411's Ultimate Fighter Report 11.4.09: Episode Eight

Posted by Patrick Mullin on 11.04.2009

Marcus Jones and Mike Wessel clash in the last fight before the quarterfinals, Rampage reignites his rivalry with Darrill, and the quartefinal bouts are decided!

Last week on the Ultimate Fighter…Matt Mitrione kept the undefeated record of Team Rashad in tact with his controversial majority decision victory over Scott Junk in an awful fight despite what Dana White will try and tell you. Rampage put on the best fight of this season when he destroyed a door in the UFC gym, Cecil Peoples continued to hand in scores that make you wonder if he dropped his prescription lenses somewhere, Wes Sims created his answer to Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD, and Rashad and Rampage continued their game of I can out-talk you and will KO you when we fight.

What may we see tonight?


411's Ultimate Fighter Report 11.4.09: Episode Eight

We open with recaps of the history of Marcus Jones and Mike Wessel on the show leading to their fight later tonight, and we're shown a brief(Thank God) recap of last week's awful fight to open the show. Marcus Jones is Rampage's last hope to avoid a sweep in the opening round of fights in the contest. We pick things up right after last week's horrendous decision to last week's horrendous fight was announced. Most guys feel Scott didn't fight to his potential and a lot more was expected of him. Brendan Schaub compares round two of the fight to two sloths fighting. Mitrione says Junk was the toughest guy he ever fought, and Junk guarantees had it gone to a third he'd have won. Rampage feels it should have gone to a third round and we get a replay of the awesome Rampage vs. door fight. Dana jokes that it showed how cheap the door was, then makes a lame joke about doors having no future. Rashad questions why Rampage would tear apart a door out of frustration when he hasn't tried to even be much of a coach, saying you get out what you put in to it. Rampage is fuming in his locker room and feels ashamed he lost his temper like that. He'd like to apologize to the door but its too late. Junk's right eye is nearly swollen shut as we go back to the house and it seems as if he was caught with a finger in round one. Junk wants to get as many big fights as he can to make life better for his family. Matt Mitrione comes back to the house and seems a little out of it. Wes Sims says he's going to throw Matt a party because he won. Matt is asleep that night and Sims is going to wake him up. He says Junk may have lost the battle but seems like he won the war because of how bad it appears Matt may be. Sims congratulates him by waking him up with silly string and Mitrione says his "brain" is fucked up and asks Wes to leave. Back at the gym Team Rampage is at their training session. Rampage is stunned at being down 7 to zip at this point. Rampage says its hard not to care and that he feels their losses. Marcus says he's improved since being in the house and likes his odds of winning. In practice he looks really gassed but has the work ethic and drive to succeed. Rampage issues a message to the UFC to make some cardboard walls because he's not sure what he's going to do if big Marcus loses. With that we head to a commercial. During the break we get a Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers advertisement. Suck it Zuffa.

Back at the house and Marcus Jones is freaking out as Justin Wren tries to kill a ridiculously large spider. Jones screamed like a girl and its funny because of how huge the guy is. He then says his plan was to deafen the creature. I'd have screamed to, that thing is huge and fucking creepy. Wren kills it and then tosses it at Marcus who freaks out to the amusement of all in attendance. Mike Wessel misses his wife and he talks about how much they depend on each other. His wife is stricken with cancer and he's written a card for her every day that he's been gone. He's thinking of her all the time unsure of how she is and he depends on her just as much as she does him. He said this is the price he has to pay if he wants to be great. We go to the UFC gym and Wessel fought Antoni Hardonk on the undercard of Rashad's Light Heavyweight title win in a losing effort in which he felt he showed his heart. He says Marcus is big but he can't be afraid of him. Rashad's game plan for him is to look for the overhand right and get inside with it to let his hands go and avoid the ground game. Rashad compares his movement to Mike Tyson in terms of being a smaller guy who bobs and weaves to get inside. Wessel wants to be seen as legitimate and wants respect. Wessel emphasizes that just because he's a smaller heavyweight doesn't mean the big guys are better. He may be on to something considering almost every other guy on the show has shown extreme lack of cardio and could have been easy pickings mid-way through the first round of a lot of the fights. Another commercial break.

We're back and it's a Team Rampage training session and Rampage and Marcus joke around. Jones was a first round draft pick for the Bucs and he loved the competition of it but never became a student of the game like teammates John Lynch and Derrick Brooks(not bad company) and with MMA he can't get enough of it. Rampage questions his fighting instinct. He says you can see his excitement when he learns something and gets some teasing for it, but shows an extreme willingness to learn. Rampage breaks into a Green Mile MC Duncan impression that's actually pretty funny. If Marcus had missed this opportunity he'd be sick. Marcus describes himself as a guy who loved the sport and decided he wanted to give it his all. We head back to the house Brendan drew up some pictures of Marcus and someone wrote "Sucks Balls" on the bottom of it after it was taped up on the wall. Scott Junk spots the "sucks balls" part of it and alerts Marcus to it. Marcus takes them down and he's either going to cry or kill someone. Seems more likely he'll cry now and whoever he fights will cry later. Marcus is pissed that his kids might have seen that and goes to sit outside by himself. McSweeney tells Wessel he's in trouble because he's got a 7 foot black man who wants to drink his blood. Wessel says he's the one who wrote it and he'll tell him. He doesn't care that he can't take a joke. Schaub and McSweeney admitted that they drew the pictures and Marcus says whoever wrote the "Sucks Balls" line will be leaving the house sans arm as he'll be taking it home with him. That's a nice segway to go to commercial.

