Ultimate Fighter: I’ve Seen Better Fights in Macy’s

Dear Gasmii,

Please, please don’t tell me that the Roli/Marilyn slapfest is representative of great UFC fights, I will be crushed. Seriously, I’ve seen more exciting fights at a Macy’s shoe sale. Cutie Pie Roli might have been pathetic in the octagon, but at least he hasn’t been spewing about his prowess for the last six weeks. On the other hand, Marilyn/Junie Allen Browning, not only are you an irritating douchebag, but you’re one boring ass fighter as well. So, yeah, this week’s episode seriously annoyed me.

Excuse me, sir, but there’s a head coming out of your ass.

After Elliot finished off Shane Primm last week, the blue team gained control over which of the light weights would fight next. And, that means Marilyn finally gets to take his constantly running mouth into the octagon. For me, this is where my suspicions about Marilyn’s abilities, or lack thereof begin to fully crystalize. If Junie is the embodiment of all that is truly powerful and great in MMA, as he claims, then you’d think Frank Mir would pair him up with Philippe Nover or Hugger John in hopes of taking out the red teams strong lightweight fighters. But, no. Instead, Frankie asks Marilyn to knock out the weakest member or of the red team, Cutie Pie Roli Delgado. And, I don’t mean knock him out of the competition. Frankie wants Marilyn to knock him out as in Roli lying on the ground with little birdies flying around his head. Now, don’t get me wrong, Roli, is one of my favorites in the house, but I’m not sure that I’d trust him to hold his ground in a strong wind. So, it seems to me that in his teeny, tiny, little heart Frankie doesn’t really feel that confident in Marilyn. And, after reading the weekly blog written by Frankie’s assistant coach, Ken Hahn, I’ve got to say that I’m feeling a little bad for Frankie. Sure, he’s an arrogant jerk, but he probably doesn’t have a whole lot of experience dealing with schizophrenic trailer trash. Not to type cast Marilyn, but he is apparently living in a reality not commonly shared by others, he does/did live in a trailer, and I have no trouble classifying him as trash. According to Ken Hahn, nobody on the blue team wanted to deal with Marilyn’s prima donna attitude, and at practice he would often just do his own shadow boxing. Personally, I suspect that in Marilyn’s mind he wasn’t shadow boxing. In Marilyn’s mind the shadows were real fighters.

Hell, he probably believes he’s KO’d Anderson Silva 3 or 4 times already.

No wonder Marilyn thinks he’s hot shit. Of course, the small part of Marilyn’s mind that is still able to perceive reality, is probably in a state of perpetual panic about the position he’s managed to catapult himself into. I mean he’s locked in a house with a bunch of trained fighters that are hell bent on seeing him get his ass kicked. I honestly believe that the “sane” part of Marilyn’s mind has been working hard on getting him kicked off the show before he has to face “reality” in the octagon. Unfortunately, despite Marilyn’s best attempts at drunken assault and battery, Big Daddy isn’t about to let him go. After all, mental illness=ratings.

I’m an equal opportunity ratings whore.

Even right up to the fight, Marilyn was still refusing to work with the blue team’s coaches to help him prepare for the fight. Somewhat, hilariously, Ken Hahn comments that Marilyn’s actions “actually benefited his teammates, because they ultimately had more individual time to spend with our coaching staff.”

After Eliot wins his fight against Shane, Frankie Mir and his coaches come back to the house to celebrate with the blue team.

Because you know they need an excuse to drink in this house.

And, Frankie starts asking Cutie Pie Roli about his black belt. I have to say that Frankie’s questioning comes off better than it did in the previews, but his interviewing with the camera is still pretty disrespectful. Seriously, this guy just doesn’t want to act like a leader. Instead, he just wants to be another ‘good ole boy’ kicking around the house, freezing underwear, and downing shots of tequila. And, of course, Frankie’s attitude only feeds in to the nasty, behind the back, giggling, behavior of the fighters.

Seriously, Dude, just get your wanger snipped, take a few hormones and enroll in an all girls boarding school.

And, of course, Frankie’s cavalier attitude toward little things such as respecting your opponents, sets the groundwork for Marilyn’s next stunt. When it comes time to name the lightweight fighters, Frankie, as anticipated, calls out Marilyn and Roli. But, that witty Marilyn has a clever surprise for Roli. Once again, the obliging producers have scrambled to meet a fighter’s request and have supplied Marilyn with a black belt to throw at Roli. Cutie pie Roli laughs and lovingly drapes the belt around Marilyn’s neck, taking it as a good joke. If Marilyn had just stopped there, the incident might have passed off as a little lame, but not really noteworthy. But, the one thing we know for sure about Marilyn is that he’s incapable of moderating his actions in any way whatsoever. So, he grabs the belt, throws it on the ground at Roli’s feet and spits on it. First of all, GROSS!!! What the hell is with these guys and bodily fluids?

