The Ultimate Fighter: Liddell vs. Ortiz Episode 1 Recap

The rumors, hype and anticipation have all led to tonight’s start of the eleventh season of “The Ultimate Fighter”. While you may not be all that excited to see a third installment of Liddell vs. Ortiz in the cage, the antics between the two on the show promise to be entertaining. Plus, we’ll meet the newest crop of UFC hopefuls and find out what kind of difficulties, if any, Ortiz had during the filming of the show.

Dana starts us off by talking about the bad feelings between the two coaches. Chuck calls Tito “a complete doorknob” in the first of what is sure to be many insults between the two this season. Everyone gathers, and Dana explains some changes to the format. With 28 guys in attendance, they will fight to decide which 14 are getting into the house. After the first seven fights, the coaches will decide which two losers should get another shot, and they’ll fight each other for the eight spot in the quarterfinals.  That seems like a format that they would have liked to have used when Kimbo Slice was on the show.

Dana gives his first pep talk of the season (take a drink, if you’re playing along at home!), and tells the fighters not to leave it in the hands of the judges, because it’s not good television they’ll regret it for a long time, should they lose.

The first fight is Jamie Yager, who has a huge afro, against Ben “The Hebrew Hammer” Stark. Stark was raised as an orthodox Jew. Awesome nickname. Despite the cultural differences between the two, they have eerily similar tattoos.

We get started, and Yager starts aggressively throwing a wide range of kicks, which Stark appears to be blocking. However, Stark isn’t throwing anything back. Stark partially blocks a couple more hard head kicks, but they get through enough to put Stark down, and the fight is waved off.

Next is 2nd grade science teacher Jordan Smith, who is the first fighter ever to mention having a different personality in the cage than outside of it. No, really. Brad Tavares of Hawaii is his opponent, and his favorite activity in high school was fighting. They touch it up, and the two exchange combinations before they tie up, with Tavares putting Smith into the cage and gaining a single underhook. Smith pushes away, but as they separate, Tavares nails Smith with a knee to the face and a right hand that puts Smith down hard. Great combination there.

Next is Cleburn Walker. Guess where he’s from? Texas! Kris “Savage” McCray is his opponent, and he “might have the most ferociousness of the group”. No, he doesn’t look like Mike Tyson. “Tame, but off the chain” is how he describes himself.

After the break, the fight starts, and some aggressive striking for McCray leads to a nice hip toss that seems to have popped Walker’s shoulder out of place, leading to a quick tapout.  These fights have been ridiculously quick.  McCray then cuts a pro wrestling style promo that is absolutely incoherent.  I love this season already.

Norman Paraisy, raised in France and fighting out of Florida, will step in next.  He wants to inspire people to stop thinking French folk are sissies.  Cheick Kongo beat you to it!  James “The Sledgehammer” Hammortree is facing him.  I immediately find myself wishing his name was James “The Tree Hammer” Hammortree.  Oh, well.

Paraisy immediately looks for the takedown, and Hammortree looks to stand back up as Tito coaches him.  He gets up, and the two square off.  Hammortree ends up on top of Paraisy now and passes to the mount, where he elbows away at Paraisy, who works to get half guard back.  This looks like the middle rounds of GSP-Penn II, just with bad actors playing the parts.  As the first round comes to a close, Hammortree is pounding away from the back mount.  Paraisy quits from his stool…viva la France!

Sorry.

Hackleman is mad, Chuck is annoyed, and Tito says there’s no quitting in MMA.  Liddell brings up “tapping to strikes” as another way to quit, and Tito bristles a bit, but doesn’t oblige him in verbal sparring.

Then we get fight highlights, with Nick Ring facing Woody Weatherby.  Nick “picked apart” Weatherby before finishing with strikes from the back mount.  Kyle Noke faced Warren Thompson, and Noke got an easy takedown in the first and plenty of elbows, to boot.  In the second, he opened up a huge cut on Weatherby with a big elbow from the top en route to a decision victory.

Court McGee faced Seth Baczynski, in a fight with a crazy-looking pace, as Court McGee “was dominating the first round” before getting hit with a huge punch.  In the second, it was a sloppy slugfest of two very tired fighters, leading to a sudden victory round, where McGee got a takedown and controlled his way to a win.

