TUF 12 Preview: ‘The Perfect Good Guy vs. The Perfect Bad Boy’

The Ultimate Fighter: Team GSP vs. Team Koscheck could turn out to be very entertaining, but in general, we’re not expecting any surprises. The coaches already have their roles sorted out, and won’t be straying from them: Georges St. Pierre is the nice-guy champion who doesn’t let his opponents get under his skin, and Josh Koscheck is the trash-talking contender who gave up on being liked a long time ago. At this point, there’s no reason to think St. Pierre won’t dominate Koscheck in December like he did during their first meeting in 2007. But maybe Kos can take a page out of the Chael Sonnen playbook and force you to care about the rematch through the sheer power of his assholishness.

So anyway, here’s the first five minutes of next week’s TUF 12 premiere, courtesy of Spike. Koscheck vows to whip GSP’s fake ass. Dana White is so excited that he’s sweated through his Bruce Lee t-shirt. (Too early for gray, buddy.) It’ll be another "wild card" season — the setup that allowed finalist Kris McCray to fight five times in six weeks last season. Dana pumps up the cast with his usual arsenal of F-bombs. We meet the first two preliminary round fighters. And that’s pretty much it. No word on if any doors are destroyed this season, or if any raw fish is beaten off into. Okay, fine, maybe there will be a few surprises…

The Ultimate Fighter: Team GSP vs. Team Koscheck could turn out to be very entertaining, but in general, we’re not expecting any surprises. The coaches already have their roles sorted out, and won’t be straying from them: Georges St. Pierre is the nice-guy champion who doesn’t let his opponents get under his skin, and Josh Koscheck is the trash-talking contender who gave up on being liked a long time ago. At this point, there’s no reason to think St. Pierre won’t dominate Koscheck in December like he did during their first meeting in 2007. But maybe Kos can take a page out of the Chael Sonnen playbook and force you to care about the rematch through the sheer power of his assholishness.

So anyway, here’s the first five minutes of next week’s TUF 12 premiere, courtesy of Spike. Koscheck vows to whip GSP’s fake ass. Dana White is so excited that he’s sweated through his Bruce Lee t-shirt. (Too early for gray, buddy.) It’ll be another "wild card" season — the setup that allowed finalist Kris McCray to fight five times in six weeks last season. Dana pumps up the cast with his usual arsenal of F-bombs. We meet the first two preliminary round fighters. And that’s pretty much it. No word on if any doors are destroyed this season, or if any raw fish is beaten off into. Okay, fine, maybe there will be a few surprises…

Exclusive: New ‘Ultimate Fighter’ Promo Features Georges St. Pierre, Josh Koscheck, and a Tornado

The Ultimate Fighter 12 Exclusive Promo – Watch more Sports Videos
Now that we’ve met TUF 12’s lightweight contestants, it’s time to start building some hype for the rival coaches. SPIKE has provided CagePotato.com with this exclusive promo f…

The Ultimate Fighter 12 Exclusive Promo – Watch more Sports Videos

Now that we’ve met TUF 12‘s lightweight contestants, it’s time to start building some hype for the rival coaches. SPIKE has provided CagePotato.com with this exclusive promo for The Ultimate Fighter: Team GSP vs. Team Koscheck, in which St. Pierre and Kos face off during a pretty nasty-looking storm. Personally, we’d be huddled in a basement somewhere, but you know how these fighters are — you can’t tell them anything. TUF 12 premieres Wednesday, September 15th, at 10pm/9c, directly following UFC Fight Night: Marquardt vs. Palhares.

Meet the Cast of ‘The Ultimate Fighter 12: Team GSP vs. Team Koscheck’

Spike has revealed the full cast of 28 lightweights who will be appearing on The Ultimate Fighter: Team GSP vs. Team Koscheck, which premieres September 15th at 10 p.m., following UFC Fight Night 22. Of course, 14 of these guys will be eliminated in the first episode, so watch this trailer and get to know them while you still can. Some of the competitors jumped out at us, for various reasons…

The guys we’ve actually heard of: Nam Phan is a nine-year veteran of the sport who has competed for Strikeforce and Sengoku. Mike Budnik has already had a stint as a 155’er in the WEC, but was released after three straight losses to Shane Roller, John Franchi, and Rafael Dias.

The guy with the horrible nickname: Paul "The Wheel" Barrow. Christ. That’s even worse than Nick "The Promise" Ring.

Impressive stat alert: Cody McKenzie has finished his last nine opponents via first-round guillotine choke. That does indeed make him the #2 guillotine-choker in the world, among active fighters; only Travis Fulton (12) owns more.

The inevitable "crazy hair" guys: Jason Brenton (green hair), Alex Caceres (Yagerfro), Jeff Lentz (red hair), Marc Stevens (mohawk), Dane Sayers (red mohawk).

Full cast list is after the jump…

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Spike has revealed the full cast of 28 lightweights who will be appearing on The Ultimate Fighter: Team GSP vs. Team Koscheck, which premieres September 15th at 10 p.m., following UFC Fight Night 22. Of course, 14 of these guys will be eliminated in the first episode, so watch this trailer and get to know them while you still can. Some of the competitors jumped out at us, for various reasons…

The guys we’ve actually heard of: Nam Phan is a nine-year veteran of the sport who has competed for Strikeforce and Sengoku. Mike Budnik has already had a stint as a 155’er in the WEC, but was released after three straight losses to Shane Roller, John Franchi, and Rafael Dias.

