Author: By Thomas Gerbasi

Two of mixed martial arts’ most compelling figures are unquestionably Michael “The Count” Bisping and Jason “Mayhem” Miller, with both garnering more media attention than practically anyone in the middleweight division. The two 185-pound contenders have proven they can fight at the elite level of the sport as well.

But can they coach?

Bisping answered that question as he led two of his fighters to victory on season nine of The Ultimate Fighter. Now it’s Miller’s turn to prove himself against the brash Brit when they collide as coaches on season 14 of The Ultimate Fighter, which begins filming next month in Las Vegas.

Manchester’s Bisping, winner of season three of TUF, is currently riding a three fight winning streak that includes victories over Dan Miller, Yoshihiro Akiyama, and Jorge Rivera.

California’s Miller is back in the UFC after a six year absence where he fought the likes of Jake Shields, Robbie Lawler, Tim Kennedy, and “Jacare” Souza, while also gaining worldwide fame for his stint as host of MTV’s “Bully Beatdown.” In his most recent bout, in September of 2010, he submitted Japanese legend Kazushi Sakuraba, and now he has his sights on Bisping both in the gym and in the Octagon.

Miller’s originally scheduled July bout against Aaron Simpson at UFC 132 has been canceled. A new opponent for Simpson is currently being sought.

After Chris Cope upset Shamar Bailey and Ramsey Nijem made quick work of Clay Harvison, the next two quarterfinal bouts will pit Tony Ferguson against Ryan McGillivray and Chuck O’Neil against Zachary Davis.

Team dos Santos’ Davis already holds a win over O’Neil from episode six, and he is expecting to make it two in a row. O’Neil is just as determined to get the victory, but he’s not looking at it as a revenge bout.

“No redemption, just a fight,” he said.

At the bell, O’Neil is the aggressor with his strikes, while Davis closes the distance and pushes his foe to the fence. O’Neil avoids the takedown, and after a sustained period without significant action, referee Steve Mazzagatti restarts the bout. Able to use his distance well, O’Neil rocks Davis with his punches, prompting another tie-up against the fence. After some more solid D, O’Neil breaks free and again rocks Davis, whose face has been bloodied by the attack.

Early in round two, O’Neil kicks out Davis’ legs and lands some ground strikes before letting his foe up. The bout soon strays to the mat, but O’Neil is not willing to stay there, and he resumes his standup attack while turning away Davis’ takedown attempts. With 1:30 left, another stalemate results in a restart, and both have their moments late, but it’s O’Neil with the edge, and the judges agree, awarding him a 20-18 across the board unanimous decision.

Unfortunately, Davis gets some bad news along with the defeat, as it’s revealed that he tore both retinas during the bout, putting his future fight career in doubt.

“I didn’t lose any vision, but the doctor said I’m not gonna be able to fight anymore,” said Davis, who underwent immediate laser surgery to repair the tears. “I’m just trying to work my head around it. It was pretty brutal news.”

In the week’s second quarterfinal bout, Ferguson and McGillivray decide to keep it standing, and after Ferguson clips his foe with a left hand, it’s the beginning of the end, as a follow-up flurry on the mat forces referee Josh Rosenthal to halt the fight in the first round.

And then there were four: Cope, Nijem, O’Neil, and Ferguson.

The semifinals are as follows:

Nijem vs. Cope
Ferguson vs. O’Neil

Before the Final Four gets underway though, the two teams celebrate back at the house and after some of Ramsey’s usual antics, things turn testy when Ferguson gets into it with Charlie Rader. The battle escalates before the two get broken up, but the feud continues later in the house, with Ferguson hitting some verbal low blows on Rader as the episode ends, making it clear that next week’s show will be the most explosive of the season.

