For those living under a rock, Spike TV aired The Ultimate Fighter season 5 finale this weekend and not one match aired on TV went over two rounds; a season winner was determined; a double TKO was witnessed; and BJ Penn announced his return with a punctuation mark.
Spike TV aired 7 of the 9 matches they had scheduled and some online even mentioned that the fights were better than the PPV aired last week, UFC 72.
Here are the winners in short.
Jens Pulver VS BJ Penn
Manny Gamburyan VS Nathan Diaz
Roger Huerta VS Doug Evans
Floyd Sword VS Thales Leites
Brandon Melendez VS Joe Lauzon
Andy Wang VS Cole Miller
Rob Emerson VS Gray Maynard (NC)
Allen Berube VS Leonard Garcia
Brian Geraghty VS Matt Wiman
The double TKO was the “huh? what? No Way!!” moment of the night. Gray Maynard had re-injured Rob Emerson’s rib with a gigantic dropping body shot at the end of the first round. In the second round, Gray bodily picked up Rob and went to slam him. Only problem was, Gray’s head was in the slot underneath Rob’s arm and he ended up pile-driving his own head into the canvas. In the slo-mo replay, you could see the shockwaves originate from the impact of the head and ride up the spine. His shoulder also happened to plunge into Rob’s injured rib, causing his opponent to yelp and tap at the same time as Gray was lying unconscious on top of him. The doctor rushed in and couldn’t figure out which to treat after he noticed that Gray was unconscious also. The crazy part was Gray vehemently denied he was out despite what the replay was showing. The double TKO is so rare in MMA that it made the ESPN top 10 plays of the night.
Nate Diaz won the season by default as Manny re-aggravated his shoulder and had to tap out due to pain. Manny dominated the first round against Nate and showed a pitbull tenacity as he ground out the first round. At the beginning of the second round, he went to shoot in on Nate and as his opponent sprawled, Manny’s shoulder popped out of joint yet again, causing him to scream and tap the canvas vigorously in submission. The really hard part to watch was the shoulder blade sticking out at an odd angle as Manny sat there in abject pain awaiting the doctor. He had originally injured it fighting Joe Lauzon for the final’s spot and the re-occurence of the injury gave Nate the UFC contract. The odd ending left us wondering if a Joe Lauzon / Nate Diaz fight would have served us better.
BJ rounded back to form as he rollicked through a second round victory against Jens Pulver. BJ has always had the talent, in fact most consider him the most talented fighter ever to grace the octagon. His main foible in the past according to most experts is his lack of cardio, discipline, and staying power. With a new conditioning coach and a victory over the ex-UFC champion Jens Pulver, he has announced that he is back in the saddle and ready to take all comers. He literally romped through the two round victory against Jens and barely broke a sweat. Jens on the other hand announced that he would be dropping to 145 which means he will be moving to the WEC in short order to continue his career over there.
We have a more full review for those readers unlucky enough to see the fights this weekend. All-in-all, it was an entertaining night at the fights put on by the UFC.