Thursday, June 12, 2008

TUF 7 Episode 11

This week was a fairly interesting episode. It saw the match up between Jesse Taylor and Tim Credeur. Normally I'm not a fan of all the house stuff and confessionals but I thought this week it worked because the two guys fighting are actually normal humans and are quite endearing. The fight took up the entire second half of the show so let's do a quick breakdown of the first half. The first half had some interesting parts at the house and the gym. At the house there is the build up about how Jesse and Tim are such good friends but that this is business and it's a competition and both are focused on winning so they can feed their family. There is an interesting hair cut session where Jesse becomes JT Money after getting (half) dollar signs shaved into his head but everyone said it looked like balls and my personal favorite: a faucet, which I totally agreed with! Then there was a huge raucous drinking session where Jesse became a monkey and pissed himself (again) and almost tried to drown himself. The best line from that whole episode was Amir saying that the house looked like it had been remodeled by an angry caveman. After that it bounced back to the gym where Jesse and Tim were not only at the same training sessions but were actually training together! And Tim was even coaching Jesse on BJJ! I didn't understand this at all. I was very surprised that Dana did not force one of them to go train with Rampage. I was also surprised he let Forrest's coaching team split up to corner each of the fighters instead of having Rampage corner one of them. I understand Tim's feelings about wanting to beat "the best Jesse" which is why he was coaching him up days before their fight. However, I thought it was pretty stupid. After their training session there were two emotional confessions about Jesse's kid and how no one was going to take food out of his mouth. Tim talked about how he was close to retirement before coming on the show but his family supported him and asked him to stick with it so he needed this win to keep his career alive. With all that build up let's finally get to the action:

Round 1: Jesse took Tim down immediately and Jesse showed some really strong ground and pound from inside Tim's guard which was very impressive. Tim I think was trying to wait Jesse out but unfortunately Jesse is a freak of nature and doesn't seem to ever get tired so Tim caught a nasty ass whopping in the first round.

Round 2: Jesse was able to take Tim down easily again however this time he kept Jesse under control a lot better and was great in the scramble even mounting Jesse and taking his back. He almost caught Jesse a few times in the round but for the most part Jesse was on top and stayed active enough but didn't really do a lot of damage.

Round 3: Tim showed better take down defense but still wasn't able to stay standing for long. Eventually Jesse got Tim down and was able to start beating him fairly good from the guard again. Tim was able to scramble a couple times and got Jesse's back again but he could never hang on to top position or lock in a good submission. Jesse just seemed to power through or wriggle out of everything.

Jesse won a unanimous decision (30-26, 30-26, 30-27) with two of the judges giving Jesse a 10-8 round in round 1 which I would agree with. Jesse is now in the finals (probably) and is looking like a legitimate threat to Amir or CB. He is an incredibly strong wrestler with a non stop motor and a fairly good ground and pound game. It would be interesting no matter who he fought in the finals because if he fought CB it would be whoever could impose their will would win. And if he fought Amir, if Amir could stuff his take downs I'm not sure how good Jesse really is on his feet to be able to stand with Amir. I think the finals look good no matter who wins next week.

Next week's episode should be very interesting. I think the fight between Amir and CB looks great. However, more importantly something very strange happens and someone who makes the finals is kicked out of the show. It looks like next week will be can't miss drama. Stay tuned for next week's recap. Until then,

Soccer kicks and head stomps...

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