TUF 15 Ep. 4 discussion:

[Ash]

Not much of interest this week really. Good fight, but boy did they ever try to mess it up with a bad judges decision. Not only did that fight not even come close to warranting a 3rd round, but then Al owns the sudden victory round and candidate for the worst judge ever Adelaide Byrd gives the fight to Myles? Retire this ****ing stiff already.

I don't know what to think about Iaquinta, nor how to feel about his performance tonight. He employed a crazy dangerous strategy of forcing trades against someone that was taking a more technical approach (I refer to this lapse in brainpower as the "Stephan Bonnar strategy"), and while it made for a pleasing fight, that's literally one of the riskiest and least intelligent ways to fight in my opinion. I mean, you're literally trying to turn an MMA fight into Rock'em Sock'em Robots because you believe you're tougher than your opponent. Awesome, but so dumb and soooo dangerous. That said, he ended up getting clipped a good number of times en route to his decision win, as you'd expect, but he also put it on Myles a good few times which earned him a hard-fought win. Raises a number of questions though: Will he be going to that strategy for all his fights? Is he going to be durable enough to do this three more times in the next 3 months? I look forward to his next fight for sure, but I've gotta think that approach to fighting isn't gonna win him the contract this season.

Can't say I'm too pumped about Larsen vs. Chiesa, though.

[tantryl]

Byrd must have thought when Iaquinta was weaving beautifully to avoid shots that he was actually being rocked in the third. Myles barely touched Al in the third, but he threw a lot of shots that nailed the **** out of the air really cleanly.

I agree that Iaquinta was very stupid/arrogant/something to have his hands down half the time and relying on his ability to see shots coming. I half expected Myles to get a lazy knockout through a flurry because of it, but every time Iaquinta did see it coming and get out of the way.

I think we've also seen Cruz isn't a great TUF coach. Hasn't been shown to be bad yet and might even be good, but not great. Bad picks, basically. He was lucky the BJJ guy decided to stand with his striker and he played an interesting mind game then undercut it by picking a guy who could beat his guy at his own game.

Sure, it probably won't matter at the end of the show but it means team morale is going to be hard to keep up if you get on a losing streak. Which is why I say not great TUF coach - not the same as a not great real coach.

I thought it was a bit weird that Cruz thought whatshisface should continue training normally in spite of his knee/leg. I mean if the show was editted together over the full 6 weeks then I'd get they might have pulled it from somewhere else, but it seems likely he blew the knee this week and Cruz is expecting him to train unhindered straight away, and basically calling him a pussy because of it.

[Ash]

Yeah, the way Al was just trying to trade his overhand right versus head kicks and knees, I thought for sure he'd get his bell rung, but it didn't happen tonight. Fight made me wince a few times though, I can't believe how little respect Al was giving Myles, and how close he was willing to get to his kicks and knees to land that overhand right.

I agree with your assessment of Cruz, although when I saw he brought in Master Lloyd as a coach I knew immediately not to expect much out of Cruz's coaching abilities.

I dunno what the deal with Rio's knee is. Like you mentioned, I don't know whether Cruz is giving him tough love and making him tough it out, or whether Rio is opting to fight through it himself. I gotta think he's either going home or will just lose his next fight in any case.

[wK78]

Don't know how that was a split decision. I had Iaquinta winning all 3 rounds with possibly a close first. So yeah shouldn't have had the third round. Best part of the fight was when Dom's fighter clipped Iaquinta and so he actually went after him for the kill/pushed forward, but he got hit going in. After that for the rest of the round Dom's fighter didn't wanna engage.

Pretty decent fight though.

But split, WHAT??!?!

[skeletonrock]

I thought Jury won the first. In the second Al got rocked and was about to get flattened by a flying knee, but that overhand right took all the wind out of Jury. From then on Al basically had his way with him. I have no idea why jury didn't try to jab or box at all really. He would stand there waiting for Al to throw every time so that he could counter. But more than half the time he never countered. He was basically just a running punching bag. I'm guessing he was really tired or something.

[TheIcon]

I mean, you're literally trying to turn an MMA fight into Rock'em Sock'em Robots because you believe you're tougher than your opponent. Awesome, but so dumb and soooo dangerous. That said, he ended up getting clipped a good number of times en route to his decision win, as you'd expect, but he also put it on Myles a good few times which earned him a hard-fought win. Raises a number of questions though: Will he be going to that strategy for all his fights? Is he going to be durable enough to do this three more times in the next 3 months? I look forward to his next fight for sure, but I've gotta think that approach to fighting isn't gonna win him the contract this season.

I liked Iaquinta in his first fight to get into the house. So I was excited to see him fight again. AFter the first round the first things i blurted out were "rock em sock em" I was waiting for one to get clipped and fall. Kept thinking this guy has teh standup to go far in this if he fights smart. Instead he was swinging back and forth.

[JC-Freakhead]

So far this season has failed to get me interested. Can't tell the fighters apart at all. There was one Brazilian dude and one from Northern Ireland (I think), those were the only ones who stood out. I would not watch Survivor if I didn't root for some of the contestants and against others, that's the whole key to these kinds of shows. Season one had characters damn it, please give me more TV like season one!

[Ash]

I think that's more of a criticism of society than the show, though. Most people in general are just not that interesting.

[skeletonrock]

Well I also think its hard to build "storylines" when you don't have a whole season of tape in the can to edit and manipulate. They are structuring story around 4 or five day's worth of footage where the bulk of that time is devoted to rather routine training. Tough to craft a "story" out of that. That said, I am enjoying this season.

[TheIcon]

They def F'd up the decision on the last fight. Not sure how the one guy gets a point deducted yet still wins the round. It def wasn't a 10-8 rd or even close to a 10-8 rd. At the very least it should have been a draw and seen a rd 3.