 |
The Ultimate Fighter: Episode 7 - Ground & Pound
Reported By: Boxing Insider - 03.01.2005 05:21 PM
Featured: Ken Shamrock's Lion's Den Clothing
THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER: EPISODE 7 – GROUND AND POUND
By Ken Pishna, BoxingInsider.com
Last week on The Ultimate Fighter, we finally saw the showdown between Josh Koscheck and Chris Leben. After an uninspiring battle, Koscheck emerged the winner by unanimous decision. Chris Leben, the guy everybody loved to hate, was sent packing.
Prior to this week’s fight, the majority of the episode was fairly uneventful. Instead of the usual confrontation that Leben brought to the show, this week was spent building characters and storylines to fill his absence.
Talk started early amongst Team Liddell about teammate Sam Hoger not fitting in. They even went so far as to say that they believed that Hoger was somewhat of a trader, buddying up with Team Couture.
With Leben’s exodus, Couture’s team was left with only one middleweight, Nate Quarry. And with the MRI results not back yet, Quarry’s injury has left his future on the show in doubt. As a result, Chuck Liddell was once again forced to send one of his fighters over to Couture. Liddell expressed extreme distaste for having to make the move, but eventually ended up sending Josh Rafferty to Team Couture.
This far into the show, Rafferty was rather unhappy about having to switch teams and Team Couture wasn’t so thrilled to have him. Rafferty is now the black sheep of the green team setting up future discord.
This week, the light heavyweights were run through a team challenge called “The Ring.” All six fighters were harnessed to a UFC logo metal ring. Circled around the fighters were flags of each team’s color. Each fighter on each team was charged with capturing two of their team’s flags. The first team to gather six flags won.
Finally working together as a unit, Team Couture finally won a challenge. As a result, they were charged with selecting one light heavyweight fighter from each team to fight for their spot on the show. After much discussion, they chose their own Stephan Bonner to face Team Liddell’s Bobby Southworth.
The fight between Bonner and Southworth was much more entertaining than the Koscheck/Leben fight last week. The two went back and forth through the entire two rounds. Bonner scored with solid takedowns and submission attempts. But Southworth held his own dominating the striking category, coming away with the more effective strikes and doing much more damage than Bonner. In the second round, Southworth even stunned Bonner a couple of times and appeared on the verge of knocking him out.
Both fighters were preparing for a draw, which means that they would have had to fight an overtime round. To everybody’s surprise, Dana White announced that the judges had awarded a split decision in favor of Stephan Bonner.
Southworth and Liddell were shocked and vehemently disagreed. Couture and White were both very surprised thinking that the fight was going to go to the overtime round. Everyone but Southworth put it in a realistic light though, saying that you never want to leave the fight in the hands of the judges.
Southworth stormed away as the show ended.
Up Next Week: The controversy over the split decision continues as Bobby Southworth disrespects Dana White. The rift between Sam Hoger and the rest of Team Liddell continues to widen. And, surprisingly, a previously eliminated fighter returns to the show.
Ken Pishna is a regular contributor to BoxingInsider.com and a senior writer and editor at MMAWeekly.com. You can contact him at KenPishna@MMAWeekly.com.
LetsGetCredit.com - Apply for a Credit Card NOW!
WrestlingDotCom.com - Pro Wrestling News & More!
|
|
|
