T-Dubb's TUF 12 Week 5 Recap

Wednesday's episode was less dramatic than the previous week's, although Bruce Leroy tried to pull a prank and pissed off the one person who’s really talking to him. I don’t understand the need to mess with people. It’s not like you’re locked in a padded room with a bunch guys and have absolutely nothing to do. You’re only there for a few weeks, so get over yourself. Koscheck is just as bad. I don’t get him at all. What is he trying to do, prove that he’s a jackass? We already know that, so he’s just proving us right. He tells his team that they need to be focused and work hard, listen to your coaches, and then he acts like a 2 year old the entire time. How can you take someone like that serious? And he’s not funny.


It’s great that each team has the opportunity to work with and talk to people that they admire. Koscheck team had the pleasure to work with Jon Fitch, who K*lovely loves, and Mr. Liddell graced them with an appearance that had the guys cheesin’ all over. They probably had the same look on their faces that K*Lovely and I had when we meet Liddell for the first time in Vegas. Such a great memory. We’re such dorks. I don’t know about you all, but I really like GSPs French friend Jean Charles Skarbowsky. He doesn’t look like an athlete of any caliber, but he handled the guys like they were rag dolls.

Ladies, did you notice the nice camera shot of GSP shirtless? I’m sure you did. How could you not notice? You know they purposely put that in there for us to drool over. How many times did you rewind? You can look, but just remember he’s mine.

Spence Paige vs Nam Pham

This week’s match up was Spence Paige vs Nam Pham. Round 1, Paige dominated most of the round. He consistently throw punches and leg kick’s to Pham’s legs and body, while Pham was throwing 1-2 punches or kicks for every 5 that Paige threw. Towards the end of the round, Pham blocked a kick, which took Paige down to the ground for ground and pound punishment and a submission attempt until the bell.

Round 2, begins with much of the same stuff as the 1st, but you can see after the first 30 seconds Paige is hurt. He was more defensive than offensive, much of what he tried to do didn’t land, and he you could tell that he was just trying to survive the round. Pham wins the fight, which sucks for GSP’s team, because of course Koscheck and his team did nothing but gloat. You have an immature leader, you celebrate in immature ways. Getting back to the fighters. I liked both. Personally, I prefer guys who are disciplined in multiple skills. Pretty much all we really saw were punches, some kicks, and a submission attempt. These guys are young and still have time to develop.

Well, I really hope that GSP’s team wins the remaining fights, because it is ridiculous that Koscheck is acting this way. I guess this is some type of motivating therapy for his team and part of their acting classes. Next week will probably be “How to Act Like a Jackass Part 2.”

We’ll see on Wednesday what happens.

T-Dubb

T-Dubb's TUF 12 Week 4 Recap

The male ego was at its finest in this week’s episode. The episode begins in the Red Team’s locker, and shows all of the guys gathered around Mike Tyson, who is giving them a pep talk about confidence. It was a touching moment. Tyson is idealized by most of the guys there and they feel so fortunate to have Mike Tyson speak to them. I’m sure they each wanted to give Tyson a great big hug and say “I love you man.”


Back at the house you see some of the guys gathered around a table, trash talking about Bruce Leroy to Mike Johnson. Koschek’s team felt offended by want Alex Caceres was saying during Mike’s fight. I’m sure worse has been said in the season, and if you get offended by someone saying “fuck him up” then wear earplugs. Sevak Magakian seemed to have the biggest issue with Alex. Of course during the conversation, Alex comes in to talk smack back to them, and tempers flare. What you don’t expect is Sevak’s temper to go from puesdo angry to psycho irate within a split second. You can tell that a fight was going to break out, but it was like boom, chairs being pushed out of the way and Sevak going after Alex. He didn’t touch him, not sure if he would have cause someone pretty much tackled him before he could do anything, but he missed the basic steps of getting into each other’s face like they’re going to kiss, the shoving, and then the fight. I felt jipped out of what could have been a great climatic scene, cause Sevak was quick to jump the gun. It’s still early though, I’m sure there will be at least one other confrontation. Hopefully it’s GSP finally shutting up Koscheck. I can dream, right? Sevak just needs to chill out and walk way. Why let someone like Bruce Leroy, the cockiest of them all, get under your skin, make you lose your temper, and possibly lose your chance of being in the UFC? You’re just torturing yourself by letting Alex get in your head.

