Ultimate Fighter 3 on SpikeTV

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It was a sloppy fight, but from a practical standpoint I found it pretty fascinating.

You basically have a World class wrestler fighting a self-proclaimed accomplished street fighter and JJ guy who basically brought neither to the fight and ended up getting dominated by a guy who fundamentally turned his back on his core strength (wrestling).

Mike questioned if Matt could match the internal rage he would bring to this fight. I saw no rage in Mike. He was flat as hell and by the end of the 1st round looked like he would rather be anywhere but in the cage.

Matt’s approach to this fight should have played right into Mike’s hands, but it did not.

I think it wasn’t even close.

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[quote]blitzkrg wrote:
I agree i think Mike looked terrible…
they talk so much shit and then they look like little girls out in the ring.
he was throwing windmill like punches with HIS EYES CLOSED… how bad is that…

matt didn’t look fantastic, but i feel like he imposed his will on mike…
sooo good for matt.
[/quote]

I am in agreement with just about everything about last nights fight.
Mike claiming that he fights multiple people?!?!?!
My wife and I were cracking up when he would go in with his eyes closed. We are big fans of this show, and this type of show. If you watched The Contender, you never saw any of those boxers close their eyes.
I’m anxious to see who emerges as the dominant fighter over the next few weeks. I think it will be the one who can exploit these horrific boxing techniques.

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[quote]hardcorps wrote:
blitzkrg wrote:
I agree i think Mike looked terrible…
they talk so much shit and then they look like little girls out in the ring.
he was throwing windmill like punches with HIS EYES CLOSED… how bad is that…

matt didn’t look fantastic, but i feel like he imposed his will on mike…
sooo good for matt.

I am in agreement with just about everything about last nights fight.
Mike claiming that he fights multiple people?!?!?!
My wife and I were cracking up when he would go in with his eyes closed. We are big fans of this show, and this type of show. If you watched The Contender, you never saw any of those boxers close their eyes.
I’m anxious to see who emerges as the dominant fighter over the next few weeks. I think it will be the one who can exploit these horrific boxing techniques.

[/quote]

Even my girlfriend was laughing; did he fight multiple girls or small children? In fact, how did he get on the show? His skills were pretty piss poor.

As for Matt, he is definitely not well rounded enough to make any noise yet. However, I do wonder if he has something wrong with him from that earlier crack in the head. He seemed awfully winded for someone that appeared to be in decent condition. Something just didn’t seem right. I hope his health is ok but he was exposed last nite. He looked like the drunken brawlers I used to throw out of clubs and bars - if he does that again with anyone else who has at least decent hands, he gets KTFO (knocked the fuck out).

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[quote]hardcorps wrote:
I’m anxious to see who emerges as the dominant fighter over the next few weeks. I think it will be the one who can exploit these horrific boxing techniques.
[/quote]

Mike Bisping is the best LHW on the show by a country mile. He’s a great striker and has a great BJJ background to boot. He’ll KO anyone that stands with him, and submit anyone who takes him to the ground. He’s going to destroy whoever steps in the ring with him. It doesn’t matter if it is Jesse, Matt, or Josh.

MW is a toss-up between Kalib Starnes and Ed Herman. Unfortunately, both guys got matched up with one-dimensional stand-up fighters in their first fight and totally dominated, so we didn’t really get to see the skill level of either one of 'em.

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That’s funny. I forgot about the closed eyes technique by Mike!!!

Even I started yelling at him to throw a fucking knee. He wasn’t listening to anything Shamrock was saying. Matt is obviously strong, but it looked as if he doesn’t quite know what to do once he has you on the floor.

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Yea, I’ve seen fights in college bars that were better orchestrated then last nights event. I am nothing more than a fan of MMA fights and certainly far from knowledgeable but the conditioning on some of these guys appears to be pathetic when it comes time to fight. I mean Mike literally looked as if he was ready to stoop and puke from the get-go.

Based on what I’ve seen so far, I’ve been most impressed with Kendall and Bisping.

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I can’t believe matts total lack of submission skills. Mike gave him countless opportunities to sing a choke, an arm bar, or any other number of subs in on him. He gave him his back like 3 times. Matt didn’t even attempt to wrap it up and get a rear naked choke, he could have ripped mikes head off about 4 times when he was lying on the floor crying with a nice gillotine (sp) there was even one time when matt had mike in a one arm clinch and just took him from standing to lying on his back with a roll of his arm and a dip of his shoulder. If you have that much skill at leveraging someone, adapting to subs should be second nature.