Here’s how the teams look:

Team Lesnar
Len Bentley – Eliminated on episode three by Ryan McGillivray
Charles Rader – Eliminated on episode four by Ramsey Nijem
Tony Ferguson 2-0
Clay Harvison 1-1 – Eliminated on episode eight by Ramsey Nijem
Chuck O’Neil – 2-1 Eliminated on episode six by Zachary Davis. Returned for Wild Card bout and re-entered the competition
Chris Cope 2-0
Nordin Asrih – Eliminated on episode one by Shamar Bailey

Team dos Santos
Shamar Bailey 1-1 – Eliminated on episode eight by Chris Cope
Ryan McGillivray 1-1 – Eliminated on episode nine by Tony Ferguson
Javier Torres – Eliminated on episode two by Chris Cope. Returned for Wild Card bout and was eliminated by Chuck O’Neil
Ramsey Nijem 2-0
Zachary Davis 1-1 – Eliminated on episode nine by Chuck O’Neil
Mick Bowman – Eliminated on episode five by Clay Harvison
Justin Edwards – Eliminated on episode six by Tony Ferguson

For weekly recaps of The Ultimate Fighter, as well as fighter profiles, stay tuned to UFC.com.

Fighting rising heavyweight star Stefan Struve is sort of like facing the same dilemma Luke Skywalker and his buddies dealt with when trying to take out the Death Star in Star Wars. You’ve got a small window of opportunity, so you’d better strike fast and strike accurately. Otherwise, you’re in trouble.

It worked for Skywalker, along with real-life heavies Junior dos Santos and Roy Nelson. But if you don’t catch the “Skyscraper” early, odds are that you’re going to go home with a loss, and Struve’s resilience has become almost as much of a story as his frame (6-foot-11) and his age (he turned 23 in February). What about those slow starts though?

“To tell you the truth, the fight gets easier after some exchanges,” he said. “When you feel some power from him and you hit him a few times, then the fight gets easier, that’s true. You really need to get into the fight and take a couple shots and give a couple shots. After that, I’m really in the fight and when I get through the first seconds, I get comfortable in there.”

So when Denis Stojnic opened up his forehead, Christian Morecraft battered him for nearly five minutes, and Sean McCorkle almost submitted him, Struve didn’t panic. He was just getting warmed up.

The results?

Wsub2 Stojnic

KO2 Morecraft

TKO1 McCorkle

All in a day’s work.

“It’s just in you,” said Struve. “My trainer (PRIDE vet Bob Schrijber) is one of the best, and if you look at his fights, and his wife’s (Irma Verhoeff) as well, it’s the same thing, and I think it’s the way we train. We all have that same thing, that same will to win, and we all want to win no matter what. I want it really, really bad. I know this is a big opportunity for me and I’m really thankful for the opportunity I’m getting from the UFC and I’m really happy with the way my career and life are going right now. I want to win the fight no matter what, so I don’t care if I’m cut open or whatever, I want to win.”

That mindset, his size, his growing skill set, and his age have combined to mark the Beverwijk native as one of the brightest prospects in the sport for future world title honors. This Saturday night at UFC 130, he will take the next step on that road against unbeaten Travis Browne, who has made plenty of noise himself after stopping James McSweeney in his UFC debut and then pushing veteran contender Cheick Kongo to a three round draw.

Browne, while respectful of Struve’s game, also believes that at 28, his life experiences will give him an edge over his younger foe’s fight experience. Struve doesn’t buy into that.

“There’s been 25 people who have thought that since I was 17, that they would kick my ass because they were a little older, and they made a big mistake with that,” he said. “Of course you get wiser when you get older and you learn things, but this is gonna be my 30th pro fight and my eighth fight for the UFC, so I think I’ve got a lot of experience in there and it’s not gonna be a big factor. The way my age plays out, I think in five years I’m going to be bigger, stronger, and better, but right now, I’m good enough to beat his ass.”

Struve laughs, comfortable in the role he’s been thrust into over the last year. No longer a shy kid navigating shark infested waters. The Netherlands product has become a natural in the spotlight.

