UFC Ultimate Fighter 20: Team Pettis vs Team Melendez - Sep 10

[Carbomb]

I reckon he's either talking about Calderwood, or that Justine Quiche lady.

[jimufctna24]

David where are thou? I need a common ally who does appreciate Women's MMA as much as the norm. On a more relevant note, I did read that Gil brought in Nate Diaz to intimidate Pettis

 

http://www.mmafighting.com/2014/9/4/6108099/gilbert-melendez-brought-nate-diaz-to-tuf-to-intimidate-anthony-pettis

 

It does appear that there are no real fireworks between coaches though

 

 

 

"There was tension," Melendez said. "There was, let's not fake it and try to be friends, but let's also not fake it and talk s--, because that's not what I do. I do my talking in the cage. There was tension there, but I respect him. We'd say ‘sup' and go our separate ways in the hall. There were a couple days where we had to do photo shoots and we were right there mugging each other, and it was a little awkward. We did a whole photo session mad dogging each other and not saying one word to each other."

[mickfan]

Anyone have a link to a stream or vid of ep1?

[Noah Southworth]

It was a good first episode; they didn't try and fit video pieces on every fighter into the first show, which helped because they could pace it better with clips of fighters in the house, setting the scene for future fireworks, and generally giving things time to breath. The first fight was a good fight but there were no surprises and I'll wait to see if anyone else who watched the first episode noticed why.

[Supremo]

I haven't seen the show yet but I'm over the moon to hear that they've abandoned the fights to get into the house. For the first time in years and years this sounds like how all first episodes should be; existing to slowly introduce people and give viewers reasons to relate to and give a shit about the fighters.

 

Not just what feels like seven hours of faceless people having instantly forgettable fights.

[DJM]

Good first fight, but is was spoiled by the tournament graphic showing who won the fight before the fight even took place!

[wandshogun09]

I can't believe they spoiled it either. What the fuck?

 

Good first episode regardless. That's the Tecia Torres train cooled right off. I still think she will go on to be a force at 115, she's got skills. Just ran into an underdog no-one knew much about who was up to the challenge. I said I could see a few unheralded fighters emerging like Juliana Pena on TUF 18, Randa Markos scores the upset on episode one. It's not a massive shock because Torres is still inexperienced, but it certainly wasn't expected. Hence the difference in how they were seeded in the tournament. Gilbert Melendez calling mount a "neutral position" made me think he was breathing in some of the fumes coming from Nate Diaz's room at the hotel.

 

I can already tell Felice Herrig is going to be irritating as fuck. She's just an annoyance. And her claiming she was being bullied since the show, you act like a fucking twat and people will generally treat you like one. I saw people going 'they're picking on her because she's hot'. Is she, really? Each his own. She looks like Lita in the face to me, in I always thought Lita was vastly overrated in the looks department. She's no Astro Girl.

 

Oh yeah, I nearly legitimately LOL'd at the clip of Dana talking to the women at the tryouts.

 

We're going to take a look at you. You're all going to start off on your knees.

Sweet Christ, Dana. And he wonders why he got on that 'Top Sleaziest People In Sports' list recently?

[wandshogun09]

Updated the opening post with the team picks, the seeds and opening round matchups.

[Guy Bifkin]

I quite enjoyed it - standard reality TV fare, although is each episode that long? Luckily I completely missed that spoiler.

 

My two favourites were probably Joanne Calderwood and Rose Namajanus. The latter seems to have the Ronda Rousey PMT scowl down to a tee. I think I will be rooting for the depressive Irish bulldyke who got picked last though. She has a touch of the Fedor Emelianenkos and nothing about her said straw weight. I hope getting picked last doesn't send her into a downward spiral. 

 

It was weird seeing the end fight without any commentary or crowd. I'm glad Randa won as I was finding the close up talking head clips of the other girl distracting with her pock marked face and hairy top lip. I also never want to see her tattooed mother on my TV again!

 

Looking forward to next week, although hope it's only an hour.

[DJM]

Looking forward to next week, although hope it's only an hour.

As far as I know only the first episode of each season is 90-minutes long to introduce all the fighters. Other episodes are usually 45-minutes long.

[wandshogun09]

Yeah Guy, it was only longer because it was the first episode and they wanted to crowbar in as many of those 'get to know this fighter' bits as they could. From next week on it'll be an hour each week, 45ish mins if you're skipping ads.

 

You've got good taste, Bifkin. Calderwood and Namajunas are the two I'm rooting for.

 

The Irish girl is Aisling Daly (trains at the same gym as Conor McGregor and Gunnar Nelson). I must admit I had to double-take when I was doing the opening post and I looked up the info on her...and it said she's 26! She's nearly as young as my little sister, but she looks like my 47 year old aunt. There was a clip in the season preview showing Daly passed out so I'm guessing she struggles with the weight cut. I'm sure the preview didn't show her fighting either (I'm probably wrong though) so maybe she doesn't even get to fight.

