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THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER: Episode 8 - Sprawl 'n Brawl
Reported By: Boxing Insider - 03.11.2005 02:01 AM
Featured: Ken Shamrock's Lion's Den Clothing
THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER: EPISODE 8 – SPRAWL ’N BRAWL
By Ken Pishna, BoxingInsider.com
Last week on The Ultimate Fighter, Bobby Southworth battled it out with Stephan Bonner for the duration of their two-round bout. In a back and forth battle, despite what most onlookers thought, Southworth came up short in the judges’ eyes losing a split decision. Two judges scored it 2 rounds to none for Bonner and one scored it 2 rounds to none for Southworth. Aaaahhh… brings back sweet memories of Tito and Vitor.
This week’s episode started off much the same as last week’s episode ended… with Bobby Southworth complaining about the loss.
In an attempt to calm Southworth down, Dana White asked for a moment alone with Southworth. Not wanting to talk to anyone, Southworth wasn’t very diplomatic in expressing his wishes and he ended up in a shouting match with Dana. Cooler heads eventually prevailed and the two ended things amicably enough.
As he has done thus far on the series, Southworth left the show in denial of being culpable for anything that had taken place. After Dana said the loss is what happens when you leave a fight in the hands of the judges, Southworth replied, “I didn’t leave anything in the hands of the judges.”
At this point, the fate of Nate Quarry was finally revealed. Meeting with Randy Couture and Nate, Dana explained that Nate had a bad ligament sprain and a fractured bone in his foot. Surgery would be required. As per the rules of the show, Nate would be removed from the competition.
The gap between Same Hoger and the rest of Team Liddell continued to widen. When Hoger decided to go out for a run with Couture’s team, he ended up missing a sparring session with teammate Forrest Griffin. As you can imagine, Hoger earned more scorn from his comrades.
Dana then called a fighter meeting to announce that Nate would be out of the competition due to his injury. He then went on to state that, “Nate Quarry, personally and professionally, has everything that I look for when we’re looking for a fighter to be in the UFC.” Dana then announced that he recommended that Nate stay on as an assistant coach and that Randy and Chuck both agreed.
Due to his leaving the competition, it was then announced that Nate would be allowed to choose a fighter that had previously left the show, either from Team Couture or Team Liddell, to come back and take his place in the competition.
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
Without any forewarning, Nate’s real-life teammate Chris Leben walked back into the house to make his return known to his once again housemates. Leben commented that he promised both Randy and Nate that he would tone down his antics and get down to business.
Not surprisingly, Josh Koscheck seemed to be the one most upset by Leben’s return. Koscheck’s teammate, Sam Hoger, commented, “[He’s] sweating it.”
Time for another middleweight challenge. This time, two members from each team were chained together and charged with dragging two 200-pound heavybags through a course of mud to a finish line.
Josh Koscheck and Kenny Florian represented Team Liddell. Chris Leben and Josh Rafferty were chained together for Team Couture. With things finally swinging their team’s way, Leben and Rafferty won the challenge. Team Couture won the right to choose one middleweight from each team to fight for elimination.
After many excuses about why he shouldn’t fight any of the middleweight’s on Team Liddell, Josh Rafferty was still chosen to represent Team Couture. At a meeting called by Dana back at the house, Couture announced Rafferty to the other fighters as his representative. Rafferty then chose Diego Sanchez as his opponent.
Rafferty talked to all of the middleweights on Team Liddell, basically apologizing for having to fight any of them and trying to make it clear to Diego that it wasn’t personal. In the end, Rafferty sounded like a man who felt he had no chance to win the fight.
Chuck then had a sit down with Sam Hoger, airing out all of the accusations against him. He noted that everyone else on the team felt that Hoger was uncommitted to the team and that he had thrown a challenge. While Chuck felt that Hoger hadn’t held back in the challenge, he did express how upset he was that Hoger had missed the practice session with Forrest. Hoger apologized.
The rest of Team Liddell wasn’t so understanding. In preparations for the day’s sparring session, they decided to go very hard with Hoger and made him pay for his transgressions by taking a pounding in practice.
On fight day, it was storming in Las Vegas. True to his quirky nature, Diego played up the Zen master angle of his character practicing his yoga in the rain to warm up for the fight and draw upon the electricity in the air.
Going in, even Rafferty’s own teammates felt that he was a huge underdog to Diego. They gave him their support, but you didn’t get the feeling that any of them were ready to lay money down on him.
As everyone had predicted, the fight went quickly. Though Rafferty had planned to keep the fight on the feet and dance around with Diego, he was taken down and put on his back within the first thirty seconds. Diego quickly moved to a full mount position and reigned down blows unanswered for more than a full minute. He seemed tired of beating Rafferty and applied a fight ending rear naked choke.
Diego has now fought twice. It hasn’t been close either time. His fight with Rafferty appeared to be nothing more than sending a message to the other fighters that he was the man to beat.
Up Next Week: Diego sitting pretty after crushing Rafferty. The fighters are treated to a night of gathering to watch fights on TV. Another light heavyweight challenge and the table is set for Forrest to step into the Octagon.
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.
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