“It’s starting to get normal for me, just like it was normal for me when I fought all over Europe on the big shows, and that’s good,” he said.

He’s also been able to keep focused and on the straight and narrow, not always a given when dealing with athletes in their early twenties. Then again, Struve has been training since the age of 14, fighting since 17, and he’s got an old school no-nonsense trainer and a rock-solid management team backing him. Want more proof? There aren’t any Ferraris in his driveway, but he does now own a driveway.

“I just bought a house and I’m only 23 years old,” he said proudly. “To buy a house when you’re 23 years old in Holland, and especially the kind of house I bought, that’s the reward so far. Plus there’s the appreciation you get from the fans from your fights, and that’s really good too. So I wouldn’t do anything different.”

He doesn’t even lose sleep over his two UFC losses. Instead, he looks back at them as learning lessons, content in knowing that he wouldn’t deliver the same performances a second time if the Struve of today fought those fights.

“You can never say anything about results because anything can happen in a fight, but I’m a totally different fighter from a year ago, and I fought Junior almost two and a half years ago,” he said. “Back then I wasn’t ready for a guy like Junior. I had just turned 21 two days before the fight, and with Roy some things happened the day of the fight, so things didn’t go to plan, but it happened, it made me stronger, and I’m a totally different fighter now.”

That could end up being bad news for Travis Browne. As for the elite of the heavyweight division, Struve has some plans for them too in the coming years.

“I feel good, and I feel like I’ve got at least 15 years ahead of me in this sport,” he said. “Of course I’ve got a lot of growing to do and I need to get a lot better at everything, but I don’t really consider myself a prospect anymore. This is going to be my 30th pro fight, and people still see me that way, but there’s no pressure and it’s gonna be an awesome fight. We set a goal and in six or seven years I want to have the belt. If it comes faster, that’s good too, but we’ll see what happens.”

When Brazil native Jorge Santiago returns to the UFC for the first time in over four years this Saturday to face Brian Stann, he does so not just with a new nickname, “Sandman.” In fact, the man stepping back in the Octagon in Las Vegas bears little resemblance to the one last seen on the wrong end of an Alan Belcher head kick in 2006.

That’s the scary part for Stann and the rest of the middleweight division, because unlike many fighters who respond to a cut from the UFC with a few wins on the local circuit against B-level competition before looking for a call back, Santiago packed his bag and went to the woodshed, fixing what he knew was broken during a 1-2 UFC stint.

“I think I didn’t do enough to belong in that place,” said Santiago. “I was young and I didn’t train as a real professional athlete at that time. So I said now I have to do everything possible to come back here and prove that I belong here. If I want to come back here I have to do extra work, twice what I did before and everything I do, I have to do it harder and more professionally. That’s one of the reasons why I changed.”

A pro since 2002, Santiago was talented but erratic when he made it to the UFC and the talented side was evident when he blasted out Justin Levens with a knee at Ultimate Fight Night 5 in June of 2006. But erratic came creeping back into the 25 year old’s life in his next two bouts, as competitive showings against Chris Leben and Belcher ended up in knockout losses. He didn’t complain when he was released from his contract though.

“As fighters, we need to get results,” he said. “If you don’t get results you’re not gonna stay in the same place. What happened was I lost my concentration for a second, and in mixed martial arts, every second you lose concentration, you pay for it. I don’t complain; I’m angry with myself because I lost and that’s the price you pay for not being professional at the time.”

Thus began the road back, and what a road it was. Santiago fought 12 times since his UFC release, winning 11. He avenged his lone loss during that stretch (to Mamed Khalidov), and his opposition included eight foes with UFC and / or PRIDE experience. He even fought twice in one night twice, first during STRIKEFORCE’s Middleweight Grand Prix in 2007 and then in Sengoku’s Middleweight Grand Prix in 2008. He won both tournaments.