 

I ended up rooting for Randa as well. I really like Torres' fighting style but her constantly crying two inches from the camera started to get annoying. She's been through some shit, haven't we all? But when you compare that to Randa's story, having to flee Iraq and some of her family still being over there, people she knew getting killed in front of her mother...and she wasn't blubbering.

 

Oh yeah, Calderwood had the line of episode one;

 

"I'll make you a carrot cake, after I beat ya'up."

[Noah Southworth]

The fact they spoiled the episode is remarkable and I'd like to know how that fell through the cracks. As for Felice, she's a pure attention whore; everything she does is to try and get noticed and push 'her brand'. It's annoying and we'll have to put up with it, but probably not for long because she's not that good of a fighter and I don't see her lasting long in the UFC post-TUF. Sure, she's got a look but at some point, you need to back that up, and she won't be able to against many if not all of the UFC calibre women.

[mickfan]

Brilliant 1st show building each fighter and showing snippets of there daily lives. Barring seasons 1, 6, 8, 9 and 10 all series have been a bit samey and overkill but the slow build, brackets, title and feeling genuine stars will come of this has me majorly intrigued. Never looked forward to a combats sports reality show since season 1 of 'The Contender'. Pulling for Daly (poor lass!) and Lisa Ellis (seems along with Felicia she'll be a mean girls type bully) and a few others who put themselves over well on the show.

[wandshogun09]

The fact they spoiled the episode is remarkable and I'd like to know how that fell through the cracks.

It's amazing how that got out of the editing room without anyone noticing. It's not like it's live. They've had this shit in the can for about two months now.

 

On the Ronda vs Miesha TUF they gave away a spoiler as well, although it was nowhere near this blatant. They gave away what the final was in two different ways. One, they announced the full card for the finale before the last semi final aired. They listed it as Juliana Pena vs TBA. But because they'd announced all the other fights, by process of elimination it was obvious that Jessica Racokczy was going to reach the final because Roxanne Modafferi was going to fight the loser of the last semi final and Racokzy already battered her on the show, so a rematch was very unlikely. All they had to do was wait a couple of days to release the finale card and no-one would've been able to do the process of elimination.

 

As if that wasn't enough, they also put a trailer out which appeared to show Pena and Racokzy facing off like they always have the finalists do at the end of the season. Mind boggling how they could fuck up like that on two counts.

 

For a big, successful company, they must have some right numbskulls in their production truck. Like that knob who went into business for himself trying to book Ronda's next fight after she beat Alexis Davis.

 

As for Felice, she's a pure attention whore; everything she does is to try and get noticed and push 'her brand'. It's annoying and we'll have to put up with it, but probably not for long because she's not that good of a fighter and I don't see her lasting long in the UFC post-TUF. Sure, she's got a look but at some point, you need to back that up, and she won't be able to against many if not all of the UFC calibre women.

Yeah, I was a bit surprised she's the #6 seed. I'm not sure I'd rank her that high from what I've seen. She's been around a while but she's not done much of note in all the time she's been in the sport, has she?

 

And like I said before, as far as her look, I don't think she's up to much. 'Lil Bulldog' is an apt nickname for her. She seems to think she's way fitter than she actually is. And people act like she is, seemingly just because she acts like slag and turns up to weigh ins dressed like a hooker who got lost and ended up at an MMA event. I bet her parents and grandparents were so proud to tune in to TUF and see her pretending to hump that grappling dummy. She's basically the Jodie Marsh of MMA.

[weevil]

 

As for Felice, she's a pure attention whore; everything she does is to try and get noticed and push 'her brand'. It's annoying and we'll have to put up with it, but probably not for long because she's not that good of a fighter and I don't see her lasting long in the UFC post-TUF. Sure, she's got a look but at some point, you need to back that up, and she won't be able to against many if not all of the UFC calibre women.

Yeah, I was a bit surprised she's the #6 seed. I'm not sure I'd rank her that high from what I've seen. She's been around a while but she's not done much of note in all the time she's been in the sport, has she?

So much of the women's scene has gone under the radar, and so many of the fighters are new, that it's really hard to tell where people stand. When Herrig signed with Invicta, she was 9-2 in her last 11 matches, with the two losses being to Invictas Flyweight and Strawweight champs. I can see why she was ranked high.

 

Then she lost to Tecia Torres. Did that mean Torres was great, or that Herrig was overrated? Tecia's loss to Randa Markos seems to suggest the latter, but Randa's only loss is to Justine Kish, who's undefeated, so maybe they'll all end up at the top of the division, who knows?