TUF 7: Tear-Jerker
Posted by Brady Gillihan on June 12th, 2008Jesse Taylor (6-2) and Tim Credeur (9-2), somewhere in the timeline of living together in the TUF house, like Todd and Copper in The Fox and the Hound, decided to be “friends for life.”
But, business called on Wednesday night’s episode; and, both men looked to family and friends back home for some tear-jerking motivation. (I promise I didn’t almost cry when Credeur was talking about his wife.)
Round one: Nah, let’s talk about Fighters.com’s eighth-ranked light heavyweight coach Forrest Griffin (15-4) first.
1. He can choke out ninth-ranked “Shogun” Mauricio Rua (16-3).
2. He can coach as good as anyone on the show thus far.
3. The man can play hoops. And dunk! Easily.
In a game of The Ultimate Fighter, Vegas’s version of H-O-R-S-E, Griffin pulled no punches when he slaughtered Fighters.com and UFC Light Heavyweight Champion “Rampage” Quinton Jackson (29-6), who confessed, “I suck at basketball. I’m probably the world’s worst basketball player. I don’t play basketball. I kick ass.”
After Griffin won the 10G’s offered by apparent money bags UFC President Dana White, each fighter on his team socked away two grand themselves, thanks to the traditional $1000 offering being doubled after Jackson nailed (okay, he banked it…) a three-pointer when White challenged the gameless champ.
Okay, now round one. Actually…let’s talk about getting drunk and peeing on carpet.
When one thinks of the phrase “cerebral fighter”, one will never, ever think of Jesse Taylor.
While the man is sculpted like a Greek statue in body, his thought patterns could easily be drawn out on an Etch-A-Sketch. He pretty much goes in one or two directions.
He combined famous quotes and scripture and came up with sentences like these: “In prayer and in steed (yeah, not deed, like one might think)…A flock of seagulls, waiting, watching, yearning…On fight day all shall be destroyed.”
He said all the above while getting several “$” emblems buzzed into his hair. They didn’t look like “$”, they looked more like ”p”. But Jesse was happy with his new ‘do.
And when he got drunk, he ran very fast across furniture, not unlike a water-walking lizard. He busted the top off a glass beer bottle and attempted to mouth it. He stood on plush carpet and watched yellow urine puddle beneath him.
He had a great time, and, breaking tradition in the TUF house, didn’t destroy much or challenge nine or so other guys to a fight, and didn’t once say anything about a “Fatherless Bastard”. He was very likable, even when soaked in his own waste and literally trying to drown himself in the hot tub.
Okay, seriously, round one:
It started as expected. Jesse tackled Tim.
Tim did basically two things the entire round: closed guard and use the butterfly guard. When he was closed, he got pounded hard. When he put Jesse on his shins, he put Jesse off balance and suffered less.
But, he usually had it closed, in spite of his corner politely telling him repeatedly, “Open up, Tim, butterfly guard.” And he paid for it, by losing the round with Jesse hitting him with three dozen or so shots to the face.
Round two: It was a twin of the first, almost.
Credeur suddenly got sweeps, submission attempts, even took the bigger wrestler’s back, after taking his corner’s advice. But, Jesse is a brute and had nothing of it. He muscled his way out of every attempt, scrambled out of every bad position and ended the round on top.
Round three: It was a “must submit” for Credeur; and, he put Jesse high in the air several times with the butterfly guard. He even attempted the rubber guard, but his limited flexibility betrayed him. In short, he threw everything he had, even some wild monkey-esque punches from the bottom at the end. But, Jesse stayed in the center of the veteran fighter and never slowed.
He pounded out the round and, sure enough, won his semi-final fight by unanimous decision.
In the preview of next week, we got to see Dana White viewing footage from a security camera and declaring that one of the fighters is “out of the finals and out of the UFC.”
Check out next week’s fight right here when Amir Sadollah (0-0) takes on “Doberman” CB Dollaway (6-0) in their own semi-final bout.
ygtz39 said:
great episode!
loading said:
very good
mrengles said:
Taylor’s my hero
krapnggt said:
He’s pretty awesome
vicking said:
Nah Credeur is better
mageborn said:
I second that
coolking1 said:
I wonder who gets kicked out
aghj193 said:
yikes
aghj193 said:
guess we’ll have to wait and see
agentk said:
anybody know?
mfguard said:
nope
aganthorp said:
me either
MightyMouse said:
I think it’ll be Jesse, Amir and CB seem to display decent behavior. Jesse can sometimes be pushed over the edge.