“Getting ready for a tournament, you never know what’s gonna happen,” he said. “You can finish your fight in 30 seconds or you can fight two hard rounds and then come back and fight two more, you never know. I was just trying to sharp and not hesitate if I had the chance to finish the fight. You don’t think about holding yourself back, and I think that’s why I performed well. I didn’t have anything in my mind except to go in there, finish the fight as soon as possible, and if you don’t, don’t worry, your time is gonna come.”

Would he do it again?

He laughs.

“Why not?”

His crowning glory was yet to come though, as he engaged in a five round war with PRIDE vet Kazuo Misaki in an August 2010 battle for the Sengoku middleweight title. Hitting all Fight of the Year lists, Santiago scored a stirring fifth round stoppage of the Japanese star, and after he asked for – and received – his contract release in early 2011, he was on his way back home.

“I always had that in my mind to come back one day to the UFC,” he said. “I left to get more experience training in other places, and fighting with other guys in other organizations to make sure I reached that level where I could come back and prove myself again. I’m reborn as a fighter now and getting back to the UFC was always something I had in my mind to achieve. Now I can reach my full potential.”

His first showing will be against Stann, a former WEC light heavyweight champion who struggled at 205 in the UFC before finding his true place at middleweight. 2-0 at 185 pounds with finishes of Mike Massenzio and Chris Leben, Stann has the type of reputation, respect, and name that Santiago craved for his return to the big show.

“This is a fight that’s going to put me back in the mix in the UFC,” he said. “Every time Brian Stann fights, he shows everybody his improvement, and he’s always getting better and better. On the other side, I feel more experienced than him, but I feel honored to fight him. He’s a US hero, a US Marine, and I love America as much as he does. I came here in 2002 and I have a great life. I want to prove myself fighting one of the best guys and the fans consider him one of the best coming up and a new star right now, so I couldn’t ask for a better opportunity.”

It is an interesting place for Santiago to be in though. The diehard fans know who he is and are expecting a lot from him this time around. Casual fight followers aren’t likely to know him, so anything he does positively from here on out will be gravy. But that’s the outside look. From the inside, Santiago knows that his biggest battle will be with the man in the mirror.

“I never got inside the ring or cage and went ‘today is going to be the best fight of my life,’ or ‘today I’m going to get the best knockout,’” he said. “I just go inside and I have in my mind that I will leave everything inside the cage and I will do my best to finish this fight. I just want to prove myself. I don’t try to beat only the guy, I try to beat myself. I have a competition with myself. If the last fight ended in the third round, this fight I want to finish in the second round, and so on. I want to be better than I was before.”

All signs would say that he is much better than he was in 2006, and he’s left a pretty impressive victims’ list behind to get here. Santiago has completed his studies. Saturday night is graduation day.

“There are no easy fights in the middleweight division,” he admits. “But I think now is the best time for me to get back to the UFC and finish my career. This is my ultimate challenge.”

“You was hard and nasty. You had this cast iron jaw. But then the worst thing happened to you that could happen to any fighter. You got civilized.”

When trainer Mickey Goldmill told Rocky Balboa in the third installment of the classic “Rocky” film series that he had gotten civilized, it’s an idea that probably resonates pretty strongly with Tim Boetsch.

Entering the Octagon on less than two weeks notice to face David Heath at UFC 81 in February of 2008, Boetsch lived up to his nickname of “The Barbarian” as he imposed his will on his opponent before rag dolling him to the canvas and knocking him out in the first round.  In terms of instant fan adulation, Boetsch was Jon Jones before Jon Jones.

Yet just two months later, Matt Hamill and Colorado’s high altitude brought Boetsch back to Earth. He would split his next two bouts, with a loss to Jason Brilz forcing a release from the UFC. Three wins on the local scene brought him back, but he wasn’t the same fighter in decisioning Todd Brown, and then came a second round submission loss to rising star Phil Davis last November.

