We’ve got two quarter final match ups today so let’s jump right in. From Coach Dominick Cruz’ team we have Vinc Pichel taking on Coach Urijah Faber’s Chris Saunders. After that, Team Faber teammates Al Iaquinta and Andy Ogle lock up. At the end of the episode, injured Cruz’ replacement to face Faber at UFC 148 for the interim bantamweight title will also be announced.
We’ve got two quarter final match ups today so let’s jump right in. From Coach Dominick Cruz’ team we have Vinc Pichel taking on Coach Urijah Faber’s Chris Saunders. After that, Team Faber teammates Al Iaquinta and Andy Ogle lock up. At the end of the episode, injured Cruz’ replacement to face Faber at UFC 148 for the interim bantamweight title will also be announced.
Vinc Pichel vs. Chris Saunders
Rd 1
Both men exchange leg kicks, no major punches landed. Pichel presses in on Saunders and looks for a double leg takedown against the cage. Saunders reverses position and looks for his own takedown against the fence.
Saunders gets the takedown and ends up in Pichel’s full guard. Both men throw strikes at one another from there for about a minute before Pichel is able to get back to his feet and in a free standing range.
Pichel finds his range with a jab and a cross, moving forward, and shoots in for another double leg attempt against the cage. He doesn’t get it and the two stay against the fence for a few moments, exchanging knees and elbows.
Pichel goes for another takedown, appears to get it but Saunders hits a switch and momentarily lands on the side of a turtle up Pichel, raining down punches. Pichel gets up to his feet. Pichel lands another jab-cross combination and Saunders returns fire with a left hook.
With ten seconds left, Saunders presses Pichel against the cage and works for another takedown. Pichel defends and lands an elbow to the head from the clinch right before the horn sounds.
Rd 2
Pichel follows up another straight right with by pushing Saunders against the cage and looking for a double leg. They fight there for some time before Pichel pulls Saunders down to the ground. Saunders pops back up immediately and gets, first, to the side and then to the back of Pichel but Pichel stands back up.
Saunders keeps his grip around the waist of Pichel while they are on their feet as Pichel tries to break free. Pichel’s nose is bloodied. Saunders attempts a suplex but Pichel lands on his feet.
Saunders gives up on the grip and they are back to a free standing position. Saunders shoots for a single leg takedown and does not get it. They break and Pichel goes on the attack.
He lands a right cross then left knee to the head. Pichel has Saunders reeling, but still composed, as he works knee after knee into his gut. Pichel changes levels and gets a double leg takedown with a minute and a half left in the round. Saunders gets back to his feet thirty seconds later but is immediately pulled back down.
Saunders reverses position and gets on top of Pichel, then jumps to his back. Pichel is on his feet but bent over, defending chokes from Saunders. Eventually Pichel is able to turn in to Saunders and begin work from inside his full guard. Saunders gets back up to his feet.
Pichel doesn’t slow his attack at all and he ends the round landing a cross, left hook and knees to the body.
Decision time!
Pichel wins by majority decision. Two judges saw it his way and one judge scored it a draw.
An elated Pichel gives Saunders credit in his post-fight interview with Jon Anik. “You go in here thinking, ‘I’m just going to whoop his ass,’…but it was definitely a battle.”
Back to the tape, we see how Coach Faber dealt with having two of his teammates prepare to fight one another. He tells All Iaqunita that on the day of the fight he will randomly assign assistant coaches to his corner to avoid it being “weird.” Faber also announces that he is going to stay out of the coaching.
Ogle’s plan against Al is to stick and move and Iaquinta is confident that he is the hardest working guy on the show, and that will make the difference. Time to get it on.
Fight Time!
Al Iaquinta vs. Andy Ogle
Rd. 1
Both men cautiously measure each other out, with spurts of glancing punch combinations and low kicks for about a minute and a half. Iaquinta then lands a high kick and follows up with a punch combo to the head of Ogle.
Ogle becomes more aggressive but Al finds a regular mark with rear leg low kicks. Ogle lands an overhand right. Al stalks Ogle around the cage.
Al lands an uppercut and then a rear push kick. In another exchange, Al lands a right uppercut followed by a left hook to the head. Ogle gets back at All with a left upper cut, overhand right combination.
Ogle gets dropped hard by a punch with under a minute left but survives the follow-up ground striking and gets back to his feet. Its clear he doesn’t have his legs under him yet, though, and when Al hits him again, this time with a nasty elbow, he drops even harder. Al follows up with a couple ground strikes before Referee Steve Mazzagatti can get to him to stop the fight with just seconds left in the round.
