The Ultimate Fighter 10: Heavyweights - Episode 11 Recap & Review

Recap of the Quarterfinal & Semifinal fights on Episode 11 of TUF 10

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The eleventh episode of The Ultimate Fighter 10 opens up with even more speculation as to who will possibly fill in for the concussed Matt (Mitrione). Although Kimbo Slice seems to be the logical choice, he decides that he doesn’t want the fight or any other right now. He uses excuses about his knee and feet, but later confesses that he is worried what a loss will do to him for future bouts.

President Dana White is shocked and openly expresses his amazement by saying that he never expected him to not take a fight on this season. Slice leaves the training center focusing on getting healthy and fighting another day, just not this particular day.

Matt comes into the gym and after talking with his doctor, says that he is “cleared” to fight. Coach Rashad Evans has his doubts that any doctor would have stopped him from fighting anyway. I guess it will be Matt vs. James in the quarterfinal after all.

It’s obvious that these two (Matt and James) don’t like each other, making for an emotional fight. James believes that he could dominate Matt on the ground, but wants to stand and trade with “Meathead.”

While Matt and James prepare to battle in the octagon, it looks as if Hawaiian Scott Junk is battling a problem quite different from a MMA bout. After his preliminary bout loss to Matt, Scott has been seeing spots. He already has previously gone through corrective surgery but the doctor’s still advises against any other fighting. Scott will seek the opinion of another doctor.

After learning about Scott, teammate Marcus takes the news hard and confronts Matt as if he tried to blind Scott. Finally, Marcus gets calmed down enough so the others can explain to him that Matt didn’t intentionally hurt Scott. Coach Rampage Jackson even gets involved and tries to calm his last remaining fighter down.

Now, putting all the drama aside, Matt weighs in at 256 and James at 229. The stare down is intense and full of action as James shoved Matt, smiling the entire time.

Its finally fight time with referee Herb Dean overseeing this bout. James gets it started with a couple of kicks to the body. Matt attacks with a jab but retreats and takes very little damage. James continues to work on the kicks when Matt counters with effective strikes. James has enough of the stand-up battle, instead takes the fight to the ground. Matt quickly reverts to a knee bar then an ankle lock. James defends and transitions into side control and Matt works to get back to his feet, but at the same time leaves his head/neck exposed. James grabs his neck and falls to the floor where Matt taps immediately (3:38). At the end of the bout, it looks as if the two fighters have buried the hatchet.

Now, to Darrill and Marcus’ quarterfinal bout; Marcus drops a leg kick and quickly changes strategy and goes to the floor. Jones moves into side control and peppers Darrill with punches to the face. Darrill tries to escape and defends against a submission attempt while getting back to his knees. James throws Darrill back on the canvas and begins to reign down blows from the top position. About the third or fourth and Darrill is unconscious on the octagon floor.

After the second quarterfinal bout, Dana White is ready to set the semifinals. With everyone gathered inside the training center, Dana announces that Roy Nelson will go head-to-head with James McSweeney, both from Team Rashad. The other semifinal bout includes Team Rampage’s Marcus (Jones) against Team Rashad’s Brendan (Schaub).

Before we can move onto the season’s final episode, Rashad lays some wise cracks on Rampage and assistant coach Tiki. The good-natured arguing soon turns into more fighting and soon escalates. No punches are thrown and it turns into just another reminder that the December 12 bout will not happen.

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At the start of the final episode of The Ultimate Fighter 10, Coach Rampage decides to get serious about preparing Marcus for his semifinal bout with Team Rashad’s Brendan. The plan sounds simple: get him to the ground where he can utilize his size and strength.

While Rampage helps prepare Marcus, his assistant decides to plan the seasons’ next prank. Coach Tiki has gathered all types of children’s toys (all pink), pink paint, male blow up doll and a disco ball. He then decides to give the Team Rashad’s locker room a facelift by using all his collection.

Now at the TUF house, Team Rashad’s James decides to push around social outcast Zak by writing “Linda” and a blurred out ending, alluding to his given nickname of “Linderman.”

When Coach Rashad is the first to arrive into the newly decorated locker room he doesn’t know what to say. When his team gets a look at the re-decorating job, they get a few laughs but direct most of their attention on preparing Brendan, Roy, and James for the semifinals.

At the house, Zak is noticeably in a bad mood and James makes it worse by trying to block him in the bathroom with a set of drawers. Upon getting out of the bathroom, Jensen charges at James and the two actually jockey for position on the floor before they regain their composure and cooler heads prevail. Afterwards, James commented on how he was impressed that Zak stood up for himself. Zak was not so forgiving and remained hot at the Team Rashad semifinalist.

For the real purpose of TUF 10’s final episode, its fight time and up first is James (McSweeney) vs. Roy (Nelson), two of Team Rashad’s finalists. There is not much action until Nelson shoots and McSweeney tries a standing guillotine. Neither was able to mount any offense and instead break apart. James lands some jabs and Roy obliges a taunting James by dazing him with a hard right hand. Nelson sees his chance and grabs a double-leg takedown. Nelson easily transitions from James’ guard to side mount Nelson reverts back to the familiar crucifix position where he lands more than twenty clean shots to the head of James. After referee Steve Mazzagatti warns James, and he can’t better his position, halts the bout. Nelson is declared the winner via 1 st round TKO. He actually impressed UFC President Dana White with his performance.

Next up is striker vs. grappler in the form of Brendan vs. Marcus. Schaub is first to land a punch but Marcus finds a way to get Brendan to the floor. It looks similar to the first semifinal, in that Marcus passes Brendan’s guard into side control and traps him into a crucifix position. The difference here is that Marcus is unable to hold the position. After a couple of wild bucks by Brendan, the action is back to a standing position. Jones lands a solid knee on his counterpart, whereas Brendan backs up and collects his composure. Brendan’s patient strategy pays off as he lands a big right hand on Marcus and sends him crashing to the ground. Brendan immediately jumps up on top and finishes Marcus off with some left and rights with ground and pound.

In the post-fight interviews, President Dana White is completely impressed with Brendan. Brendan admits that he has been in that position before but never with such a giant.

While both coaches admit that it hurt to see Marcus lose that semi-final, it was meant to be for the prized-prospect, Brendan. Marcus confesses that he is finished with MMA, but later it is found out that he indeed will compete at the December 5th live finale.

Dana seals the 10th season up with calling it a success, and surprised that “a guy with probably the worst physique in sports” made it to the finals of the tournament.

The final is set with a six figure contract at stake; Brendan Schaub will take on Roy Nelson.