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The Ultimate Fighter 3 – Review
By Luke | April 13, 2006
The Ultimate Fighter 3 – Review
The show opens with a recap of the debut episode last week, and Kalib’s win over Mike Stine. Team Shamrock holds the hammer, in terms of matchmaking.
This week Ross gets a little pissed off that someone has blocked the toilet, but never bothered to fix it. Those bloody window lickers~! He vents this frustration on fellow brit, Michael, who was a little bothered by Ross’s excited state. Matt Hamil walked in. He thought Ross and Mike were from New England, not the UK. That’s funny. It was quickly corrected.
Tito noticed that Noah was dropping his hands during sparring, and in an effort to correct the habit, gave Noah a basketball, and told him to walk around holding the ball between his bicep and his head, this would hopefully correct the technique problem. Back at the house later, Tait and Ross started playing hacky sack with the ball. COOL. Noah didn’t like the fact that they used the ball, but never put it back. Uh oh. I sense confrontation coming. Noah confronted Tait about this, and makes his feelings known. Tait responded with “I don’t feel sorry for makings stupid people feel stupidâ€. Uh, who are calling stupid? Later, Jesse, Tait, and Kalib come up with a joke to play on Noah and his basketball. Jesse decides to stab it with a steak knife, and put it in Noah’s bed. This was done in an effort to draw a response. Unfortunately, it failed. But, Noah was quite upset the next day, wondering which “MOTHERFUCKER†wrecked his basketball. Noah is a total GEEK. But one I wouldn’t want to fight.
Tito begins to tutor Matt Hamil a little more than the other team members, mostly because Matt is deaf, and needed the extra assistance. Tito figured it would be good to get him an interpreter. The next day, Tito introduced Matt to his interpreter. WOW. Total BABYFACE~! move. Tito might be UFC’s biggest babyface when this show is over. Later on Tito would arrive at the house to make supper for the guys. Jesus, Tito is doing an amazing job at coming off as the warm, likeable, one-of-the-guys type coaches. At the other end – is Ken Shamrock.
After giving his team two days off because he felt they were worn out a bit, Ken completely CHEWED OUT~! His team for what he called a lack of effort, when Kalib and Ross left the Octagon in the middle of training. An argument ensued between Kalib and Ken, who seem to have differing opinions on how you should train for a fight. Kalib said “if I wanted to bruise up my thighs, I’d take a hammer to themâ€. Ken started questioning how much Kalib cared about his teammates. Kalib didn’t like that much either. The team seemed united against Ken Shamrock after that incident. It’s normally not a good sign when a team turns against their coach.
Then later on, Tito decides that Noah needed a late-night sparring session. Rory REALLY didn’t like this idea. He sounded irate. As if he was the one who had to fight the next day. While working on ground technique, Noah sprained his ankle quite badly, and needed a trip to the hospital to make sure nothing was seriously wrong. His foot was swollen up quite badly. He refused to use crutches because he didn’t want the other fighters knowing he was hurt. Smart move. Rob MacDonald, are you watching? Noah is confident this won’t change the outcome of the fight. We’ll see.
Its FIGHT TIME~! The fight, which was announced near the beginning of the show, is Noah Inhofer vs. Jesse Forbes. Of course, we all remember the rules, 2 five-minute rounds, and if it’s a draw, then it goes to a sudden victory round.
Round one – Jesse and Noah trade blows. Jesse then shoots for the takedown, and they clinch against the fence. Tito is screaming at Noah to get double under-hooks. Jesse eventually gets the takedown into side-mount. Jesse starts working to land elbows from the top. Not looking good for Noah early on. The two worked for position. Noah was working for full guard, while Jesse wanted to maintain a dominant position. Noah eventually finds himself against the fence, but because of his ankle, isn’t able to use the fence to help get back to his feet. Jesse continues to ground and pound. Noah is finally able to push away from the fence with one foot, and lock in an armbar. Jesse tried to pull away, but it only cinched it in deeper. NOAH~! By armbar in the first round. Tito has the hammer. NOW, the fun begins.
Overall, it was another good show. I thought it was a little choppy at times. It seemed to cut from one segment to another, without any real transition. But, that didn’t hurt the show too badly. The personalities are really starting to show through. What a difference one season makes. After two episodes of season two, I think I might have known two or three guys. After two episodes this season, I think I know half the cast.
Topics: All Topics, Luke Nicholson, MMA, UFC | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Not a bad episode, can’t ay that I was disappointed that Jesse went home. I don’t think I’ve ever disliked someone so much in just the course of one episode, not even Koscheck. Also, was this the Night of the B*tch Fest or what?
Yeah, there was a lot of complaining. Less complaining, more F-bombs from Dana.
I think Shamrock is being too much of a hardass. Tito is stealing the show with his down-to-earth personality.
I predict by the end of the season, Team Shamrock will grow to respect Ken’s “hardass” coaching style.
Since that first episode, Tito’s words are still ringing in my ears how he picked everyone he wanted.
It seems like Ken took the strategy not of picking who he wanted but based his picks on the people he thought could beat the person that Tito picked. I think Ken’s team kinda shows this hodge podge effect. Ken’s team seems strong but they are also maybe the more undisciplined.. maybe more aggressive team.. compared to Tito’s team which seems more mellow and maybe more intelligent. I think the teams are just as different from each other as the coaches are different from each other.
I am glad that Jesse went home, but he seems like someone we will definitely see in the Octagon in the future. He was dominating most of the fight but like a lot of these ground-n-pound wrestlers.. he still ends up getting caught in one of these jijitsu 101 type of moves that everyone should know about and should have a counter for.
PS I don’t get your episodes any more on iTunes.. maybe you need to update your RSS feed or something.. thanks
In Jesse’s case, I’ll give him a bit of a pass because he’s 21 yrs old. He can’t have that much experience. I’m sure he’ll get better with age. There might not be a better base to start your MMA training from, than some form of grappling (ie. Amateur Wrestling, BJJ, Judo, etc.).