the fighters have no cardio leading to alot of boring fights. The whole infighting between Rampage and Evans built up to nothing once we all learned that Jackson left the UFC for an acting career before they could fight. Plus any true MMA fan knew Kimbo was never going to get far since he doesn’t have a ground game. Hopefully season 11 goes back to the more exciting LW or WW.
Terrible season. Rampage has ruined this show from the start. He has been careless with his team since he picked their first fight. It is obvious he doesn’t want to be there and could care less what happens to these guys. It’s an insult to not only the guys fighting for a career, but to us viewers who must swallow that fact and continue to watch this show. I’m shocked to now believe this, but Kimbo Slice has more class, respect, and pride than Rampage will ever have.
Great season. First one I’ve watched in its entirety since season 1. I was definitely disappointed with Kimbo, and even more so with Marcus losing, but Rampage is hilarious. I am really looking forward to The A-Team and Rampage’s return to the octagon for a fight with Rashad.
Yeah, this season hasn’t been great….and with the constant Kimbo promos it’s been kind of ridiculous. But props to him for coming out to try, I’ll give him that much. Kimbo and Rashad have both earned more respect from me, that’s for sure. I can’t say the same for Rampage though. What an ass. The fact that he bailed on the UFC and the coaches fight while the show was airing just proved what a douche he is. He also seemed less than interested in coaching the guys on his team and was completely disrespectful to all involved. I’m happy he’s gone now that his true colours have shown. If this was actually being covered, I wish EW would have made it a little more obvious because yes, there are EW readers that watch the UFC events!
This was my first season watching UF and I thought it was great. I totally agree with everything Ryan said– I thought Marcus had it– I rooted for him from the begining. I think Brendan seems like a jerk, and Rampage always makes me laugh. Rashaud is arrogant .
I haven’t watched last night’s episode yet, but I will throw my vote in with the people who didn’t find this season very entertaining. Rampage’s behavior has been completely ridiculous. It doesn’t appear that he has coached his fighters, nor does he care whether they win or lose, except when it comes to his reputation. When they lose, he pranks and belittles Rashad’s team to be “entertaining” and shows us what a big baby he really is. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Hope he enjoys the A-Team, because his career is probably going to mirror Mr. T’s.
Did you watch the same fight as I did? Jones is not rangy, he is huge. Jones did land a kick, he took down Brandon. Brandon got back up and knocked Marcus down. He sure didn’t take him down.
Was I the only one who watched the program, and was pissed by the commercials which told me who was in the finals?
Worst season of TUF ever by far. There was a real lack of interesting characters and a real absence of out of control bevaviour. + Rampage took all the starch out of it my running off to do the A-Team movie. I hope he come back so Rashad can beat the tar out of him. Houston Alexander is an intersting opponent for Kimbo. Neither one has any ground game. All of Alexander’s fights end in spectacular KO’s one way or the other. He is older and smaller than Kimbo but has fought a much better class of opponents over his career than Kimbo. I hope and expect that Alexander will demolish Kimbo.
Man i hope Rampage crushes Rashad. I used to like Rashad, but man he talks alot of crap. I hope he doesnt run in the fight and trades with rampage. Dam i dislike Rashad bigtime.