Al moves on to the semi-finals. The usual outburst of cheering is absent out of respect and worry for Ogle’s safety from he and Al’s Team Faber teammates.
Next week’s matchups plus the announcement of Faber’s opponent are next!
The first semi-final matchup will be James Vick vs. Mike ChiesaAl and Pichel will also square up.
And for the interim bantamweight title belt, Urijah Faber will face…cut to highlight film of Renan Barao. The highlight is scary, showing Barao knocking out and submitting fools, but when they cut back to Faber he is laughing.
I doubt it’s at Barao, but that was just good timing. Dana White apologizes to Faber, presumably for not telling him earlier who he would be fighting, saying that they didn’t want the news to leak out. Barao enters the gym.
The two square up and the injured Cruz has to watch all this shit, inches away. He can’t be happy. Dana asks him if he’s alright as the show fades out.
This week’s matchup between Joe Proctor and Chris Tickle seems to be a study in contrast. Proctor has been quiet thus far, with his nose to the grindstone in training. Tickle has been loud, full of bravado, while annoying his coaches by finding ways not to train during practices.
Similarly, both sides seem to agree that Proctor is the more technical fighter, with the ability to finish on the ground while Tickle is a powerful brawler that needs to avoid the ground. But before we can get to that fight, Tickle showed up drunk to last week’s.
After his teammate loses and he is selected to fight Proctor, we see Tickle giggling, talking smack and pushing his coach Dominick Cruz over the edge. We are told, and its not hard to believe, that Tickle got crunk prior to the bout.
Coach Cruz is in no mood for jokes after losing his second straight in the locker room and tells Tickle to “shut up. Shut up.” “What are you doing?” Cruz asks Tickle.
“Nothing,” Tickle replies. “I’m being me.”
Coach Cruz, and perhaps the viewing nation, simply replies, “why?”
Last week’s episode ended with Tickle getting in Urijah Faber and Proctor’s face when the match up was announced. Proctor teammate Al Iaqunita, fresh off his own win, believes that Tickle’s courage is liquid-based.
This week’s matchup between Joe Proctor and Chris Tickle seems to be a study in contrast. Proctor has been quiet thus far, with his nose to the grindstone in training. Tickle has been loud, full of bravado, while annoying his coaches by finding ways not to train during practices.
Similarly, both sides seem to agree that Proctor is the more technical fighter, with the ability to finish on the ground while Tickle is a powerful brawler that needs to avoid the ground. But before we can get to that fight, Tickle showed up drunk to last week’s.
After his teammate loses and he is selected to fight Proctor, we see Tickle giggling, talking smack and pushing his coach Dominick Cruz over the edge. We are told, and its not hard to believe, that Tickle got crunk prior to the bout.
Coach Cruz is in no mood for jokes after losing his second straight in the locker room and tells Tickle to “shut up. Shut up.” “What are you doing?” Cruz asks Tickle.
“Nothing,” Tickle replies. “I’m being me.”
Coach Cruz, and perhaps the viewing nation, simply replies, “why?”
Last week’s episode ended with Tickle getting in Urijah Faber and Proctor’s face when the match up was announced. Proctor teammate Al Iaqunita, fresh off his own win, believes that Tickle’s courage is liquid-based.
“Tickle was hammered at the fight tonight. When he wakes up and finds out he has to fight Proctor, he’s going to shit himself,” Iaquinta laughs.
Cruz continues his dressing down of Tickle. “Do me a favor and just try to keep your mouth shut for this next week,” he says. “And no more drinking.”
Cruz explains during an interview later that he actually loves Tickle and his personality. “He cracks me up…he has a good heart.”
Tickle, perhaps still drunk, takes Cruz aside in the training center and makes a request. He tells Cruz to fuck all that technique shit, he needs to be “pushed,” in terms of conditioning. Well, no one’s conditioning is likely to improve in the week of their fight, and Cruz has been trying to push Tickle for a month now, with much push back from Chris.
Cruz is flabbergasted at Tickle’s lack of self-awareness.
“’I don’t want to tell you how to coach me, but push me.’ Alright Tickle. Good advice!” Cruz
Back in the house, Tickle weighs himself on the scale – he’s 168.5 pounds. The lightweights will need to weigh in at a maximum of 156 the day before their fight. Proctor, who says he likes Tickle and that they talk every day, walks in to the house after Tickle and is goaded into weighing in in front of his opponent.
