The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights - Episode 6 - Still Dangling Kimbo's Carrot

**Phrost** · Posted On: 10/21/2009 10:58am

So last week saw Wes Sims choked out by an arm triangle. I'm calling a win by can opener this week.

**tao.jonez** · Posted On: 10/21/2009 11:10am

Wasn't Dana initially claiming that this season was supposed to bring new life to the HW division? Show us all who the new up-and comers in the HW talent pool are and all that?

So far I just haven't seen the skills. Are there any really good fighters on the show this season other than Big Country? Anyone good enough to mount a decent challenge to Nelson even?

BTW Nobody will tap to a canopener. Rampage would tell them "get up and whoop his ass, man." Cause he knows coaching.

I predict more kimbocarrots.

**selfcritical** · Posted On: 10/21/2009 11:16am

Demico and Brandon both look solid.

**Phrost** · Posted On: 10/21/2009 12:25pm

I'm still pretty sure Roy Nelson's going to be in the final, unless he gets caught with a "lucky" shot.

**Don Gwinn** · Posted On: 10/21/2009 9:57pm

1. I was about to write something about Rampage's complete douchebaggery, but Kimbo just out-douched the master. Zak gets cut, and Kimbo raises his arms in victory and cheers.
Tell me again what an arrogant bastard Roy Nelson is, Dana. Come on, I want to hear you say it with a straight face.

2. The reason I left the gaping hole in my wall that needs to be filled with two windows was to comment on Rampage, who just busted out the worst Mr. T impression I have ever heard in my life. I'm not kidding. That was fucking horrible. I have taught white 6th graders from the suburbs who had better Mr. T impressions than that. Sweet Jesus.

3. I have a new working theory: I don't think Team Rampage knows what its record is. I think it's entirely possible that they don't realize that they are 0-5 with no prospect for much improvement or that just about everyone on their team, by virtue of being on their team, has nasty long odds to make the finals, much less get a contract (except Kimbo, of course, who is only there as a formal prelude to the contract they want to give him.)
It seems unlikely that anyone is so stupid that they're making fun of the 5-0 team for being "cocky."

4. It's hilarious . . . in a douchebaggery sense . . . to watch Rampage's coaches trying to talk Zak into quitting and then watching Rampage go on about how proud he is of him. This is ugly.

5. Rampage is, from all appearances, emotionally arrested at the age of 12. Jesus. Somebody he's been trying to bully for five weeks has the temerity to answer him back one time, and his reaction is "You talked **** first! You started it! Come to 205! Step closer!"
If he wasn't so far under Schoonover's skin, the simple answer would have been "You're only making it worse for your boy. He's only going to get hurt worse. Keep talking."

**Don Gwinn** · Posted On: 10/21/2009 10:00pm

I love this sport, and they're turning me off. What is this show doing for casual fans? Are they just enjoying the douchebaggery so much that they want to see more? Are they after a douchebag demographic now?

**Fighting Cephalopod** · Posted On: 10/21/2009 10:09pm

Originally Posted by Don Gwinn

I love this sport, and they're turning me off. What is this show doing for casual fans?

Making them want to see Rashad kick Rampage's ass.

Are they after a douchebag demographic now?

They're after a "will buy ppvs" demographic and people who really want to see Rashad/Rampage qualify

Of course, Rampage fucked that up by heading off to Hollywood, but the season was in the can anyway

And frankly there's not much they could have done to not make him look like a douchebag since he is, in fact, a douchebag.

**Holy Moment** · Posted On: 10/21/2009 10:16pm

Are there any really good fighters on the show this season other than Big Country?

Like selfcritical said, there are actually a few solid guys, but the **** factor is just fucking blinding.

**Don Gwinn** · Posted On: 10/21/2009 10:31pm

OK, another question--did the editing of this season take a different tone after Rampage told the UFC he was retiring (which almost certainly happened awhile before it hit the public) or at least after the UFC told Rampage they didn't want to make accommodations to his movie career?
I guess I'm really asking whether it's possible for anyone to be as raw stupid and completely without self-awareness as they're depicting Rampage this season.

What really forced me to ask this was the end of the episode, where we see Rampage and Tiki taking the caricature sign to the other team. The placement of this segment in the show implies that right after his fighter lost by not-great triangle in the first round . . . . his sixth loss in an 0-6 season . . . . he thought the best way to turn things around was to repeat a visual joke he'd been telling for a week already. Then he talked about not getting the reaction he wanted. Something tells me that footage was from earlier in the week, but honestly, I don't know that. Maybe Rampage is just that dumb.

Same feeling I got listening to him coach his fighter before the fight by saying "titties" about three dozen times . . . the editing would make you think he was just sitting in the corner like some drooling defective repeating "Titties . . . titties . . . hee hee . . . titties!" to himself over and over. Surely not?

But then again, maybe he thought that was a lot better than going for lunch. I don't know.

**Fighting Cephalopod** · Posted On: 10/21/2009 10:41pm

Originally Posted by Don Gwinn

OK, another question--did the editing of this season take a different tone after Rampage told the UFC he was retiring (which almost certainly happened awhile before it hit the public) or at least after the UFC told Rampage they didn't want to make accommodations to his movie career?