If it comes out of an orifice, it generally should not foisted upon an unprepared public.

Second of all, Marilyn has now managed to officially offend both Mini Big Nog and Anderson Silva, and I can sort of understand how they feel. If somebody threw a Bottega Veneta leather tote at my feet and spit on it, I might have a coronary…Of course, in Marilyn’s delusional, shadow, boxing world, he’s probably submitted both of them several times by now, which explains why the prospect of pissing off two of the most dangerous men in the world doesn’t seem to phase him. Even Frankie is a little offended, with the stress being on “a little.” Does Frankie address the lack of respect? Does he introduce any consequences? Does Frankie even own a pair of cojones? No, no, and the juries still out, but I’m beginning to doubt it.

On a side note, where the hell are Dave Kaplan’s pants?

Despite the negative insinuations about his McDojo black belt, it seems Mini Big Nog and Anderson Silva aren’t too worried about Roli’s grappling capabilities. Instead, he’s turned over to Stankie to concentrate on his boxing skills. And, I have to say that there are a few issues that arise during this training session that make me seriously concerned about Roli’s life expectancy in the octagon.

Shouldn’t he be able to hit the bag?

A seventy-year-old man is kicking the crap out of him.

Back at the house, Marilyn wastes no time in showing his generous side. He offers to arrange with Big Daddy for Roli to be declared the winner of the fight, if Roli is still standing at the end of the first round. He even suggests that the loser donates his winnings to the winner. Well, maybe that suggestion wasn’t as generous. However, Roli gently explains that their contract forbids betting with their winnings on the outcome of the fights. Marilyn looks a little surprised by Roli’s inside knowledge of the rules, until Cutie Pie Roli explains that he actually read the contract. To give Roli the benefit of the doubt, he might not have realized that, as Marilyn engagingly puts it in his blog, he “doesn’t read so good.” On the other hand, after five weeks of listening to Marilyn consistently rape the English language, I was pretty sure he was illiterate. Roli describes Marilyn as a young talented athletic kid with the brain of a peacock who keeps pecking at him. I have a fair amount of sympathy for the description, even though I didn’t think a peacock would be the animal most likely to leap to the mind of a person from Arkansas, but whatever.

Who you callin a peacock?

Unfortunately, Cutie Pie Roli goes on to compare himself to Donald Trump and Marilyn to a lesser being, possibly Joe the Plumber. And, well, I’m not really feeling Roli so much in that interview. Sigh. Thank God, for Ryan Bader and Hugger John.

Weigh-in is approaching and Marilyn is hitting the cardio in an effort to drop his weight from 163 to 155. No problem, Frankie tells us, and I agree. In my younger fashion obsessed days, I could have dropped the weight without batting an eye, of course the combination of diet pills, coffee and cigarettes had me peeing like a cracked out racehorse with its mane on fire.

True glamor is never easy to achieve.

Sadly, we’re back to the original problem that occurs when Marilyn’s fantasy world starts to collide with the world more commonly inhabited by real people, mainly fighters that might be able to kick his ass. And, once again, Marilyn is looking for a way out. Really, you can’t blame him. Who out there hasn’t been in the awkward position of worlds colliding. Marilyn’s solution to the conundrum is painfully similar to the same strategy I used to get out of going to an awkward social even when I was a teenager. In Marilyn’s case, he doesn’t make weight. In my case, I just didn’t fit into the dress and I refused to go. I was nothing if not a brat. Marilyn weighs in at 158 lbs, which means he has an hour to cut two pounds, if he’s going to make weight. Okay, HeyBuddy, FreewayShark, or Fire@will, can you explain why it’s okay for him to make 156 lbs when the cut off is 155lbs? This happened in the first episode and it makes no sense to me.

Frankie, like any neurotic, debutante mother, is properly annoyed that Marilyn hasn’t been watching his diet. He bitches to the camera about fucking Marilyn this and fucking Marilyn that, and complains that he’s going to have to start taking antacid pills for his tummy again. Awww, poor whittle Frankie. He’s such a victim here. For God sakes, I can’t even imagine any of this crap happening on Mini Big Nog’s team.

Doesn’t he know I’ve got my period.

The other fighters on the blue team look a tad bit concerned when Frankie explains that, if Marilyn doesn’t lose the weight, he automatically forfeits the fight and the red team regains control of choosing who fights next.

I’m going to explode my little elf brains all over his sorry ass.

A little side drama here is that Krazy is suffering from a pretty serious hand injury that he incurred during his audition fight. It’s serious enough that he can’t grapple or punch, so he’s been trying to put off his fight long enough to let it heal. However, if the red team regains control of choosing the next fight, there’s a good chance that they’ll call Krazy out. Therefore, it’s even more important to the blue team that Marilyn loses the weight. Marilyn dresses himself in a sauna suit and tapes the arms shut. Then, Dave Kaplan, still looking like a malevolent elf, takes over the coaching duties. It seems like he’s got some built up frustration toward Marilyn because he’s pretty much the coach from hell.

