I had so much fun watching and chronicling last season, I decided I’d give it a shot again this season. I’m a bit late on my episode 1 review, but here goes.
This season is subtitled Team Liddell v. Tito Ortiz and focuses on middleweights. The UFC is clearly trying to play on the history between Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. If I recall correctly, Chuck beat Tito silly at UFC 47 and again at UFC 66. The tension between the two should make for good television. Let’s hope Tito doesn’t resort to kindergarten antics like Rampage Jackson did last season.
On with the show.
We are introduced to 28 fighters. If you do the math, you’ll realize that after 3 rounds of fights that’s going to leave you with an odd number. In comes this season’s wrinkle, the wild card fight. After the second round, the “most deserving” loser will be selected and put back in the mix. It will be interesting to see if that has any effect on the eventual outcome of things.
Dana White gives a profanity/bleep laiden pep talk to the fighters before the fights start. It was kinda like Debbie Allen’s speech in Fame, but with a whole lot of f-bombs. Seriously, I kept expecting Dana to start slamming a cane against the floor of the octagon.
Then its on to the fights.
They had about 45 minutes to get 14 fights in gang. Some of the fighters cooperated by getting KO’ed quickly. Some fights got the highlights treatement.
My favorite was the fight between Norman Paraisy and James Hammortree. In his pre-fight comments, Paraisy expounded on how he was going to show that world the heart of the French fighter. Before I could even come up with a new twist on the classic French surrender joke, Hammortree had bloodied Paraisy for an entire round.
Then…wait for it…Paraisy quit. Just refused to come back out for the start of round two.
Waved the white flag.
Fucking quit.
The other interesting bout was the one between Joseph Henle and Constantinos Philippou. Philippou was having his way with Henle for most of the match. Then Henle trapped him in an armbar for the submission. I think Henle will go in as an underdog. Dude also looks remarkably like a fitter Necro Butcher.
The judges for the fights were Liddell, Ortiz and UFC president, Dana White. They weren’t spectators. They yelled at and coached the participants in all the fights. Tito yelled “left elbow” so much I’m pretty sure its his safe word with Jenna Jameson, or maybe his favorite erogenous zone.
Tonight, Liddell and Ortiz will choose teams and the real fights will begin. Your fighters are:
- Jamie Yager
- Brad Tavares
- Kris McCray
- James Hammortree
- Nick Ring
- Kyle Noke
- Court McGee
- Chris Camozzi
- Kyacey Uscola
- Joseph Henle
- Rich Attonito
- Josh Bryant
- Charles Blanchard
- Clayton McKinney
The Ultimate Fighter airs Wednesday nights on Spike! TV at 9 pm CST.
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