I’ll give him this, Mike never even threatened him once. He was over powered and out classed on the ground, and even for matts terrible standup, at least he didn’t close his eyes and curl into a ball on the ground, or straight turn his back and run away fast. If matt learns even just those 3 submission moves his game gets alot better, then if he learns to keep his hands up and not lean in with his head on his jab, and his standup is now not too bad. He was peppering mike decently with the jab so I think he has potential there, plus it seemed to not bother him at all getting punched or kneed in the face.

Overall, decent showing by matt though he has a TON to work on. He does have some great raw ability and loads of potential. Mike looked like a girlscout or worse, I’m sure the “tough guys” he has fought were a ripped 145 lbs and holding a fucking shoe. Please.

V

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Does anybody know anything else about Mike? He looked so bad last night, I cant believe he has had success anywhere else.

On top of that, he claimed “2 1/2” years of submission training? That means he started training in his early 30’s? Way to late by the current standards I would say.

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[quote]Donut62 wrote:
One thing I realized is how much of a handicap being deaf really is for Matt in the ring. Shamrock could just scream moves to Mike (who didn’t listen at all) and Matt would have no idea they were coming. Tito had no way of giving Matt instruction during the fight. [/quote]

I was thinking the same thing.

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[quote]apwsearch wrote:
Mike questioned if Matt could match the internal rage he would bring to this fight. I saw no rage in Mike. He was flat as hell and by the end of the 1st round looked like he would rather be anywhere but in the cage.
.
[/quote]

Yup. Besides TUF, I read a big article on Mike where he played himself up into this tough as nails dude, street fighter, raised on the streets, blah blah blah. I believed him when I read the article, and I believed him during last night’s episode.
Then he showed in the ring what a fraud he is. No “rage” no heart, no nastiness, no willpower.

Mike’s only skills are in the art of BSing, not the art of fighting.

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[quote]Steve4192 wrote:
Mike Bisping is the best LHW on the show by a country mile. [/quote]

In UFC 59 Joe rogan was interviewing Bisping and at the end he said “welcome to the UFC”

so i think bisping is one of guys who will fight for the contract.

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[quote]Sonny S wrote:
apwsearch wrote:
Mike questioned if Matt could match the internal rage he would bring to this fight. I saw no rage in Mike. He was flat as hell and by the end of the 1st round looked like he would rather be anywhere but in the cage.
.

Yup. Besides TUF, I read a big article on Mike where he played himself up into this tough as nails dude, street fighter, raised on the streets, blah blah blah. I believed him when I read the article, and I believed him during last night’s episode.
Then he showed in the ring what a fraud he is. No “rage” no heart, no nastiness, no willpower.

Mike’s only skills are in the art of BSing, not the art of fighting.[/quote]

I just watched that fight again over lunch and if you watch it a second time you will see Mike spends the majority of the fight backing up.

Not to mention turning his back and fleeing or flopping and curling up like a pill bug.

Strange.

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These fights that are “won” by decision really piss me off. They both looked pretty bad and Matt ended up looking REALLY REALLY bad after the call. He pretty much fell the fuck out.

In my opinion, they guy that can walk away from the fight wins. No matter how either looked.

Bad call, bad “coaching” (on Shamrock’s part), bad season, bad series.

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This is kinda a tough one for me to comment on. As I have mentioned several times in this thread, Mike is my tattoo artist and a good friend of mine. So I am biased.

Outside of that show, Mike is one of the most (if not THE most) renowned tattoo artists in the state. His business / establishment can pretty much be credited for single-handedly changing the stigma of what tattoo joints are “supposed to be” around here (dank, filthy, etc).

And he pretty much single-handedly cleaned up the entire neighborhood around where his shop is. I saw plenty of it first hand. Crack heads, dealers, gang-bangers, you name it. He ran them off. And cleaned up.

I agree that was not a very impressive fight last night. From EITHER corner. I think the call was questionable, and think that the way the series is run as a whole is suspect. I haven’t been impressed by any of the fights I have seen this season (even the big, bad, over-rated Ed fight). At least this one went long and got bloody.

Other than that, I just have to agree with some of the other posts about this series being pretty weak in general.

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[quote]LowfatMatt wrote:
This is kinda a tough one for me to comment on. As I have mentioned several times in this thread, Mike is my tattoo artist and a good friend of mine. So I am biased.

Outside of that show, Mike is one of the most (if not THE most) renowned tattoo artists in the state. His business / establishment can pretty much be credited for single-handedly changing the stigma of what tattoo joints are “supposed to be” around here (dank, filthy, etc).

