(Props: ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ on Hulu)
With Team Sonnen up 2-0 following Uriah Hall‘s brutal knockout of Adam Cella, it’s time for Team Jones to shift the momentum before it gets out of hand — and it’s up to their #5 pick Collin Hart to save the day. Here are the brass tacks from last night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter: Team Jones vs. Team Sonnen, which you can watch above in its entirety.
– Adam Cella returns to the TUF house, still wearing his hospital gown, and claims he has no memory of the fight. Nevertheless, he tracks Uriah Hall down in the shower and jokingly asks Hall why he hit him so hard. Hall still feels uncomfortable about the fact that he nearly ended Cella’s life. The fact that he’s naked while Cella is trying to have a conversation with him does nothing to alleviate the tension.
– Kevin Casey suffered a cut over his right eye during his elimination-round fight against Eldon Sproat, and says he chose to fight Collin Hart — a wrestler — because he runs a lower risk of getting the cut re-opened against Hart than he would against a talented striker, like Bubba McDaniel, for example. So yeah, in a way he is ducking Bubba, but it makes sense from a strategic standpoint. Unfortunately, Collin vows to elbow Kevin Casey’s face in.
– Gilbert Smith tries to start a rap-battle with Kevin Casey, and gets beat about as badly as Luke Barnatt beat him.
– There’s a power-outage, and a prank involving toilet paper. You don’t need to know details.
– Instead of shaking hands after the weigh-ins, Collin Hart sticks his middle finger in Kevin Casey’s face. The move doesn’t go over well with Team Sonnen. Collin’s only explanation is that you should respect his sleep. Uriah Hall tells Collin how disappointed he is. Uriah Hall is not the kind of dude you want to be disappointed with you.
– The fight isn’t exactly a barn-burner. Collin imposes his will immediately, scoring a takedown off the bell — off of a failed ninja-kick — then controlling Kevin on the mat and against the fence. Collin works some knee strikes from clinch, and Kevin is completely stymied in the first round aside from a few punches he lands during a brief separation in the closing seconds. Kevin tries to get aggressive at the beginning of the second round, rushing at Collin and throwing heavy punches, but Collin snatches him up after about 20 seconds and it’s back to Clinchville. Kevin’s cut opens up and Collin takes control again with his wrestling. Collin spends the remainder of the round on top, throwing down short strikes. All three judges call it 20-18 for Collin, who immediately heads for the treadmill to get a workout in.
– Team Jones regains control of the matchups, and select Bubba McDaniel to fight Team Sonnen’s last-pick Kelvin Gastelum. Jones acknowledges that Gastelum has better wrestling, but as Bones explains, “wrestling really doesn’t win fights.” Huh. So I guess we can expect Bubba’s game-plan to consist entirely of spinning back-elbows?
Team Sonnen
Luke Barnatt – quarterfinalist, defeated Gilbert Smith
Uriah Hall – quarterfinalist, defeated Adam Cella
Zak Cummings
Tor Troeng
Jimmy Quinlan
Kevin Casey
Kelvin Gastelum
Team Jones
Clint Hester
Josh Samman
Robert “Bubba” McDaniel
Gilbert Smith
Collin Hart – quarterfinalist, defeated Kevin Casey
Adam Cella
Dylan Andrews