Ok, do we really need to discuss Koscheck? You already know how much I can’t stand him. He’s not funny, and yet he continuous to be childish and harass GSP for whatever reason. Whatever he was trying to accomplish by wearing those nasty draws of his, didn’t work. It just made us close one eye and look away in disgust, which is what I do whenever they show him anyways. He’s trying to get into GSP’s head piece by piece, but you can’t break perfection. He can’t get his team to win, his pep talks aren’t working and he can’t pierce GSP’s armor. If this keeps happening, will he finally realize that maybe he's the dork trying to act cool, and get over himself.

Kyle Watson vs. Andy Main

The fight begins with an exchange of strikes and kicks. The guys wind up against the fence, where Main mounts Watson’s back for about a minute so. Then they’re on the ground. After that not much happens. Watson tries to mount Main, and they pretty much work on their jiu jitsu skills with each for the remainder of the round. For round 2, Main comes out striking and kicking, while Watson is a bit hesitate and doesn’t really do anything until main began a full attack. Watson takes Main down to the ground and they struggle for a bit again, then Watson takes Mains back and eventually submits Main with a rear naked choke with a 1:39 in round. If Main didn’t allow for the takedown and forced Watson to stand up, he could have won, but he didn’t, so now GSPs team is 3-0.

Now, I don’t know why Koscheck is getting upset with his team, and throwing a fake mini tantrum. He’s training them to be like him…obnoxious and dramatic. We’ll see if Jon Fitch and Chuckie pooh can bring some excitement to the Yellow team. We’ll see.

That’s all folks, for now. Remember to let us know what you think of the season so far or on Twitter @woMMAn.

"Remember hard work pays off."


T-Dubb

K*Lovely's TUF 12 Recap episode 2

We are in the second week and this episode was filled with strategy, drinking, smoking, and of the course team picks. The show starts with the boys heading out to check out the new house they’ll call home for the next couple of weeks. The boys are impressed with the place and quickly race up to grab the best beds in the house. Stevens and McKenzie have no interest in that, they are distracted by the bar and decide that is the place to be. After the beds are picked naturally the next thing to do is to have a few shots, test out the pool and swap stories. They start off showing Lentz as the guy who will handle the liquor as well as the cigarettes. Apparently drinking and smoking is all part of his trickery because he says his cardio is on point. Now after this episode, I am even more convinced that I need to hang with Alex “Bruce Leroy”. He shared his stories about killing an alligator with his bare hands, wrestling a deer, and not to mention he killed it on a harmonica. He just oozes cool.


Now it’s time to get to a little business and the coaches pick their teams. They show Koscheck in the dressing room going over his picks and Michael Johnson is at the top followed by Marc Stevens. Koscheck likes Stevens because he’s cocky. Two peas in a pod right there. Now in GSP’s locker room Greg Jackson is offering him some advice. He tells GSP that if he should go with picking the first fighter, and like Koscheck he is eyeing Johnson as his first pick. Now not only is GSP super fine, he also has a brain and comes up with a good strategy to get Koscheck to waste a pick if he wins the toss and goes for 1st pick. GSP comes up with a fake list and puts Stevens on the top in big letters. At the gym GSP pretty much does everything he can to flash his list for Koscheck to see. Even Dana tells GSP that he’s flashing the list and the other team can see it. GSP tells him “It’s a strategy.” Koscheck wins the toss and opts to pick the first fighter. Silence falls for a second and Koscheck takes Marc Stevens as his first pick. DUMBASS! GSP played him like a trick pony and GSP gets Johnson, the 1st pick he wanted and he get to pick the fight. Dana gives it up to GSP and says “Well played.” Yes Dana well played indeed and just like their upcoming fight, Koscheck came up short and looked silly.

