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This episode features the U.S. Eliminations. 16 fighters come, 8 stay and 8 go home. In a moment of Deja Vu, as the fighters are lined up and BLAF is giving his “Do you want to be a f$&king fighter?” speech, Jason Pierce passes out from his weight cutting. His eyes roll into the back of his head, and he takes a nap. When he comes to, BLAF does not look too happy as he feels the cutting should have already taking place.

Adding to the drama is a herpes sore by way of John Shackleford. During the routine physical the doctor spots his unwanted pet on his forehead. BLAF says “You have a Herpes legion on your forehead that’s contagious. You can not be here in the house with these other guys. So I’m sorry, but thanks for trying.”

The last chapter in the soap opera is with Christian Fulgium in the form of needing to cut more weight. He hops on the stationary bike and starts pedaling away. BLAF is really pissed now. Christian eventually can’t make the weight cut, or as BLAF says “You’re quitting, right?” The season is not starting out well for the U.S. team. Before the bouts have even begun, 2 fighters are eliminated. If you are a superstitious person, this is what is known as a Bad Omen.

BLAF gives them a warning that the U.K. team not only showed up at weight, but were HUNGRY. He feels let down and that this team is lacking commitment and seriousness.

Because of the 2 fighters eliminated, it ends up being that the first bout will be between friends and room mates.

U.S. Lightweight Eliminations:
Paul Bird (5-1) vs. Richie Whitson (4-0) wins by RNC in RD1!
Santino Defranco (13-4) vs. Waylon Lowe (3-2) wins by RNC in RD2!
Cameron Dollar (2-1) vs. Tom Hayden (3-1) wins by RNC in RD2!

U.S. Welterweight Eliminations:
Kevin Knabjian (10-3-1) vs. Mark Miller (8-5) wins by TKO in RD2!
Steve Berger (19-19-2) vs. Jason Pierce wins by UD!
Ray Elbe (20-11) vs. Damarques Johnson wins by TKO in RD1!

Because of the two missing fighters, alternates had to be brought in. Next week we will see the rest of the elimination bouts:

Kiel Reid vs. Frank Lester (Welterweights)
Jason Dent vs. Rob Browning (Lightweights)

Yes, Rob Browning is Junie Browning’s younger brother.

As expected the U.S. team was light in wrestlers. One wrestler out of the bunch in Iowan Paul Bird and he got eliminated. This team’s stand out fighters? I think Richie Witson showed some promise…heart, determination, scrap, aggressive, and well rounded. The other solid fighter was Tom Hayden who simply dominated his bout. Damarques Johnson surprised me with his dominance over Elbe and IMO he may be the best fighter on the team based on what little I’ve seen so far. Still too early to tell.

I think the teams are pretty much evenly matched. Both seem to favor striking and don’t mind grappling, but are light in wrestling. I think we may have a pretty darn close season.

For greater detail on what happened specifically in the fights check out MMAJunkie’s recap and Sherdog’s recap.

This week we are treated with 2 episodes back to back, perhaps because last week we got denied an episode. Since these were the final fights for the season the focus was more upon the actual fights rather than the pre-fight drama and…um…Andrew Zimmern impressions.

The first fight announced was Ryan Bader vs. Eliot Marshall. After Eliot’s RNC win over Shane Primm in his previous fight he respectfully called out Bader with a “You and me baby” and a fist tap to which Bader replied “Let’s do it.” Both guys got their wishes.

Ryan Bader vs. Eliot Marshall
Bader had mentioned before the fight how he liked having the better wrestling because he could dictate whether the fight would stay standing or go to the ground and this fight proved him correct. The fight started out with the two seeming to be evenly matched. A few punches and kicks were exchanged, including an unintentional kick to the nutsack by Eliot in which Bader decided to pass on taking a breather. Bader thankfully didn’t rush in desperately with his takedowns and showed himself to be very comfortable in the stand-up. After Bader landed a series of kicks to the leg, Eliot wanted to return the favor and Bader grabbed a kick and tossing Eliot on his back.

Here they seemed to be evenly matched….Eliot pitting his guard against Bader’s G&P. Bader showed in his last fight that he going put you to sleep with one punch while you are on your back, so the fact that Eliot matched his G&P with some great guardwork is a tribute to his skill level.

Eliot continued with the kicks in the 2nd round landing some real solid ones. However, it’s tough enough to defend getting taken down by a great wrestler when BOTH feet are on the ground, let alone one and Eliot got taken down a few times and Bader worked his G&P.