He does, and he’s over 175. Still, there’s no chance that the Joe-Lauzon protégé will miss weight after his coach has mercilessly teased fellow TUF 5 cast mate Gabe Ruediger, will he?
Cut to Tickle eating three corn dogs in his bed. Well, he seems to have the weight thing under control.
Tickle’s Team Cruz team member Justin Lawrence expresses his disgust at Tickle’s attitude. “Every day you don’t get coached by a world champion like Dom. You’ve got to be able to take this opportunity that he’s giving you, and just soak it up,” Lawrence preaches.
Lawrence turns his judging eye to injured teammate Mike Rio next. Rio, one of the oldest in the house, is talking about his injured knee to Lawrence. The 21 year-old dispassionately responds by saying MMA is a “young man’s game.”
Rio says he feels that he has ten more years in him if he can stay healthy. Lawrence says, “Really? See, I think at the age 30, you’re done.”
Rio is 30 years old. Dick move, Lawrence.
At the next day’s training, Cruz calls Tickle over, but not to yell at him. The coach wants to apologize to the fighter.
“I was very frustrated last night and I let it come out and I apologize for that,” Cruz tells Tickle.
Cruz says he’s making today’s practice a hard one. He wants his fighters to be put in “tough situations [that] challenge their brain and their heart.”
On that note, Rio and Lawrence are sparring and things are about to get intense. Cruz explains that he makes spinning kicks illegal in sparring for his guys because he’s seen nasty KO’s from them and wants to keep things safer in practice.
Lawrence still throws a spinning heel kick at Rio and the old man gets pissed. A shouting match ensues between the two but Cruz doesn’t seem to much mind. “They got angry at each other. Good. They are already fighting each other,” he says with a wide grin.
Rio says later during an interview that he was pissed so decided to give a little extra mustard on the ground to Lawrence and “pop” his arm in an arm bar. Cruz makes Lawrence and Rio continue sparring one another and Rio appears to use his anger to school Lawrence on the ground.
Rio shoots in, takes Lawrence down, arm bars him, and their round ends with Lawrence downed once again, his back taken by Rio. Lawrence storms off, presumably in search of the supposed benefits of his youth.
“Rio stepped up,” Cruz says. “And Justin, when he doesn’t kick your ass, he starts getting frustrated with himself.”
Cruz talks with Lawrence after practice, calming him down and explaining to him that he needs to start relying on his mind as much as he does on his physical gifts. “You’ve got to find different ways to win other than [with] power, athleticism and speed…now you’ve got to think each round,” Cruz explains calmly.
Now’s the time we learn a little bit more about Proctor and Tickle’s lives outside of the Octagon. Both men say they’ve used MMA training to lift themselves out rough situations during their youths.
Proctor was raised by his grandparents, his father in jail during his youth and his mom out of the picture. He goes on to say proudly that these days he and his dad are close, and that his dad has been clean of drugs for four years.
Proctor’s coach Faber says of the quiet Massachusetts kid, “always beware of the dog with no bark.”
Faber is confident that Proctor’s technical style will be able to overcome Tickle’s powerful brawling. The segment ends with the voice of Faber and perhaps an assistant coach doing the Faber thing to do – coining nicknames.
“Proc-daddy,” Faber says. “Proctologist,” another voice says. “The Proctornator,” Faber submits. It’s like improvised jazz, really it is.
“Velociproctor,” the other voice offers. To which Faber, simply says, in a mellow voice, “I know.”
Ok.
We’ve got the first real house prank of the season, ladies and gents!
Guess who does it? That’s right, Tickle me Chris. Tickle takes a plastic water jug, cuts it in half, fills with water and rigs it on the house front door so that when Team Faber walks in, it will fall on one of them.
Joe Proctor walks in and gets soaked. With water from his own water bottle!
Proctor laughs it off. Tickle brags about Proctor getting “smoked.” What is and isn’t entertaining must vary wildly depending on one’s ability to communicate with the outside world, read, listen to music or watch television.
Live cut- in! Vitor Belfort is in the UFC Training Center waiting to watch the fight.
We’re back in the house on Easter Sunday and the guys all seem to wish they were back home with family for the holiday. Lawrence, underscoring how young he really is, actually says that he misses being at home with his parents for Easter, because his mom and dad get him an Easter basket each year.