We're back and the guys are ready to weigh in. Rampage and Big Country belly bump and Rampage asks Schoonover to make up. He calls him "Titties" but seems to do it to not piss him off and they hug it out until Rampage jiggles one of his titties and Schoonover goes up on him. Team Rashad and Tiki immediately separate them. Rampage admits he was wrong and then tells all the kids out there not to grab someone's titties if they don't like it. Wessel weighs in at 260 and Kimbo tells us they call him White Tyson and The Juggernaut because he keeps coming forward. Its pretty hilarious to hear Kimbo go into "I'm the Juggernaut Bitch" mode. Marcus is reffered to as Darkness and he weighs in at 262. Kimbo likes Marcus' odds and Wren says it's a really difficult fight for Mike but he's a veteran and if he keeps it standing he can win it. Marcus gets introspective on us about how he'll be remembered. Wessel says his wife hates the way he looks before a fight because he's not himself and his mind frame is different. Marcus didn't come just for the experience and miss his kids' birthdays for it. He's here to prove he's a fighter. Wessel isn't scared of his opponent, he's scared of not making the most of his opportunity. The guys sit in their locker rooms and get taped up. Marcus' giant hands don't fit into the first set of gloves he gets. Wessel is throwing bombs in his locker room and Tiki tells Marcus not to leave it to the judges. Rampage tells him seek and destroy. Rashad tells Mike this fight is about how big you are on the inside. FIGHT TIME!…right after this commercial.

THE FIGHT: MIKE WESSEL {6-1} VS. MARCUS JONES{4-1}

ROUND ONE: Wessel is giving up 7.5 inches in reach and 6 inches in height. Your referee is Josh Rosenthal. They come out and Marcus takes the center. Mike gets in and throws but doesn't really land well. Marcus gets the clinch and takes him down. Marcus has mount but Wessel bucks him and Marcus takes his back looking for the rear naked choke. Wessel turns into Marcus' guard and Marcus taps him with an armbar to avoid the shut out.

OFFICIAL DECISION: WINNER, MARCUS JONES, SUBMISSION ROUND ONE

Rashad felt confident when Mike got out of the rear naked attempt but Jones pulled off such a quick counter that there was no chance for Mike to work. Rashad says Big Baby is no joke. They check on Mike Wessel's arm because apparently it looked pretty bad. It didn't break but apparently something was popped after the tap out. The fighters embrace afterward and while Rashad is disappointed he didn't get the sweep he's not unhappy about going 7-1. Wessel is dejected and understandably so. He says its not failing if you try and he'll see how he feels afterward. He's disappointed he let his wife down. Rampage is really proud of Marcus and Marcus compares the win to being on crack. Marcus channels Rocky and says it's the best moment of his life other than the birth of his kids. Dana calls Rampage out to meet with he and Rashad to decide the next round of fights.

It bothers Rashad his team will have to fight because he wants them all to succeed. McSweeney wants to fight Darrill, Justin, or Matt. Justin is out next and Rashad needles Rampage that he only gets to call out one guy. Justin and Jon both want Matt. Matt wants Jon. Brendan wants Matt or Marcus. Darrill wants Matt or Marcus making Rashad happy. Roy wants to fight just about anyone and Dana gets annoyed for no reason because he's an idiot. Dana comes up with the stupid argument that Roy's not good because he wasn't exciting and that Roy's trying to win not be a crowd pleaser. Roy says the safe bets are Justin or Darrill. Rashad takes every shot he can at Rampage to go get his only fighter. Marcus says he'd like Rampage to pick his fight and Rampage success Darrill, and Marcus agrees to it. Dana and the coaches break to figure out the next round of match ups. We go to commercial and SUPER F'N DAVE IS GETTING A SPIKE SPECIAL! HELL YEAH!

We're back from commercial and the match ups have been selected. They will be:
1) Roy Nelson vs. Justin Wren
2) Brendan Schaub vs. Jon Madsen
3) James McSweeney vs. Matt Mitrione
4) Darrill Schoonover vs. Marcus Jones

Dana let Rampage pick his one fighter's fight. Rashad is pissed by that action because he feels it's a priveledge he didn't earn. However that's that and the quarterfinals are set. Rashad doesn't want to exclusively train 7 guys to fight each other, so he makes an offer to Team Rampage to come train with his guys. Dana tries to go with the hard sell saying Rashad needs bodies to help train the remaining guys. Kimbo refuses, and Rashad says Rampage gave up on those guys a long time ago. Rashad says Rampage doesn't care about any of the guys. Rampage thinks Rashad is on an ego trip and thinks everything is about him. Rashad tells him to break another cardboard door down to prove what a tough guy he is. We get Rashad vs. Rampage in a verbal war for the umpteenth time arguing about whether or not Rampage gave up on his team. Rampage visibly gets under Rashad's skin and his team convinces him to back off.

Next week…The quarterfinals are underway and Matt is sent to the hospital. Does this open the door for a Kimbo comeback? In the first quartefinal bout we'll see Roy Nelson vs. Justin Wren as The Mega Powers…err…Team Rashad Explodes!

SEASON STANDINGS THUS FAR:

TEAM Rashad:
* James McSweeney (1-0)
* Brendan Schaub (1-0)
* Justin Wren (1-0)
* Jon Madsen (1-0)
* Roy Nelson (1-0)
* Darrill Schoonover (1-0)
* Matt Mitrione (1-0)
* Mike Wessel (0-1)

TEAM Rampage:
* Kimbo Slice (0-1)
* Abe Wagner (0-1)
* Demico Rogers (0-1)
* Wes Sims (0-1)
* Scott Junk (0-1)
* Wes Shivers (0-1)
* Marcus Jones (1-0)
* Zak Jensen (0-1)

-Winners in BLUE
-Losers in RED