Bader won a unanimous decision and makes it to the finals. Here’s the part that disgusts me: the fair weather, fake MMA fans that criticize Bader as a boring lay n’ pray wrestler because of this fight. Anyone that is an actual fan of MMA would realize that Eliot is not a bum and his groundwork canceled out Bader’s G&P. When you say Bader lay ‘n prayed, you are insulting Eliot’s skill level. I want to say they are also completely ignoring his past performances, but in all likelihood they are simply unaware because they don’t real care about MMA, but would rather have the image of being an MMA fan with all their Affliction shirts and TapOut hoodies. Bader’s one punch KO of tom Lawlor, 2 submissions and 4 TKOs are considered boring Lay ‘n Pray? Having only ONE fight before this make it to a decision is the sign of a boring fighter? Riiiiiight. Stick to Magic the Gathering and D&D Conventions and stop pretending.

Mir in typical ignoramus fashion states: “He knows he’s not that great of a fighter; he’s just a good wrestler. I’ll give him credit for winning with limited abilities.” furthering demonstrating how ignorant he is and greatly insulting his own fighter in Eliot, since Elito couldn’t win against such a crappy wrestler pretending to be a fighter. We all know submission an TKO wins are pretty common in wrestling. The greatest mistake Mir makes is talking about someone’s limited abilities when he has 7 submission wins and only 1 TKO win. Sounds pretty damn limited to me. Bader has more TKOs in LESS fights. Mir…wake up dude.

I had some minor dislike for Eliot because of his disrespect for Nog earlier in the series, but after this fight had more respect for him. He’s a terribly talented guy and I’m sure we will see more of him.

Phillipe Nover vs. George Roop
Nover goes from being the fainting nurse to the “Anderson Silva at 155#s”. THAT’S a great story and was a lot of fun to watch unfold. Roop was given a lot of compliments by Mir and the rest of the team for his toughness and tenacity. Roop has a broken hand and a black eye and steps up to fight. THAT is what a REAL fighter is. The guys has massive balls and is another guy that is terribly talented. Unfortunate for him he is taken on Nover. Nover comes out with a fury of hands and pressure that get Roop to the ground. Roop sweeps and Nover is already working the DWL. Roop tried to fight and escape it for some time but Nover wasn’t given it up. As Roop tries to squirm out, Nover rolls him, figure fours his legs and sinks in one of the deepest DWL I have ever seen. Since his legs are locked by Nover, he’s got only one flipper and it’s not enough to do anything but tap.

I hope to see more of Roop. He has got massive amounts of heart and skill and it will be a terrible shame if the UFC passes him by.

In episode 12, we add some more drama, of course from the ever predictable Julie Browning. More on her later. Let’s talk fight.

Krzysztof Soszynski vs. Vinicius Magalhaes
This fight was a battle amongst teammates and one billed as the classic striker vs. grappler match up. The consensus was if it stayed standing Krzysztof wins and if it goes to the ground Vinny wins. After a few light exchanges, Vinny rushes Krzysztof against the fence and then jumps to guard pulling Krzysztof down with him. Vinny immediately locks in Mission Control and rams a few elbows into his head and then not much happens from there. Krzysztof wisely backs out and gets to standing where he lands a good 12-14 kicks inside Vinny’s leg that he simply either has no answer for or doesn’t know how to check. Perhaps he just didn’t care.

Just when it looks like Krzysztof is finding his range and beginning to land some real damage, Vinny again gets close and jumps to guard pulling K down with him. Man that last name is killing me. Once there Vinny goes into BJJ mode and locks in an armbar. Vinny reminds me of the Tyson back in the day where you knew bad things were about to happen and you could count the seconds until the fight was over. Vinny’s grappling is downright scary and will be a problem for anyone on earth at 205#s.

Insert drama from Julie Browning here. Julie throws glass that nails Primm, takes a swing on Primm while Primm is sitting and LOL…misses….takes another swing and gets teeped and sent flying back for his troubles. Vinny steps in and drags Julie away. Julie cries. Julie screams and yells. Julie states she only did it to get kicked off the show because she was afraid she was going to lose the fight. BLAF reprimands Julie and sends her into time out. BLAF tells the fighters they have to jerk Julie off if they want her off the show. /drama

Julie Browning vs. Efrain Escudero
Efrain has been wanting this fight from day one. Julie goes from sitting on the ground when the fighters are announced to stretching and touching her toes when the bell rings. In a mildly interesting back and forth stand up battle with Efrain coming out with a slight edge, Julie feels she should try to takedown Efrain…who is a far better wrestler and grappler. Must have been a Mir gameplan. Julie fails.

In round 2 more of the same, with Julie doing a bit better. Efrain changes his tactics, shoots and takes Julie down where she gets half guard. Efrain pounds away looking for an opening. Julie is trying to come up, Efrain pushes his head down and nails a Brabo and Julie taps.

Julie in typical bipolar fashion goes outside and tells everyone that she should be in another sport as she has wasted 3 years for nothing. A minute later in the confession booth she says he’s not going anywhere. Yay, we get to see her get beat up some more!

