The Ultimate Fighter Nine Episode 5

 

Tonight’s episode begins at the end of last week’s episode. The UK team was celebrating their win against the US team. Nick Osipczak was happy to get their team the first win against Mark Miller. Bisping promised more of this, and gave Nick a round of applause.

The US team from that one loss, seemed to be falling apart. Cameron Dollar was being very egotistical inside the house, especially to Jason Dent. Jason was trying to tell his teammates to be respectful, but Cameron is everything but the word respectful. While they are outside, Cameron decided to speak about his sexual escapades, making some of the older fighters on his team feel uncomfortable, and some were giving him little respect afterwards. Demarques, one of the US fighters declares that “we are definitely not a team” during one of his personal video sessions because of the anger and controversy starting to stir.

Some of the American fighters were getting along much better with the UK fighters, especially Jason Dent and Jason Pierce.

Bisping had the choice of the next fight. He chose Andre Winner against Santino Defranco. Bisping felt that Andre had an advantage everywhere, and Santino would be an easy fight. Henderson thought that Santino could win the fight with the right game plan.

Andre was considered a strong striker with a decent ground game, while Santino showed basically no strengths in his mixed martial arts game during his opening match up. This, on paper looked to be a very one sided match up

Andre Winner (lightweight, 9-2-1) vs Santino Defranco (lightweight, 13-4)

Round 1

This fight was a pretty slow starter. Both men did not engage very often with anything other then jabs and leg kicks. Defranco attempted some takedowns but all of them were stuffed and prevented by Andre.

Andre eventually started landing some hard body shots with his hands, but still nothing overly devastating. Defranco then pulls guard on Andre, and attempts a bit of an improper rubber guard, but nothing really comes of it. He also attempts an omoplata, but as soon as he does this, Andre Winner pulls out hard from the guard and rains down heavy punches. Defranco seems completely defenseless now, and Winner just unleashes punches to his temples and jaw, while Defranco stays in the fetal position. Mazzagatti steps in and declares the contest over.

Andre Winner wins the match via TKO at 1:11 of the first round.

 

Jason Dent, yet again, has problems enjoying the company of Cameron Dollar. They exchange a few words in one of the living areas in the house, and leave it at that until a little later on.

Team USA was working out, doing stair climbs, and discussing match ups, when Jason Pierce started speaking out about not wanting to fight his new friend on the UK team, Faulkner. The two are close, and as hard as Jason tries (which was not very hard at all), Henderson felt it was one of the better match ups. At the end of the “stairs” training session though, more trouble brewed. Mark Miller was bending over and spitting, when Cameron decided to slap him on his butt. Mark was upset by this, as well as Jason Dent. Jason exchanged some more words with Demarques and Cameron when finally Henderson stepped in to shut them up. All of the US team knows though, that they are falling a part more each day.

Team UK on the other hand, seem to be bonding very strongly and are enjoying their time together on the show so far. They are playing football (soccer) and having a blast on all the toys (such as the trampoline) around the house.

Soon after this, Dan Henderson (the US coach) decided that he needed to make the next match “Is something guaranteed to go our way” to boost his team’s morale. He decides to make a match up between Demarques Johnson and Dean Amasinger.

 Demarques is now looked at as the strongest fighter on the US team, especially at welterweight, while Dean is looked at as one of the weaker fighters on the UK team. Dean was considered a well rounded fighter, but Demarques definitely had a stronger ground grappling game. 

On fight day, there was a serious issue for Dean and the UK team members. Their coach, Michael Bisping, was nowhere to be found. One of the assistant coaches called him and asked where he was, and he said he was on his way, but never showed up for Dean’s fight.

Demarques Johnson (welterweight, 4-1) vs Dean Amasinger (welterweight, 13-6)

Dean comes out with a few strong leg kicks, all catching Demarques and quickly grabbing his attention. He catches the next leg kick, and takes him down, but without control. Both fighters get back to their feet, and exchange a leg kick and counter leg kick. Dean shoots for a weak takedown though, but Demarques using his better grappling game, grabs a Kimura while they are both still standing, and pulls guard. Demarques fights for the Kimura, but Dean escapes the move. Dean tries to stack the guard but keeps his head very low, giving Demarques a triangle attempt. Demarques attempts the triangle, and scores it. Dean lifts Demarques up though and slams him hard on his back. This put Dean in a terrible position where Demarques had the choke in as tight as it could be. Demarques then rotates his body a bit to the side to get maximum choking leverage. Dean, with no other choice, is forced to tap, or go to sleep.

Demarques Johnson wins via Submission (Triangle Choke) at 3:20 of the first round.

Tonight’s fights were pretty poor compared to the other couple episodes, but at least they gave us two fights. Team USA still seems to be the weaker team mentally and physically at this point. Although with their new found win, scored by Demarques, they are showing a little more promise then they were before. It will be nice to see how the British team responds after that loss, because so far the British team has not felt a loss until now.

In next week’s episode, we should expect to hear why Michael Bisping was not at his team’s fight. It was an important fight for everyone, but especially Dean. I expect next weeks fights to be very good as well, considering the remaining lightweight talent is very strong, and the remaining welterweight talent is not bad either.