The Ultimate Fighter – Heavyweights, The Ultimate Finale

Big Country

 

That’s a fine figure of a man. – my wife upon seeing Roy Nelson post fight.

So we’ve come to the end of our three month MMA journey.  Roy Nelson will face Brendan Schaub for the title of “The Ultimate Fighter.”  We’ll also have Kimbo Slice in action, as well as Marcus Jones, Matt Mitrione, James McSweeney and Darrill Schoonover.

The show was three hours long, so there were some non TUF fights, including a disputed decision in the fight between Matt Hamill and Jon Jones.  Jones appeared to have won the fight, but the referee disqualified him for an illegal elbow.

Let’s take a look at our TUF related matches, shall we?

The opener was Marcus Jones against Matt Mitrione.  Mitrione was painted at the villain of the season and rightly so.  The crowd was solidly behind Jones.  Unfortunately for them, Mitrione took advantage of Jones’  in-progress stand up and laid him out with a knockout in the opening seconds of the second round.

Up next was the “catchweight” fight between Kimbo Slice and Houston Alexander.  I would have hated to be Alexander in this one.  Who would want to be the first guy Kimbo Slice beat in the UFC.  Alexander circled Kimbo for the first two minutes of the first round, trying to wear out Kimbo’s iffy knee.  The action picked up in the second round with Kimbo showing a much improved ground game.  Alexander was worn out in the third round, but still managed to put Slice on the mat with a hard leg kick.  To the surprise of everyoen in attendance, the fight went the distance with Kimbo Slice picking up the victory by unanimous decision.  Poor Houston Alexander.

A match from the undercard was shown before the main event.  It was James McSweeney, the British kickboxer, against Darrill “Titties” Schoonover.  Schoonover didn’t look nearly as sharp as he had on the show.  Despite hanging with McSweeney well into the third round, Schoonover took a KO loss after a series of hard strikes from McSweeney put him down.

And then it was on to the main event:  Nelson v. Schaub.

I found myself rooting for Schaub, mainly because I think he’d be a good ambassador for the UFC.  Nelson was the favorite, but he’s on the backside of his career at this point.

Schaub against showed good skills in the Octagon.  He stayed with Nelson and even rocked him a bit early on.  Unfortunatly, he left himself wide open and Nelson laid him out with a big right at 3:25 in the opening round.

Roy Nelson is the Ultimate Fighter for Season 10.

It was announced that Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz will be the coaches for the next season of the show and will face each other in the Octagon again after that. 

In closing, this was my first exposure to this show.  I enjoyed watching the progression of the tournament.  I could have done with a little less of the Rampage/Rashad drama.  Overall, it was time well spent and a good introduction to the workings of the UFC for a newbie like me.