The final matches for the Spike TV event:
Efrain Escudero vs. Phillipe Nover
Ryan Bader vs. Vinny Magalhaes

Main Card:
Jason MacDonald vs. Wilson Gouveia
Kevin Burns vs. Anthony Johnson
Junie Allen Browning vs. Dave Kaplan

Prelims:
Krzysztof Soszynski vs. Shane Primm
Kyle Kingsbury vs. Tom Lawlor
Jules Bruchez vs. Eliot Marshall
Shane Nelson vs. George Roop
Roli Delgado vs. John Polakowski

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Prologue
The 7th installment of season 8 revolved around highlighting Vinicius Magalhaes. The episode begins in the locker room of Team Mir, and starts with Mir cussing out Julie Browning for his win over Roli Delgado. He further degrades Roli by suggesting that he fought a worthless opponent that should have been KOed in a minute. “Let’s be realistic. You just went three rounds with Rolando. Rolando. You showed some chinks in your armor, so the next guy’s not going to be afraid.”

While correct about the second half of this statement, Frank is still blissfully unaware of the legitimacy of Roli’s Black Belt and unimpressed by Roli’s performance, though EVERYONE else was, including Julie. Mir continues to berate Julie for a while, and uncharacteristically is agreeing with everything Frank is saying and swears he will take conditioning seriously from now on in. I won’t hold my breathe.

Team Mir Training
Mir announces that Jules Bruchez will be fighting Vinicius Magalhaes.

Switching from the locker room to the training room, Team Mir is working on their conditioning by taping their noses shut and wearing snorkels. Yes, snorkels. Mir then spews a few minutes of pseudo science explaining how by having difficulty breathing yet executing a cardiovascular intense workout, one can improve their overall cardiovascular endurance. Apparently, Mir is not up to date on current Sports Science, since his idea was disproven in the 70s. While he may be increasing lung capacity to some extent WHILE someone is running, which is simple GPP (which they have plenty of already), if he wants to increase their endurance in a fight he needs to make it more specific: have them spar with the snorkels on. Hey, it’s not my idea.

Something fishy in the filfy streets of Rio
The storyline that the episode centers on is the argument between Vinicius Magalhaes and Nog. Apparently they rolled prior to the first episode and Vinny did surprisingly well. Anyone who trains knows that this is really meaningless because of the variables involved. However, Mir was trying to pry some pointers out of that particular session that he could possibly use in his upcoming fight against Nog.

Vinny basically got out of that session, that in sport BJJ he felt he was the more technical player as he felt Nog’s game was “very basic”. I felt it was a fair evaluation and wasn’t to be disrespectful. Mir was asking and he answered. However, he must have felt deep down inside somewhere that he should have kept mum since he finished with “They’re going to kill me in Brazil.”

Nog comes by the house as he often does, and since it’s his B-Day and he has mentioned he is missing his family, Team Nog made supper and even baked Nog a cake. Shane Nelson feeling usurped by Julie and wishing to assert that he is the much larger jerk comments “Team Nogueira sucks. They are too close too soon. They act like they’ve known each other for 20 years.” and a bunch of other comments. Heaven forbid, because you were neglected as a child you should think showing an affinity for your coach and team mates is a weakness and unmanly. Quite the reverse actually.

The next day, the team mentions to Nog about Vinny and Mir’s conversation. Nog is NOT happy. Nog confronts Vinny and the two switch to Portuguese and begin to argue and it spills from the training center into the locker room. Nog is repeating “You blew it with me, man.” and mentions that Vinny was actually his 2nd pick and he was looking forward to training with Vinny, but after hearing this Nog says “We are enemies now.” WTF wants to be enemies with Nog!?! Vinny spends the next few minutes trying to convince Nog that he wasn’t trying to be disrespectful. Rightfully so. He wasn’t degrading or belittling Nog. He tells Nog how highly he thinks of him and his accomplishments, but Nog is too hot and ends the conversation by saying an apology will be forthcoming if he confirms that Vinny wasn’t being disrespectful, but for now it stands “We are enemies.” GULP.

Jules Bruchez vs. Vinicius Magalhaes
The fight is hella uneventful for the first few minutes. Jules completely freezes and looks like a deer caught in headlights. He backs up constantly and does next to nothing. Vinicius doing the unexpected kickboxes with Jules, which really was Jules only chance in the fight. So he HELPED Jules, but Jules was nervous and didn’t execute an aggressive gameplan. Vinny lands a VICIOUS kick to the body that forms an instant welt. Some light punches are exchanged and eventually a clinch happens. Vinicius goes for a flying armbar which he said he would attempt. They go to the ground, Jules gets swept and mounted. Vinny transitions to an S-Mount, looks like he is going for a Locoplata, but transitions to a modified armbar which elicits a tap from Jules. Fight over.

Next week: the remaining 4 Lightweights will do battle.

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