“The Barbarian” had become civilized.

“I really didn’t understand what I had actually done in there,” said Boetsch of his memorable UFC debut more than three years ago. “I heard a few people say Tim Boetsch is really raw and he needs to keep that rawness. And at the time, I really didn’t understand what that meant. I had to come around full circle, and I hit a couple camps after that where we really worked hard on the technical side of things and I tried to become a technical thinker in fighting, but that’s just not me. I need to go in there with the mindset that I’m gonna put the guy away, regardless of what it takes. That’s the mentality I’m bringing back for this fight and I’ve got more tools to do it now.”

This fight is a Saturday meeting with Kendall Grove at UFC 130 in Las Vegas. For Grove, it’s a familiar setting – coming off a loss and fighting with the determination that he will win and stave off the executioner’s axe again. For Boetsch, it’s a new day, not only attitude-wise, but weight-wise, as he is preparing to make his middleweight debut. Surprisingly, he still sounds pleasant before a weight cut he hasn’t had to make since his days as a wrestler at Lock Haven University.

“I was hoping I could get by without having to go back to it, but as fate would have it, I had to go back to my roots and the weight cutting and the miserable feeling of being dehydrated and all that,” he says with a chuckle. “But they say nothing good comes easy, so I guess this hard work and the effort of cutting weight is hopefully the right path and good things are on the horizon.”

The decision came after the Davis fight, one in which Boetsch admits that everything was going according to plan up until the bell sounded. So instead of looking for excuses for his fourth defeat in 16 outings, he looked into the mirror and decided a change of divisional scenery was in order.

“Everything in camp and training, physically and mentally, felt spot on,” he said. “So to go into that fight and not come out victorious kinda made me go to the drawing board and try to figure out what I could have changed and what I could do differently. And really, the only thing that came up was to drop the weight and make the cut to middleweight, so that’s what I did.”

And with the 20 pound drop also came a realization that despite all the things he had learned (and was still learning) from trainer Matt “The Wizard” Hume, one thing was still missing, and he went back into his studies of Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do to find it.

“A lot of JKD and Bruce’s philosophies center on self-expression through fighting and I want to get back to my roots,” said Boetsch, 29. “When I first turned pro and started fighting I was able to really be kind of a bully in fights and throw guys around and that was just part of my style. It isn’t necessarily JKD or Bruce Lee’s style, per se, but it was my self-expression as a fighter. I was going in there raw and just powering through people and I think the drop to middleweight will better allow me to do that.”

How has Hume reacted to such intentions?

“He doesn’t like it,” Boetsch chuckles. “We always have a gameplan, but people always say you can have the perfect gameplan until you get punched in the face. We’ve studied the tape and Matt has obviously picked apart Kendall’s style and found all his weaknesses, so I certainly have an awareness of all those things and I’m not gonna forget about them, but I’m not gonna panic if I go in there and everything doesn’t happen the way that we trained. I’m gonna fight my fight and be victorious.”

Already, Boetsch has noticed the difference in training camp in Kirkland, Washington, not only because of the mental return to his early days, but because of life at middleweight.
 
“I am certainly noticing differences, and all my training partners, coaches and everyone around me definitely see differences,” he said. “I’m really happy that I made the choice to cut because everything just works better. I’m more efficient as a fighter, I’m able to do my techniques more smoothly and quickly, and I’m real happy with where I’m at and what I’ve seen.”

In Grove though, the 6-0 Boetsch not only faces a stylistic quandary in the 6-6 veteran, but he will be facing one of the most resilient fighters in the organization. Just 3-3 in his last six bouts, Grove nonetheless has an uncanny ability to follow up disappointing wins with career-saving victories, and if Boetsch’s math is correct, the Hawaiian should be in top-notch form following a December loss to Demian Maia.