The guy with the horrible nickname: Paul "The Wheel" Barrow. Christ. That’s even worse than Nick "The Promise" Ring.

Impressive stat alert: Cody McKenzie has finished his last nine opponents via first-round guillotine choke. That does indeed make him the #2 guillotine-choker in the world, among active fighters; only Travis Fulton (12) owns more.

The inevitable "crazy hair" guys: Jason Brenton (green hair), Alex Caceres (Yagerfro), Jeff Lentz (red hair), Marc Stevens (mohawk), Dane Sayers (red mohawk).

Full cast list is after the jump…

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CagePotato Stats: A Brief History of ‘Ultimate Fighter’ Winners and Their First Post-TUF Fights

("Congrats buddy, here’s your piece of jagged f*cking glass." Photo courtesy of UFC.com)
MMA Junkie reported yesterday that TUF 11 winner Court McGee will return to the Octagon at UFC 121 (October 23rd, Anaheim) against Ryan Jensen. In doin…

Court McGee Ultimate Fighter TUF 11 Dana White trophy
("Congrats buddy, here’s your piece of jagged f*cking glass." Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

MMA Junkie reported yesterday that TUF 11 winner Court McGee will return to the Octagon at UFC 121 (October 23rd, Anaheim) against Ryan Jensen. In doing so, the well-bearded Utah native follows a proud tradition of Ultimate Fighter winners who take on middling veterans directly after winning their six-figure contracts, and beat them (most of the time) before eventually dropping in weight (some of the time). As a helpful reference, we decided to put together a timeline of those first post-TUF fights, as well as some relevant statistics. Starting at the beginning…

Season 1 light-heavyweight winner: Forrest Griffin
First post-TUF opponent: Bill Mahood (0-0 in the UFC at the time)
Result: Griffin via submission (rear-naked choke), round 1
Is Mahood still in the UFC? No, the fight against Griffin was Mahood’s only Octagon appearance.
Does Griffin still compete at light-heavyweight? Yes

Season 1 middleweight winner: Diego Sanchez
First post-TUF opponent: Brian Gassaway (0-0 in the UFC at the time)
Result: Sanchez via submission (strikes), round 2
Is Gassaway still in the UFC? No, the fight against Sanchez was Gassaway’s only Octagon appearance.
Does Sanchez still compete at middleweight? No. Sanchez immediately dropped to welterweight after the show, and has spent the majority of his UFC career there.

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Is TUF 13 Hinging on Anderson Silva Beating Chael Sonnen?

("Why do they keep pitting me against Brazilians? It’s tougher to smash the faces of my fellow countrymen.")
TATAME is reporting that the UFC is planning to hold its second event in Brazil in 2011 and that the promotion could possibly do a Br…


("Why do they keep pitting me against Brazilians? It’s tougher to smash the faces of my fellow countrymen.")

TATAME is reporting that the UFC is planning to hold its second event in Brazil in 2011 and that the promotion could possibly do a Brazilian-only version of The Ultimate Fighter next year as well. 

Looking at the current UFC roster and taking into account the SPIKE TV series’ penchant for (except in a few cases) pitting the two coaches against each other at the end of each season, I’m guessing they are looking at Anderson Silva opposite either Vitor Belfort or Demian Maia as the coaches for the show.

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Matt Hamill Reveals he had Broken Hand, Staph Infection, in Bout with Keith Jardine

So unless you were dipping real hard into bath tub gin last night (just to reach out to our ‘fiscally challenged’ readership that can’t afford ‘corporate’ alcohol), you likely noticed the ‘WTF is that?’ mark on Matt Hamill’s lower back, during the broadcast of the TUF 11 Finale. It certainly captivated our interest here for […]

matt-hamill

So unless you were dipping real hard into bath tub gin last night (just to reach out to our ‘fiscally challenged’ readership that can’t afford ‘corporate’ alcohol), you likely noticed the ‘WTF is that?’ mark on Matt Hamill’s lower back, during the broadcast of the TUF 11 Finale. It certainly captivated our interest here for several moments, but as the fight turned into one damn, entertaining and somewhat gory slugfest, naturally our attention to that specific detail wandered.

Now, if you didn’t see last night’s card, yes, you missed out, and you may also be unaware that Hamill outscored Keith Jardine for the MajorityDecision victory (and FYI-Court McGee tapped out Kris McCray to become the latest “Ultimate Fighter”). While Jardine’s face was a bloody mess by the fight’s end, Hamill also took his share of lumps during the tilt, including an inadvertent thumb in his right eye that cost Jardine a point. After the bout, Hamill appeared to be completely spent while talking to color man Kenny Florian, and according to a report from MMA Junkie, there’s some pretty good reasons for that. Not only did the light-heavweight break his hand in the first round, get poked in the eye, and fight a gruelling three round fight, remember that odd looking mark?

“I have a staph infection,” Hamill said. “I’ll get put on antibiotics tomorrow.”

Yeah, that’s nasty, real nasty, and apparently doctors decided before the fight that the infection would not punt the bout. Oh yeah, the Junkie report also added that Hamill limped into the post-fight presser; now that’s one hard fought win no?