So that’s what coaching looks like.

As the man currently holding the record for the highest number of crying jags on a reality show, ever, Marilyn remains true to form and bitches and whines his way through the hour. Up to now, Dave Kaplan has been pretty quiet on the show, but I hope he’s not too much of an asshole. After watching him school Marilyn, I’m totally in love with him.

Once again, Marilyn steps on the scale and, lo and behold, he’s at 156 lbs. The fight is on and we still have a half hour left in the show, so you know this is going to be one long ass fight.

The Fight

We have our normal stats:

But almost no shot of a ring girl:

Marilyn comes out, hopping up and down like a madman, and punching himself in the face. I take this to be his sane self trying to knock himself out before the fight starts.

Roli comes out and I have to say he’s looking wee bit petrified.

Roli considers the probability of Dana White actually stopping the first murder on TUF.

Luckily, when the fight starts, it quickly becomes evident that, while possibly delusional, Marilyn is in fact relatively harmless. This is especially important because it’s also evident that Roli’s punches have all of the power of a loose matzo ball.

Take that.

For the first round, Marilyn’s masterful strategy seems to consist of inviting Roli to hit him in the face, and then doing nothing about it. Apparently, Marilyn seems to be laboring under the misconception that you are scored on the number of hits you take, instead of the number of hits you land. Not surprisingly, Roli comes out ahead on this round.

Right here, the judges will love it.

Roli does make a few spirited, but highly ineffectual attempts to take down Marilyn, but, McDojo black belt or not, Marilyn’s not about to run the risk of being submitted.

We’re at round two and Roli, despite being a truly unimpressive fighter, is still fighting. This seems to be chiefly due to the fact that Marilyn is also a truly unimpressive fighter. Sheesh!! It looks like Frankie managed to explaining the scoring rules to Marilyn over the break, because he actually starts landing some body shots and one point Roli even collapses:

Gasp!

Ruh-Roe

But Roli manages to stand back up and keep fighting, which is pretty impressive. This guy might be the original 90 lb weakling, but he’s got some serious fortitude. Even Krazy is yelling, “He’s got heart.” So the second round goes to Marilyn and we’re in for a third round.

At this point, both of the fighters are kind of staggering on their feet and looking pretty beat up.

Is it your turn to hit?

Sort of like that scene in The Turning Point when Shirly Maclaine and Ann Bancroft start smacking each other around, and end up gasping and hitting each other with their pocketbooks. Roli ends up on the ground and Marilyn keeps him there for about a minute, landing just enough kicks to keep the ref from pulling him back and letting Roli get to his feet in a peaceful civilized fashion. Instead, Roli sucks it up and kind of hops up, taking a punch on the chin in the process. Either Marilyn’s punches are about as hard as Shirley Maclaine’s, or Roli has a cement jaw. Either way, they have a little flurry and the bell rings. In typical male fashion, that I will never understand, Marilyn and Roli seem to have bonded, while beating the piss out of each other.

Was it good for you too?

Marilyn wins by a split decision. I really think that, if Roli hadn’t been on his back for a full minute, he might have won the fight. For once, Marilyn sounds somewhat humbled and says that he feels like he really lost the fight, because he was talking shit and couldn’t back it up. He also notes that, despite living in the training house and having access to some of the best trainers, he’s out of shape. So, maybe he’ll actually do something original like train for the next few weeks to get in shape for his next fight. Please, God, let the next fighter beat the crap out of him.

In his newly chastened mood, Roli even approaches Mini Big Nog and apologizes for spitting on the black belt.

To his everlasting credit Mini Big Nog accepts Marilyn’s apology like a true gentleman.

Meanwhile, in the red team locker room, Cutie Pie Roli is sobbing his eyes out, and everybody is being wonderfully supportive. Mini Big Nog tells us that if a fighter fights with heart he doesn’t mind losing, which I think is a wonderful attitude.

My hero.

Next week we’re back to pranks and another light heavyweight fight. I’m guessing it will be between Vinny and Jules, and Vinny will win.

So, Gasmii, we finally had an episode that was mostly about the fighting. I just wish it had featured some of the stronger fighters. On the other hand, I’m getting pretty attached to some of these guys. As of now, my favorites in the house are Ryan Bader and Hugger John, with Philippe Nover and Dave Kaplan as close seconds. What do you guys think? Is Marilyn going to amend his douchebag ways, or is he going to continue to spin off into fantasy land? Will the red team regain control? And who’s going to the quarter finals?

Hugs,

Yenta