“I think if you look at how things have gone in his last few fights, this one coming up is one where he brings his “A” game,” he said. “I’m expecting a real tough fight and I’m expecting him to show up with the killer instinct that he’s fighting for his life and his job. I expect to fight the best Kendall Grove that anybody’s seen to date. But with that being said, I plan on putting him away.”

That sounds like “Barbarian” talk right there, and it’s where Boetsch needs to be before the latest “biggest fight” of his career if he wants to recapture the buzz he had after the Heath fight. And if he does that, the middleweights have someone new to worry about.

“I certainly feel like where I’m at right now is the best I’ve been in my professional career as a fighter and I feel like I’m only getting better,” he said. “I certainly don’t feel like I’ve peaked. I’m as strong as I was at light heavy, I’m faster, and just all-around a better athlete. So I’m real excited. I think I’m gonna open a lot of people’s eyes on the 28th and I’m excited to get in there and do it.”

 

Up first in the quarterfinals will be bouts pitting Clay Harvison against Ramsey Nijem, and Chris Cope against Shamar Bailey. Unfortunately, as the episode begins, Bailey is far from a hundred percent as he recently pulled his back out in training. There’s no question that he’s going through with the fight though, and he’s looking forward to silencing his nemesis, Cope.

Back in the gym, UFC President Dana White brings former WEC light heavyweight champion and current middleweight contender Brian Stann to practice to speak to the fighters. Stann, a decorated veteran of the United States Marine Corps, tells the competitors how his time in the service helped his mixed martial arts career.

“I always tell people, ‘success breeds success,’” said Stann.

Another fighter on the mend is Harvison, who is dealing with the aftereffects of a dislocated finger, but like Bailey, he’s raring to go.

Unfortunately for Harvison, Nijem is just as amped up, and he gets his foe to the mat almost immediately. Harvison fights hard to escape, but after Nijem gets his hooks in, it’s game over as he sinks in a rear naked choke that forces a tap out in less than a minute.

In bout number two, Cope is a significant underdog to the veteran Bailey, but with nothing to lose, Cope is cool once the bell rings as Bailey chases him. Bailey scores with a hard left in the early going, but his first takedown attempt is defended well. In the second half of the round, Bailey bulls his foe to the fence on a few occasions, but again, Cope’s defense is good, and he gets in enough close range punches to pick up some points before the bell sounds.

The fighters begin trading punches to start round two, with Cope the busier and more effective of the two. Cope’s takedown defense is also making it difficult for Bailey to get untracked, and by the midway point, it’s clear that an upset is in the making. With under two minutes remaining, Bailey scores with two hard lefts, but he is unable to capitalize, leaving it up to the judges.

There will be no third sudden victory round though, and the verdict is rendered 20-18 across the board for Cope, a decision that doesn’t sit well with Bailey and coach Junior dos Santos…but it stands, and Cope joins Nijem on the way to the semifinals.

Here’s how the teams look:

Team Lesnar
Len Bentley – Eliminated on episode three by Ryan McGillivray
Charles Rader – Eliminated on episode four by Ramsey Nijem
Tony Ferguson 1-0
Clay Harvison 1-1 – Eliminated on episode eight by Ramsey Nijem
Chuck O’Neil – 1-1 Eliminated on episode six by Zachary Davis. Returned for Wild Card bout and re-entered the competition
Chris Cope 2-0
Nordin Asrih – Eliminated on episode one by Shamar Bailey

Team dos Santos
Shamar Bailey 1-1 – Eliminated on episode eight by Chris Cope
Ryan McGillivray 1-0
Javier Torres – Eliminated on episode two by Chris Cope. Returned for Wild Card bout and was eliminated by Chuck O’Neil
Ramsey Nijem 2-0
Zachary Davis 1-0
Mick Bowman – Eliminated on episode five by Clay Harvison
Justin Edwards – Eliminated on episode six by Tony Ferguson

For weekly recaps of The Ultimate Fighter, as well as fighter profiles, stay tuned to UFC.com.