Right, guys, I'm going to try a little experiment with this season's thread: Last season, the thread was in the Fight Discussions forum - was it's weak response due to the crappy season, or was it the location? Probably a mixture of both factors, so for this season, I'm leaving this in the "main" MMA forum and we'll see how it goes Spoiler tags for this are unnecessary - it's a weekly TV show and I have a life; I'm not going to enforce such a rule with this, so UK guys - if you don't want to know what happens early, don't click or subscribe to the thread. That said, any real spoilers that start doing the rounds on other forums/ news sites (who's in the finale etc) MUST HAVE SPOILER TAGS, and, of course, I expect to see tags for the live finale I haven't actually watched the premier yet, what happened?
It was pretty good, when the went to pick teams there was a coin flip. Pulver won so he got to chose if he wanted first pick or pick first fight. He picked to pick the first fight. BJ got first pick, instead of picking from skill he told everyone who wanted nothing to do with jens to raise there hand and he would pick them, alot of people raised their hands. They got in an argument, and both jens and BJ wanted all the people to raise thier hands on one team and everyone else on the other. Dana made them pick person by person, in the end i am sure there was a couple people with their hand raised on jens' team. There is some interesting people on this show, a 6'4 guy, guy who shows up 22 pounds over weight, nate diaz, and joe lauzon who has beaten Jens already. The fight was ok, it ended up being this pretty tall guy, i think round 6'2 against a pretty standard lightweight fighter. The tall guy was more experience then him and eneded winning form triangle i think, can't remeber exactly but it ended in submission i'm pretty sure.
What was really funny is that 10 of the 16 fighters raised their hands. Jens had no idea what to do. I actually felt bad for him. My impressions: BJ Penn's coaching abilities are unknown at this point, but he's one smart guy. Very smart. Jens... not so much. Some of the fighters are idiots. My early picks: Diaz and Lauzon. What's unclear to me is this: are they going to have only one final match, or will they somehow have two like the other shows? I'm a little confused about how they're going to manage it with only one weight class.
it would have been jokes if pulver chose lauzon to be on his team. i was actually hoping for it to happen, but sadly, he's on team penn. that guy honestly doesn't need to be on the show, he's already got his name written in the ufc for knocking out pulver.
I agree, but as we've seen with other TUF participants, you can get a LOT of exposure and good press from the show. Even though he's got plenty of skills (from everything I've seen and read), he can really benefit from the TUF PR Machine.
On another note, during the fight night broadcast prior to the pilot, I LOVED the interview with the two coaches. I mean, Tito and Ken probably don't like each other, but that series was as much about WWE type crowd hype as it was genuine animosity. These two, penn and pulver, clearly and truly despise each other. Their body language was so severe and what they were saying clearly so genuine that they are either both superb actors or they are two people with no respect for each other and who genuinely despise the other. Wow... and after the stunt Penn pulled at the team picks, I can see why. If he punches Pulver's buttons like that for 6 weeks, it's a miracle they didn't come to blows. This is going to be a wild season.
I loved how BJ called all the fighters out, I think Jens got the more talented team but at least BJ knows his team wants to be there... I also like BJ's attitude that picking the best fighters and riding them to the championship doesn't make a great coach, it seems like he really wants to win by taking the average fighters and improving them. Early thoughts on the fighters- Nate Diaz looks good, nice striking, seems tough, look forward to seeing more of him Lauzon- Proved he has some skill knocking out Pulver, we will see if that was a fluke Corey Hill- He is 6'4 and he is incredibly annoying...running around barking like a dog...looks to be a good fighter but he is annoying Manny Gamburyan- I believe this is Karo's cousin, his regular training partner so he should be good Matt Wiman- Did pretty good against Fisher, a top 155lb fighter First fight= Team Pulver fighter Cole Miller beat Allen Berube via triangle in just 2 or 3 minutes...seemed clear that Berube was inexperienced and it showed It looks almost like the UFC is trying to get fighters who are not completely new, thus they are not so raw and can provide some great fighters... As a side note, what was with Rudiger showing up 20lbs overweight? If you show up to a 155lb "tournament" weighing nearly 180 and then cry on the second day because you weigh to much... Funny moments- Penn and Pulver giving Dana trouble, 5 minutes into the show you could tell Dana wanted to kill them for trying to make it so Penn got 10 fighters and Jens got 6... When Penn was talking to the crying Rudiger saying everyone knew he was giving it 100% training and a guy(I think the guy who lost, Berube) says "Yea, but he needs to stop giving it 100% in the kitchen"...
they're using the coach fight to take the place of the second tournament final. much more appealing system, to my mind. presumably they'll keep it for next season (welterweights).
Ah yeah. I knew about the coach's fight, but didn't make the connection. Yeah. I like that format. Thanks for the explanation. Makes total sense.
I think they also said during the "team picking" portion that "you'll have to win three matches to make it to the finals this season", in reference to what's going on with the matches. Yeah, Hill looks like he's got some tallent, and an incredible reach advantage over most folks in his weight class, but I'm not certain he's really mentally prepared to be a top fighter. All his brazen chest-thumping, I think he either has no clue how good the other fighters are or is trying to keep himself psyched up. Oh yeah, and I second the bit where he's annoying. Thank God he's not my roommate, I'd have to take a chainsaw to him. As for the coaches, I felt Pulver had the better interview at UFN, but it looks like they both have assembled excellent coaching teams. Pulver liked to work his guys hard, but I respect Penn for trying to cheer up his charge. Shoot, I like both of 'em; I have Jens's "Dirty Boxing" video and I've preordered BJ's book! I think Penn will probably win the rematch, just 'cause I don't think Jens has any more good fights left in him, while Penn, even in recent loosing efforts, has shown that he's a top-notch fighter.
That depends on your opinion, GSP easily could have called for a timeout if that was the case and he felt it was responsible for him getting hit...
GSP did say in the post-fight interview that he was seeing BJ in double. And the way he was wincing the eye means it did bother him. I'm not saying that it cost him the entire round, but it cant be brushed off either. Are you saying he should've hughes'd it out then?
We are getting a bit off topic, so I will keep my comments to this one post- I think if GSP was poked in the eye he should have taken the break he is allowed, not saying he should take it if he doesn't need it as Hughes did against GSP(rematch) but if he does need it then take it
1st episode - fun to watch. It does seem very WWE-ish and very appealing to testosterone-laden youths of the makle persuasion though. Is it me or does everyone seem to be more "thuggish" than serious/mature/professional acting students of the art (Mixed Martial Arts)? Or, is it just hype to get people to tune in?
A bit of both Editing occurs in so-called "reality" TV to such an extent that it's basically scripted drama. You've got 24/7 footage of these people, any half-decent squad of editing monkeys can take that and present the characters in just about any light the producers want, which is why I always try to remind people that watch such shows that it essentially IS scripted drama I'm really hoping against hope that Pulver takes the fight between the two. I'm a lifelong Pulver fan, win, lose or draw and, being an instructor for MFS, he'll have solid coaching experience. I don't know how much coaching BJ actually does at the gym he owns, but it'll be interesting to see how their two coaching methods mesh Of course, with the apparent strength of the characters in the house this season, we probably won't get to see much actual training again, which is a shame. I always hope to nick stuff to tune up my workouts from this show and it almost never happens