Tickle is being all nice and cooking a turkey and ham for the guys. Two other guys are off in the distance in the yard playing bean bag in their underwear. Why not, I guess?
Mike Cheisa is waxing poetic on what it will be like getting back home and being with a girl again after three months with dudes. “Look, this is going to be the worst performance of my life,” he imagines telling the lucky lady to be. “You’re going to get naked. I’m going to put my hands on you and then I’m going to jizz all over you.”
Who hasn’t been there?
Tickle talks a bit about growing up in the not-Chicago portion of Illinois and dealing with racism. He says he was in and out of jail through his youth but that training himself in MMA lifted him out of many bad habits.
Ironically, he may be the real mature guy in the house because of the real-world responsibilities he has. “Most of these guys live on their own or with their parents,” Tickle says. He, on the other hand, has a fiancé and two kids.
“I fight for my family,” he says.
At the weigh-in, Cruz looks at Faber in his Urijah Faber dress-code mandated flip flos and calls his toes “sweaty.” Faber brushes off Cruz by saying he is “very intimidating with zero finishes.”
Tickle weighs in at 153 while eating pizza on the scale and then breaks up the seriousness of his stare down with Proctor by asking Joe if he can “smell my pizza?”
Fight time!
Proctor comes out staring hard at Tickle.
Rd 1
Proctor lands a jab, Tickle misses with a head kick. Lots of feinting from both men. Tickle with a rear roundhouse leg kick.
Proctor with an inside leg kick. Tickle marches towards Joe with a left-right, left-right combo followed by an attempted high kick that is blocked.
Proctor lands a right hand and clinches with Tickle. Tickle reverses and presses Proctor against the cage. Tickle lands an overhand right on separation and then throws a hard punch combo at Proctor, mixing the body and the head.
They free up and hit the center of the cage. A lot of measuring each other up and Tickle coming in with bursts of strikes. Two head kicks that miss from Tickle but a left hook that lands.
Proctor throws a two-punch combo and clinches up with Tickle. Proctor has his own back to the cage but is controlling Tickle’s head in a Thai plum grip. Tickle defends against knees to the head and they separate with Tickle whiffing on a big overhand elbow strike to the head.
Proctor jabs and then shoots and gets a double leg takedown. Tickle scrambles up to his feet but gives up his back in the process.
Proctor gets behind Tickle and gets his arm under his chin, dragging Tickle backwards onto the mat. Tickle fights hard to remove Proctor’s connecting hand from the back of his own head, but Proctor maintains the other arm’s position under Tickle’s throat and eventually secures the tap out.
Three in a row for Team Faber. They now lead 3-2
Matchup time!
Faber chooses his own John Cofer to face Vinc Pichel. Faber also takes the time to give Vinc a new nickname. Vinc “From the depths of hell” Pichel. The man is a champion and a poet.
Jon Anik’s silky voice talks us in to episode two of The Ultimate Fighter 15, telling us we’re less than an hour away from tonight’s live fight. We’re about to see what happened this past week in TUFlandia but right now there are two hooded fighters warming up with their backs to the camera in their respective lock rooms.
Could it be? Yes…those two (at present) nameless and faceless fighters will fight each other tonight but we will have to wait and see who they are. Cheesy, but kinda cool. Another new element of this debuting hybrid taped/live TUF format. Also, there’s a fight clock on the bottom right hand of the screen, ticking down.
The 16 winning fighters from last week’s elimination round pull up to the TUF mansion and once again we see a new crop of young fighters enthusiastically explore their new digs with the type of giddiness that can only lead us to believe that they’ve never watched past seasons and thus don’t realize how completely miserable it can be to be locked in that house. Happens every season.
Jon Anik’s silky voice talks us in to episode two of The Ultimate Fighter 15, telling us we’re less than an hour away from tonight’s live fight. We’re about to see what happened this past week in TUFlandia but right now there are two hooded fighters warming up with their backs to the camera in their respective lock rooms.
Could it be? Yes…those two (at present) nameless and faceless fighters will fight each other tonight but we will have to wait and see who they are. Cheesy, but kinda cool. Another new element of this debuting hybrid taped/live TUF format. Also, there’s a fight clock on the bottom right hand of the screen, ticking down.
The 16 winning fighters from last week’s elimination round pull up to the TUF mansion and once again we see a new crop of young fighters enthusiastically explore their new digs with the type of giddiness that can only lead us to believe that they’ve never watched past seasons and thus don’t realize how completely miserable it can be to be locked in that house. Happens every season.
Michael Chiesa has a more legit reason to be excited as he reveals that he’s “kinda homeless right now,” and so is just happy to have a place to stay. Whoah, some perspective there. Chiesa better go piss in someone’s fruit basket or something real soon or he won’t fit into the TUF lifestyle.
Team selection time now for coaches Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber. UFC Prez Dana White gets to the coin toss. Faber wins it and chooses to select the first matchup as opposed to choosing the first fighter.
Cruz chooses Whitethletic Justin Lawrence, the Blackhouse gym member that tore up James Krause last week with a TKO. Faber chooses Serra/Longo Al Iaqunita with the second pick. Cruz chooses 8 second sensation Sam Sicilia next.
Faber grabs Pride veteran/ringer Cristiana Marcello next. Cruz goes with Myles Jury. Faber goes for fellow Abercrombie & Fitch model look-alike Daron Cruickshank. Cruz chooses Mike Rio next.
Faber, on the recommendation of Joe Lauzon, chooses Joe Proctor. Cruz selects James Vick next. Faber tries out his “long hair don’t care” catchphrase for the second week in a row and chooses Michael Chiesa. Cruz take Vincent Pichel next. Faber grabs John Cofer.
Cruz then chooses Chris Tickle, who I’m sure has never used childhood teasing of his name as fighting fuel. Cruz starts the mind fucking early in taking Tickle. Remember, in episode 1, Tickle said that he wanted to be on Faber’s team. Cruz says he thinks he “threw a wrench in Faber’s plan.” Tickle me Chris has an attitude. He is pissed to be picked 13th and tells Faber that its “his loss, brother.” You tell ‘em.
Faber chooses Andy Ogle next. Cruz chooses the anti-Tickle, Jeremy Larsen, who says, “I’m just happy to be here. Doesn’t bother me at all.” Faber chooses Chris Saunders as his final pick.
Team Faber’s first training session takes place Saturday, 9am. Faber asks how many of his fighters have a wrestling base, as he does, and encourages them to have a purpose in mind with each practice. Cofer, Saunders and Ogle all have early praise for their team’s unity and for Faber.
Two hours later, Team Cruz fills the gym as their coach uses the time to observe them since, he says, he only had one round to view them before. Cruz sets up style stations with his assistant coaches leading to see how good the fighters are in each area.
At first Cruz was all like, “Tickle dissed me by saying he wanted Faber but I’m cool with it,” but soon his real feelings become clear as he pairs Tickle me Chris with his number one pick, Lawrence, to “see what he is about.” Lawrence manhandles Tickle.
Cruz is high on his team saying that they are going to “suck things up like a sponge.” Let’s all just pretend he said, “soak.”
Fight selection/Faber confrontation time. Things move fast, here. It’s 2pm on Saturday and both teams sit down on mini-bleachers in the training center. Faber and Cruz sit about a foot and a half apart.
Faber, like a boss, turns and tells Cruz, “My dad called and says you’re a bold-faced liar now.” Yeah, that statement doesn’t make a whole lot of sense on its own, but stay with Faber, he’s got a point.
Apparently, Faber’s dad has called Faber to tell him that in a recent UFC Magazine* interview, Cruz said that his parents gave Faber a gym. The proud Team Alpha Male leader does not like the invoking of his family into the rivalry by Cruz. “Gave you [a gym]? I never said they gave you a gym,” Cruz protests. “I mentioned that you may have had help with a gym from your parents.”
Faber closes with, “Stay away from the family issue, dude.”
Faber announces that he’s selected his team member Daron Cruickshank to take on James Vick. Faber calls it a “guaranteed win,” for his team. Cruz compares Vick’s body type to his own.
On Sunday afternoon Team Faber’s Michael Chiesa is pulled out of practice for a phone call. It’s his mom. She tells him that his father died the night before. Chiesa explains that his father had been battling a type of cancer called acute myeloid leukemia. Chiesa says he owes everything to his dad and that his dad made him promise that if he were to die while on TUF, that he wouldn’t leave. Back at the house, Chiesa shares the horrible news with his friend and training partner back home, Sam Sicilia.
Sicilia points out that Chiesa’s dad got to see his son get on national television and win a fight. Chiesa meets with Dana White the next day, who tells him that he will be allowed to fly home for a day to visit and be with his family. That’s good to hear.
Tuesday, back in the training center, James Vick prepares for his fight. And don’t get it twisted, just because he may look a tad lanky and goofy, the kid says he grew up poor, fast, hard and serious. Cruz is training Vick to keep a fast pace and says the strategy is to keep the fight on the feet against Cruickshank.
BJJ master Lloyd Irvin gets his hands on Vick, encourages him to “embrace the war,” and also shows him a pretty dope looking far side, arm-in choke on a turtle up opponent.
Cruickshank is in the gym with Team Faber next. “Some people are born a fighter and some people are raised a fighter. I would say, I’m both,” Cruickshank says, ending the nature vs. nurture debate forever.
Faber has Cruickshank work on defending specific submissions that they think Vick will go for with his long frame – and looky here, they work on a bunch of arm-in submissions. Cruickshank is confident, to say the least, calling Vick “one dimensional…he thinks he’s a boxer,” he says. “I’m 10-2. I’m a blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do. What’s he done?”
And if there’s anything we’ve learned from MMA is that if you have a Tae Kwon Do blackbelt, you are unbeatable. Well, at least words never come back to bite anyone in the be-hind…
Chiesa comes back to the house, saying he got the closure he needed back home. His dad toughed it out to stay alive long enough to watch his son fight on episode 1, then went downhill. No joke, thank God that this season is live.
Weigh in time. Cruickshank weighs in at 155.5 and Vick at 154. The cocky Cruickshank smiles at Vick but Vick ain’t having that shit and he keeps his hands up and game face on.
Fight time! A fight fan can get used to this – because the fights are live, we get to watch the coaches give their last-minute pep talk to their fighters, live. Cruz tells Vick, “You know you belong here,” because it doesn’t seem like anyone else does. Faber tells Cruickshank to keep things moving in there.
Anik tells us that the winners of this season get a contract with the UFC and a year long sponsorship deal with TapOut. Why didn’t anyone think of that before? Great idea.
Round 1
Big height difference between Cruickshank and his 6’3 opponent, Vick. Lot of feeling out between the two. Thirty seconds in, the only two strikes that have been thrown are from Cruickshank; a lead left kick to the body and a lead left leg kick. Cruickshank puts together a punch combo, the ending uppercut lands. Spinning back kick from Cruickshank.
Vick’s corner is calling out combos, which, to this point, he isn’t throwing. Vick is stalking Cruickshank, but not throwing much, until he tries a whiffing super man punch. Another spinning back kick from Cruickshank but then he decides to go away from what was working for him and shoots in for a takedown.
Vick throws the right knee counter and it lands flush, knocking out Cruishank cold. Team Cruz goes nuts for the underdog, made good.
A country boy can survive. James Vick gets the surprised KO win over Daron Cruishank. Photo courtesy of UFC.com
Anik in the Octagon to interview Vick who starts off his comments with a “yes sir,” and ends it with a “I’m happy and everything’s going good.” Nothing like a Southern twang to make the underdog persona complete.
Anik asks Cruickshank “what happened there at the end of the fight.” Jon, I love ya, and I suppose you have to ask, but I guess you didn’t see Daron out on his back about, um…10 seconds ago with referee Herb Dean speaking soothing words into his ear. Unsurprisingly, Cruickshank responds, “I don’t remember too much so, I’m going to have to watch it.”
Cruickshank has a chance to get back in to competition if another fighter gets injured, but humbly says he’s just looking to get his teammates ready for their fights during the rest of his time on TUF.
Next week’s matchup time!
Team Cruz has the hammer and chooses Justin Lawrence but wait…he doesn’t choose who his fighter is going to fight! Nuts. Does anyone remember a coach giving up matchup control, even half, before like this?
Cruz has something up his sleeve and is looking to sabotage the “Alpha Male,” somehow…but how? Faber is shocked and has trouble coming up with a selection.
So, he turns it over to his team. “Who’s ready to scrap now, guys?”
Big. Fucking. Mistake. No one on Faber’s team raises their hand. Wow. Big balloon deflating moment. Biggest hand raising, or lack there of, shocker since season 5 when BJ Penn asked fighters to raise their hands if they wanted nothing to do with opposing coach Pulver.
Faber turns it back over to Cruz, who knows exactly who he wants Lawrence to face, and chooses Cristiano Marcello. This is going to be a hell of a fight.