Next is Victor O’Donnell, who’s got an ear-to-ear grin at the idea of kicking some ass on Spike TV.  We love that kind of enthusiasm here.  Chris Camozzi will attempt to wipe the smile from O’Donnell’s face.  Um, with punches, that is.  At the beginning of the fight, Camozzi attempts a takedown, which O’Donnell uses to go for a guillotine attempt, which gets slammed out of.  The two slug it out, and a Camozzi takedown ends the first round on the mat.

The second round sees both swinging and Camozzi landing some nice shots, though O’Donnell does the same.  a nice throw by Camozzi puts him in side mount and earns a “Nice!” from his floored opponent.  The two stand up and O’Donnell drives through a takedown, leading to a triangle attempt to Camozzi at the buzzer.  We go to sudden victory, and O’Donnell is swinging hard but wildly before landing a takedown.  Camozzi stands, throws punches against the fence and hits another nice throw, landing in side again.  Before long, O’Donnell has taken his back, but falls off and the two stand.  Only highlights were shown, but it looked like a really good back and forth fight.  Hopefully, if there’s an injury, the loser gets to come on the show.  Camozzi’s in, and O’Donnell had a broken eye orbital that he fought with for two rounds!  What a beast.  I guess he won’t be able to fight on the show, regardless.

Kyacey Uscola, with 33 fights and what he calls a “shitty record”, thinks he can take advantage of the inexperience of the other fighters.  Brent Cooper, with a 5-1 record, will test that theory.  “Blah blah blah, punch people in the face,” Cooper says.  Uscola probes a bit and gets serious after Cooper lands a nice combination.  Cooper gets a bit overconfident, though, and Uscola lands a huge right hook to put Cooper down out of nowhere!  Holy crap.

Joe Henle vs. Constantinos Phillippou gets highlight treatment, and Phillippou is dominating the fight, according to Dana, before Henle, who you may know as (the hobo with the crazy hair and beard) pulls off an arm bar.  Rich Attonito faced Lyle Steffens and beat him by decision in a fight that only had about 15 seconds of footage aired.  Josh Bryant and Greg Rebello also fought, and Bryant won a majority decision in what looked like a closely-contested brawl.  Jacen Flynn and Charles Blanchard faced off, with Blanchard controlling and landing three ridiculously flagrant shots to the back of the head before the end of the round, with Flynn deciding he couldn’t continue afterwards.  Guess who was reffing?  If you had “Yves Lavigne”, pat yourself on the back!

Charley Lynch fought his “buddy” Clayton McKinney, with McKinney barely one-upping the ridiculous hairstyle of his friend.  They both talk about wanting to knock people out, how great it feels to knock someone out, and other things you’ve heard many times before.  This is the same fight lead-up that was shown during UFC 111 to hype up the show, by the way.

Nice leg kicks by McKinney lead to a great double leg, as Lynch fights to maintain guard.  Ortiz salivates at the spry takedown capabilities of someone who is young and hasn’t been through a dozen surgeries.  Lynch works his way to his feet, is dumped again, and stands again.  Against the cage, the two are throwing hard, and Lynch stumbles forward and gets the takedown.  McKinney goes for an armbar, doesn’t get it, and Lynch stands up, kicking away at his legs.  McKinney finally stands and eats a right hand to the face, but lands one of his own.  Lynch works for the takedown, gives up on it, and McKinney tells his opponent that his nose is messed up.  Lynch doesn’t seem to care, until McKinney punches it dead on, leading Lynch to fall and referee Steve Mazzagatti to stop the fight.  That nose is horribly broken.  We’re talking Rampage Jackson/Rich Franklin/Nate Quarry bad.

After the fight, they exchange “I love you”s, and McKinney says, “I’m sorry I had to shatter your nose,” then turns and poses for the camera right after.  Wow.  Just…wow.  Come on, though.  Who hasn’t had to say that to a friend?  Anyone?  “I’m not just the hair and jokes, I’m a pretty gnarly dude,” says Clayton McKinney, breaking an ages-old stereotype that Clayton McKinney is just the hair and jokes.

So, we have our cast, and the fun will continue next week.  Uscola makes me shake my head, saying that this year’s cast is the strongest that has been on this show.  Yeah, season one only had Forrest Griffin, Diego Sanchez, Kenny Florian, Stephan Bonnar, Josh Koscheck, Chris Leben, Nate Quarry, and Mike Swick.  Maybe someone should buy Uscola the DVDs?

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Tags: Chuck Liddell, Dana White, The Ultimate Fighter, The Ultimate Fighter 11, Tito Ortiz, UFC