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Well I've seen every U.S. based episode of TUF, almost decided to skip this one, but thought I've give it a shot.

Watching it now, Bernman won't like the Bellator bashing.

I had no intention of watching it, but I saw it was on and I had nothing else on the DVR. I went through it yesterday and there were a few interesting fighters that caught my eye. Seemed like a lot of fat guys for 185/205, but it is TUF. It's nice having two coaches who respect each other and aren't trying to be the center of attention or hype up some lame beef. Hopefully BJ doesn't go crazy at some point in the season and get "motivated."

Not a good episode for Bellator, as their former champ got crushed by a guy with 4 fights and then badmouthed on his way out the door.

Really good fight to start off with Pendred and Urbina. I'd heard of Pendred before, he looks solid but I was surprised at how the first round unfolded. The lack of animosity between the coaches seems to be resulting in more of a focus on training which is a nice change. Maybe it's because I've been watching TUF Brazil but I was pretty impressed with the quality of some of the fighters in the try-outs, should be a good season and I think we'll get a few legit guys out of it.

im sure ive seen pendred before and was impressed, but he looked **** terrible in that fight
his striking looked off balance, and he had zero sub game

It was kind of a weird fight, it's like Pendred held him in a headlock the whole third round. I was worried the editing was setting us up for a big knees to a "downed" opponent controversy. (Hand on the ground counts as being downed seems like B.S. to me).

Both fighters were ranked relatively high on fightmatrix - 127 for Urbina and 38 for Pendred, both at WW.

Pendred probably should have gotten a straight signing from the UFC, but perhaps they want to use TUF to build his star power.

That made me curious, looked up all their rankings


I guess you'd give BJ the advantage on paper with the LHW's, by a lot. I think the fighters ranked between like 120-200 are probably a coin flip though. One of the eliminated guys went from 200-something to the top 100 after one fight.

blkout wrote: I think the fighters ranked between like 120-200 are probably a coin flip though. One of the eliminated guys went from 200-something to the top 100 after one fight.

Seems like some higher ranked guys than the last time. And you're right about the coin flip thing, I like FightMatrix, but there's simple not enough data to separate those guys (and that doesn't even consider the stress of being on the show and in the house and repeated weight cuts in a short time).

Last week Lima pulled off a comeback right when I was going to make a joke about the Limas needing to work on their takedown defense. This week's fight was pretty lackluster. Next week it looks like Dana is going to completely go off on Mazzagatti and the a possible judging ****.

Jasen777 wrote:Last week Lima pulled off a comeback right when I was going to make a joke about the Limas needing to work on their takedown defense. This week's fight was pretty lackluster. Next week it looks like Dana is going to completely go off on Mazzagatti and the a possible judging ****.

prolly gonna be the highlight of the season

I'm not watching, why did Dana go off on Mazagatti? Did a fight stay on the ground for more than 20 seconds before it was stood up?

REDDzone wrote:I'm not watching, why did Dana go off on Mazagatti? Did a fight stay on the ground for more than 20 seconds before it was stood up?

It was in the preview for next week. Sounded like Mazagatti gave a point deduction for an illegal downward elbow without any warnings or something. (Dana is probably still upset about the downward elbows in the Jones/Hamill fight because he can't promote Jones as undefeated).

He did yell "good job ref" when the ref forced a stand up. It was probably warranted given the rules(?) though.

Dana hates Mazagatti, it goes back to the Brock standup in the Mir fight and the Jones/Hamill fight compounded issues. Since then, Mazagatti can't do anything right, whether deserved or not, and Dana will bitch about him any opportunity he gets.

You really get a good idea for how new MMA is when you watch TUF. It seems like everyone was in high school or later before they kind of stumbled into it. It's not like football, basketball, etc. where nearly everyone starts as a child. Then again, it might never be that way since youth MMA gives people the creeps.

High 5 wrote:You really get a good idea for how new MMA is when you watch TUF. It seems like everyone was in high school or later before they kind of stumbled into it. It's not like football, basketball, etc. where nearly everyone starts as a child. Then again, it might never be that way since youth MMA gives people the creeps.

True. But some people do grow up wrestling bears.

High 5 wrote:You really get a good idea for how new MMA is when you watch TUF. It seems like everyone was in high school or later before they kind of stumbled into it. It's not like football, basketball, etc. where nearly everyone starts as a child. Then again, it might never be that way since youth MMA gives people the creeps.

Hopefully it stays this way. I've seen some of those youtube videos of kids punching each other, etc. in "mma" matches. Scary stuff for a developing brain.

Yeah, I agree. Seeing kids in full-fledged fights is gruesome. I guess the alternative would be more kid practicing non-brain-damaging martial arts with the intention of joining MMA at 18+.

It looks like everyone is going to go ape **** with the point deductions, the refereeing, and the judging.

It'll be crazy if Zapata ends up winning. No one has faith in him.

So Zapata got docked a point in the sudden death round, the decision was 10-8 (against him), 9-9, and 9-9. And he won. Apparently if it's a majority draw in a sudden death round the judges just circle the name of the fighter they think won.

Mazagatti did give him warnings, but not in that round I think. Though I didn't think the one he got called for was illegal.

Despite all the chaos and the clearly wrong decision, neither the ref nor the judges really did anything all that bad, considering the build up. Mazagatti, who is a bad ref, had warned the kid repeatedly for downward elbows (though they were close to being legal) and also had given multiple warnings to Zapata for holding the cag, so for Dana to blow up like he took a point out of the blue is crazy.

And the judges could be commended for not allowing the Stephens kid to GSP his way to victory, even though I thought Stephens did enough to win the last two rounds.

The real issue here is with the incredibly stupid rule used to decide the winner. In a situation like this you have to either give the fight to whoever won the non-draw card, or go to a 4th sudden death round. What you can't do is have the judges randomly pick someone. And how the heck did all three judges give the fight to Zapata when asked when one of them scored the freaking fight for Stephens. The NSAC is a bunch of clowns.