The season was already fully edited with promos running before Rampage retired. Given the cost of re-editing the season once it's done, it's a very unlikely scenario.

I guess I'm really asking whether it's possible for anyone to be as raw stupid and completely without self-awareness as they're depicting Rampage this season.

Originally Posted by Abe Wagner

Nothing really further was decided at that time, but about a half hour before the first fight announcement (and incidentally before we even had our first team practice) he approached me and told me he wanted me to fight first. I told him I was game and asked who he had in mind.

He told me John Madsen. I told him that while my stand up was good and my jiu jitsu was decent, my wrestling needed work and sometimes I’ll have trouble with a good wrestler. He told me he thought Madsen was only an average wrestler and not to worry about it. It turns out he’s a two-time national champion wrestler and that’s possibly the understatement of the year for me.

Originally Posted by Abe Wagner

On fight day, the camera shows Rampage and Tiki screwing around before leaving as the fighter vans pull up. They went to go get lunch since this fight was happening at 1:00 in the afternoon. It turns out that they didn’t get back until right before the fight. The guy that comes and tells you how much time is left until the fight announced 15 minutes left to go, right as Rampage and Tiki and the rest of the coaches came in; Demico didn’t even have his hands taped yet. Just sitting in there and not having to fight, I can tell you that I was anxious that the coaches weren’t there yet. I couldn’t imagine what that must have been like for Demico. I’m not sure if it affected the fight at all, but really there’s no way to tell. In either case, there’s no way it helped his cause.

The fight went at a good pace and was back and forth before Schaub caught Demico in an anaconda choke and finished the fight. Rampage was upset because he thought Demico quit on the fight; afterward Rampage told everyone that there was only a few seconds left in the first round and Demico should have been able to wait it out. After watching the fight with a clock on TV, there was still almost two minutes left and there’s no way he could have done that.

[...]

It’s hard to believe Rampage acted that way after the fight and didn’t want to give D a stool or even go in to the cage afterward. Well, I mean I guess I can, he left before my fight was even over. In fact now that I think about it, he wouldn’t even speak to me for a day or two after. I think Rashad did a very accurate job of describing the feelings after a loss and he was dead on. You do feel really low and I do think that a good coach will be there for you to help you through it.

I consider Rampage among my friends and in general I think he’s a decent guy. But at this point, it was feeling to me like his heart really wasn’t into being a coach; almost like he was just waiting out the clock. Maybe that wasn’t the case, but it was definitely my perception.

Originally Posted by Abe Wagner

Little behind the scenes info: Wes was out for a long, long time before the fight got stopped. He told me he didn’t remember Herb Dean grabbing his hand a single time to check for consciousness. Herb grabbed it like three times, that’s a long time to be out. But true to form, Wes didn’t tap, he never does.

Yet again, Team Rashad coaches come to the aid of the fallen Team Rampage fighter as Rampage and crew look on. He can say “I’m not a coach,” but that maybe should have weighed in on his decision to be…a COACH…before deciding to take that position. Again, Rampage is a great guy, but the coaching was lacking throughout the experience.

Originally Posted by Zak Jensen

Nokaut.com: Rashad talked about how you can only spend a little bit of time with each guy and that his tack was to give guys points on polishing up certain aspects of their game rather than just breaking them down and starting over. Was that the style of coaching with Rampage's team?

Zak Jensen: It was more Kimbo, Kimbo, Kimbo and he got more one-on-one time, even after he lost. It was more of a team thing where we'd have a team wrestling practice or a team jiu-jitsu practice or spar together and if they saw something, they'd tell us to work on this or on that, so we practiced more as a team rather than on anything individually.

Nokaut.com: Was there any talk at this point about how Kimbo's treatment was a little different and did it start to wear thin after a while?

Zak Jensen: We all knew it was the Kimbo show and I didn't say anything. It was annoying me especially after they had the five or eight minute thing at the beginning of the show with the Kimbo/Roy fight again and they were stroking Kimbo and basically saying that Roy wasn't happy with the win and he took a desperation shot and all of that. [...] After Demico lost there wasn't any pep talk and you guys didn't see it but Rampage was talking to Demico and telling him that he quit and all of this and the last thing he said was that it was time to go read that little red book that he was carrying around because it was for his acting class.

[...]

Nokaut.com: Does that do anything for the morale of the team to see the coach kind of throwing his hands in the air and giving up after what happened?

Zak Jensen: Yeah, it definitely was a shot to the morale. It also kind of showed that he was giving up on us and giving up on the whole situation. What he said in the closed-door meeting after the fight with the talk that he couldn't handle this and couldn't deal with this, we didn't know that he said that but when he came back we almost felt it. We felt like where was his coaching in this situation, you're a great guy and a fun guy to hang out with, but you're a coach and you need to step up as one in this situation. He's lost before so he knows how it feels, so he should know that whether it's the truth or not you want to tell them that they just got caught and they were doing good before then or that there's stuff to improve and they can work on it. Basically, what they did with Kimbo. Why did Kimbo get that and not Demico? It's messed up.