TEAM GSP: Michael Johnson, Jonathan “billy goat” Bookins (my nickname for him), Spencer Paige, Alex Caceres, Karl Watson, Cody McKenzie, Dane Sayers

TEAM KOSCHECK: Marc Stevens, Sevak Magakian, Sako Chivitchian, Andrew Main, Nam Phan, Aaron Wilkinson, Jeff Lentz

Let the training begin. First team they start off in training is GSP. He gives an awesome impression of the Sgt. Hartman speech from Full Metal Jacket. I think this is the first time we get to see just how much of a sense of humor GSP has. He explains that he believes his duties would best fit the team as a training partner and he’ll let Greg Jackson and John Danaher do the coaching. He is happy with his team and is looking forward to helping them learn new skills and improve the skills they have already.

Now Koscheck has a little different approach on his coaching tactics. Koscheck brought in Bob Cook, Daniel Cormier, and Teddy Lucio as his assistant coaches. He wants to push the guys into mindless training. His motivation for them is to win. He makes it very clear that he does not want to GSP at all, even though he has already been out smarted by him.

It’s time for GSP to pick the first fight. The first fight he picks is a doozy! He picks Alex “Bruce Leroy” Caceres vs. Jeff Lentz. GSP said that Alex had asked for this fight and since he seemed determined he wanted to give it to him. Koscheck is happy with this choice as well. He thinks this a good match up and that Lentz will win. You kind of get the feel that Koscheck is not giving Alex a chance in this fight. We get the normal “get to know the fighters” stuff. Alex explains that he is influenced by Bruce Lee and when he was 14 he was fortunate enough to find a gym that would let him train for free and that changed his life. He also got himself into wrestling. Lentz talks about his New Jersey pride and being that he is a Kurt Pellegrino look-a-like, it’s no surprise to me that’s who he trains with back home. Alex is doing a little sparring in the backyard with Sayers and as he puffs away on a cigarette, Lentz explains that he is not impressed. Alex dresses in a formal Chinese gi and rocks a Jedi braid that McKenzie thinks should go. Lentz changes his hair from red to blonde and the boys prepare to head out to battle

ALEX CACERES vs. JEFF LENTZ

Round 1

Alex comes out with some kicks to try and keep the distance from Lentz which works for a little while. Lentz starts in with kicks of his own and is able to push Alex up against the cage. They are both fighting for a good position against the cage and exchange a couple of knees. After a little more scrambling Alex gets on Lentz’s back and goes for a guillotine. Lentz is able to escape and the two end up on the mat here Alex goes the guillotine again. Lentz slips out of it and uses this to get Alex back up against the cage. The ref breaks them up and both fighters are back in the center. Alex continues with the kicks and Lentz decides to do the same. They continue with the kicks and throw in punches. Both of them land good shots but nothing damaging enough to finish the fight. In the final seconds of the fight Lentz gets in a sweet judo throw to end the round in a high note.

Round 2

Alex comes out again with his kicks and Lentz starts to time them and catches one and uses this to push Alex back against the cage. They scramble around for a bit and end up back on the mat but Lentz ends up on top in half guard. Alex is able to get into full guard and stop Lentz from hurting him and before you know it Alex is able to slip his legs in for a triangle. He hooks it in and Lentz lifts up and tries to slam Alex down and punch his way out of the choke but it doesn’t work. Instead of going to sleep, Lentz taps and “Bruce Leroy” prevails and moves onto the next round!!

GSP was all smiles after the fight and said he was happy to see Alex on the bottom instead of up against the cage. He knew Alex had a good triangle and could use that to win. Koscheck is disappointed and said that he saw the triangle coming. Now how can you not like Alex? Even Dana likes this kid and was happy to see him win.

Overall I thought it was a good episode and a good fight. I’m looking forward to next week’s episode. Let’s see if Team GSP can stay in control of the fights. Don’t forget folks that UFC 119 is on Saturday with a list of great fights. Make sure to check out http://wommanthoughts.blogspot.com for the TUF recaps as well as the weekly Rampage thought.

K*Lovely