And he pretty much single-handedly cleaned up the entire neighborhood around where his shop is. I saw plenty of it first hand. Crack heads, dealers, gang-bangers, you name it. He ran them off. And cleaned up.

I agree that was not a very impressive fight last night. From EITHER corner. I think the call was questionable, and think that the way the series is run as a whole is suspect. I haven’t been impressed by any of the fights I have seen this season (even the big, bad, over-rated Ed fight). At least this one went long and got bloody.

Other than that, I just have to agree with some of the other posts about this series being pretty weak in general.[/quote]

That’s interesting. The last time we were in Denver my wife decided to get some work done and we were told Twisted Sol was the place to go. I will state it was a cool, very clean, professional, well put together shop.

His statement last night and your post brought it home. When I brought it up to her, she said, “Oh yeah, don’t you remember the pictures in there?”

Mike comes across as a interesting guy and I sat there and thought, “This is a guy I could sit down next to at a bar and have a cool conversation with.”

Unfortunately, he did not make a good showing that night. I have had meets like that so maybe it was just one of those nights.

Run what ya brung, eh?

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Just in general agreement here with the other posters. Ive noticed the following…

  1. 1 fighter has superb stand up (Bisping). Thats it. All the others seem very sloppy and often get cought up in toe to toe exchanges resulting in a messy scrap.

  2. Bullshit rules…‘i have the biggest heart’, ‘i have 2.5 years submission training’, ‘i wrestle cows’, ‘im the baddest mo fo since chuck norris and Mr T’…

Ive seen far too much talk and little in the way of slick tecnical fighting be it standing or on the ground.

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[quote]LowfatMatt wrote:
This is kinda a tough one for me to comment on. As I have mentioned several times in this thread, Mike is my tattoo artist and a good friend of mine. So I am biased.

Outside of that show, Mike is one of the most (if not THE most) renowned tattoo artists in the state. His business / establishment can pretty much be credited for single-handedly changing the stigma of what tattoo joints are “supposed to be” around here (dank, filthy, etc).

And he pretty much single-handedly cleaned up the entire neighborhood around where his shop is. I saw plenty of it first hand. Crack heads, dealers, gang-bangers, you name it. He ran them off. And cleaned up.

I agree that was not a very impressive fight last night. From EITHER corner. I think the call was questionable, and think that the way the series is run as a whole is suspect. I haven’t been impressed by any of the fights I have seen this season (even the big, bad, over-rated Ed fight). At least this one went long and got bloody.

Other than that, I just have to agree with some of the other posts about this series being pretty weak in general.[/quote]

I’m sorry, no direspect per se, but I’m LMFAO. What street did your boy clean up? Sesame Street? He is a cur plain and simple. I never saw anyone “fight” and “run” so much at the same time. He looked like an Italian military hero…uh, wait, there are none. Retreat!!! Those Sesame Street gang bangers must be tough…or maybe you mean gang banger as in gay porn? Gimme a break - you can’t make many excuses for that showing - I can see his fucking soul - and he’s a runner.

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Dude, if Mike is your boy, your boy got smoked, and that’s all there is to it.

A wrestler with NO STAND UP (that was quite obvious) demolished him going toe to toe. He had heavy hands, i’ll give him that, but he didn’t keep them up at all.

Shamrock was saying it over and over “Front kick,” “high Kick” by Mike didn’t do it - he couldn’t do it.

To say the call was questionable on the fight is just crazy. A blind man could’ve seen that Mike lost both rounds, there was no question about it.

Mike had one chance to win the fight with a knee lock, I think it was… But the fact is Matt (I think that’s his name) was just too strong for him on the ground and there was absolutely no way Mike was going to submit him.

Mike landed some good shots, yeah, i’ll give him that, but Matt’s hands were down at his waist the entire fight. If Mike would’ve grown some balls and thrown a high kick like that Hawaiian guy did in practice he may have won the fight, but he didn’t listen to his coach and got completely gassed and lost. Bad.

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Look, I said what I said and I think what I think. Plain and simple. And I stand by it. I never professed to being an expert. He lost; he went home. Doesn’t matter one iota what I think.

Contrary to what people might think, Denver has some pretty rough spots. His shop is in one of them. Say what you want to say, but unless you saw it yourself or know the area, you really have no right to question.

[Let me just remind you I work for T-Nation.com. My thoughts / opinions don’t reflect those of my employer and I am NOT about to get into an internet pissing match on my company’s site.]

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I didn’t say anything about Denver or his shop. :slight_smile: