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Welcome to The Ultimate Figher – One Soldier Left
The episode started things off as usual, recapping the previous fight. Things ended Matt getting a winded victory over .., both fighters barely able to stand. After witnessing the close decision loss, and feeling things should have gone to a third round, Rampage threw a temper tantrum tearing up a flimsy door in the facility.
After the fight the teams head back to the house for some recouperation time so they can work towards the last remaining fight of this round, Team Rampage’s Marcus “Big Baby” Jones vs Michael Wessel. While at the house that night, Matt goes straight to bed, not feeling very well. Wes Sims was the lone individual that felt that celebration was in order, not wanting to allow Matt to be the “Party Pooper” decides to check in on him, and go ahead and spray the room down with silly string before allowing him to return to his slumber. From the looks of things, Matt might need more time to recover than the show’s schedule is going to allow.
On with the training of both the final participants for the qualifier round, Rampage is looking to push Marcus hard, his last soldier for a Rampage victory. The team wants to get respect back, and Marcus is their only chance. In interviews Marcus details how he is taking advantage of being the final fight, working and learning the entire time leading up to the fight. He is quite confident he can pull out a win.. the win.. Rampage’s win.
The next morning Marcus is awaken by a “scorpian-spider-laviathon” creature and screams like a girl. He completely panics, screams of terror, completely immobilized being held captive by the creature. Justen Wren comes to Marcus’ aid to kill the spider, but doesn’t let him off the hook that easily. Justen teases Big Baby a bit before setting it aside until the rest of the crew is around, at which time the carcass gets thrown on Marcus who jumps up running from the room, cries of terror that can be heard for miles!
Back in his proper mind set, we get some background on Marcus. He speaks of his football background, and confesses that although he was able to get in and get some play time due to his natural physical abilities, he never was engulfed into football the way he is with MMA. He says he is really able to excel because he eats, lives and breathes MMA, 24/7. Even with this, Rampage is seen questioning whether the big giddy puppy has the fighter instinct.
Michael’s background and frame of mind is a bit different than Marcus. Michael is here trying for his big shot, sacrificing personal time with his wife during a difficult battle with cancer. He speaks of the daily cards and letters that he sends to help show his support for her, and wishes he could be there for her. This would seem to me to be a pretty large distraction when it comes to proper focus leading up to a fight with a short training schedule.
Michael continues to train hard, and with the game plan wants to stand up and bang with Big Baby, let him feel the thunder. Rashad emphasizes no take-downs, keep it standing and let him feel it. Michael has UFC fight experience which should give him an edge in the fight, as long as he sticks to the strategy. He talks of Marcus being a “massive, massive man” but seems intent on putting that aside to “beat the shit out of him.”
In the next round of prankster antics some sketches are posted of Marcus, with various comic-style speech bubbles coming from him, wanting a new coach among other comical remarks. At the bottom of one of the sketches Michael added “sucks balls.”
When Marcus finds the sketches on the window in the house, he is less than pleased. Big Baby overreacts a bit to the prank, yelling that what if his family were watching and sees that.. his kids. Most of the house agrees, he’s overreacting and needs to learn to take a joke.
It’s almost fight time for the week, so we get things rolling by gathering up both teams at the gym to do weigh-ins. You can’t bring the groups together without some witty banter amongst the teams, and this opportunity is no exception. Things get started with Rampage and Roy Nelson pulling up their shirts and doing a bellly-slap against each other. This was NOT a pretty sight.
Rampage decide to mess around a bit with “Titties” again, that seems to be the thing to do. At first they were cutting up together and playing around a bit, but when Rampage reached up and grabbed a handful of man-boob, it was clear he had crossed the line. The gloves were off as Titties stared down Rampage, an iminent throw down only avoided by teammates coming to break things up. This was looking pretty serious. The actual weigh-in was quick, Michael weighing in at 260 and Marcus putting up a strong 262.
Now it’s fight time, let’s get things rolling! Things look like they will start out slow with some feeling out, but Michael goes right after Marcus throwing some strong punches. Marcus is getting hit with a few, but nothing that appears to really be a concern. Once Big Baby gets a feel for the power coming at him, he goes on in with his arms extended to minimize damage, “Mummy Style” as labeled during Rampage’s recap, and gets ahold of Michael.
Unable to get some range to throw some shots, Michael goes for a trip. As Marcus starts to fall, he rolls things over so that he lands on top, in a half guard. Eager to get off the ground, Michael decided to give up his back and try to get to his feet quickly. Unfortunately Marcus was too quick, grabbing on to Michael and slowly and loosely going for a rear naked choke. The hold was rather loose, allowing Michael to just roll over into Marcus’ full guard.
Things looked to be in a rather safe position for Michael, he should be able to possibly work the ground a bit, or stand things back up. It looks like Michael is doing just this, making an effort to stand up out of the full guard and Marcus flips the leg over and yanks hard into an arm bar. Michael taps almost instantly, appearing to have possibly broken his arm with the snap of Marcus’ extension.
Marcus “Big Baby” Jones.. the Last Soldier. Victorious, breaking Team Rampage’s cherry and moving to the next round of fights. Team Rashad finishes with a 7-1 record going into the quarter final match-ups.
After interviewing each of the fighters with both coaches and Dana present, it’s time for the quarterfinal match-ups to be announced.
Roy v Justin
Brandon v John
James v Matt
Marcus v Darrell
To close out the show, following the match-up announcements, Rashad asks if Team Rampage wants to work with the guys on his team, help everyone out with some good training and making things easier with him having 7 of his 8 fights working towards their own matches. Team Rampage stands strong, led by Kimbo’s stance that he is going to support his coach and his team. Once Kimbo speaks, the sheep follow suit.. They’ll all help train Marcus and back what little remains of their team.
Looks like Marcus and Team Rampage have a bit of a leg-up for the remainder of the fights as far as training diversity. If this wasn’t enough, Dana throws Rampage a bone and lets him pick his fight for the quarterfinals. Marcus might go a bit further than expected when you take this into consideration.
And now we wait for next week…
Rest assured this will not make anyone but you feel any better about it, but hey.. take your winnings and save a puppy or something. Help bring balance to the universe.
