Grove, Sadollah come up big in UFC’s TUF Finale

Another season of Spike TV’s the Ultimate Fighter has passed, and whether or not you like this show (7 seasons in and it has lost some luster), you must admit, these free ‘Finale’ cards on Spike are great. And they are especially great when the UFC’s acknowledges (finally) that we don’t want to see the rejects from the show beat out boring decisions. We want to the see winners, maybe one grudge match, and then some real fights with real implications. On June 21^st that is exactly what we got.

Here’s COED’s recap and thoughts on the card, working backwards from the headliner to the first televised fight.

Kendall Grove vs. Evan Tanner

The wayward adventurer Evan Tanner returns to the ring in his second fight since his two-year alcohol-inspired jaunt away from the sport. I love Evan Tanner. He makes things happen in fights and I’ve never really seen a boring Evan Tanner fight. Unfortunately, these exciting fights are sometimes one-sided affairs, during which Evan receives a walloping. Kendall Grove showed that two losses in the UFC since winning his own ‘Ultimate Fighter’ crown have taught him a few lessons. One, if your freakishly tall for your weight class, your reach is a good advantage; two, composure under fire is worth a lot more than completely melting down in an attempt to finish a fight. Grove took a split decision last night, displaying good, crisp and intelligent Muay Thai, and that his chin isn’t as weak as we all thought. I scored the fight 30-26 Grove and have no idea what the “judge” that thought Tanner won was smoking.

CB Dollaway vs. Amir Sadollah

The ‘finale’ fight last night proved, once again, that CB Dollaway is more talk than game. If you didn’t watch the show, know that these two actually fought once already, with Amir taking the fight by a scrappy arm bar in the third stanza. This put him in the final, versus Jesse Taylor. Jesse Taylor proceeded to destroy a limousine and and sexually harass people in one of the Station Casino’s in Vegas (in the shows most interesting episode by far), getting him kicked from the show after it finished. This opened the door for CB Dollaway, the early favorite of this season, to get a rematch against Amir for the crown. Unfortunately, he either didn’t watch the tape of their first fight or decided lightning doesn’t strike twice because he made the exact same mistakes, only faster. Dollaway came out looking to bang, caught a few too many leg kicks, and shot in for a single. He then proceeded to leave his arm on the inside, again, and Amir grabbed it and locked in a standard armbar from guard. Herb Dean stops the fight and CB stomps around the ring crying like a baby, saying he didn’t tap, while the production team simultaneously runs footage of him tapping, in slow-mo, on the giant screen above his head. Amir Sadollah takes the show in a sweep as a ridiculous underdog with an even more ridiculous haircut.

Diego Sanchez vs. Luigi Fioravanti

The Mario Brother versus the Nightmare. I thought this would be an absolute stomping by Sanchez but Luigi proved to be a game opponent. Two solid rounds of stand-up and scrambles that were both won by Sanchez, who showed much improved striking and a willingness to stand in the pocket with a very hard puncher in Fioravanti. Diego used head and body kicks throughout that all found their mark. In the third round, just when things looked to be petering out and approaching decision, Sanchez landed a Bruce Lee style head kick that rocked Luigi, smelled blood, and followed with a beautiful flying knee that crumpled the Italian to the mat. In typical Nightmare fashion, once his opponent was weakened, Diego turned it up and earned his W by pounding a near unconscious Fioravanti to a referee stoppage. Great fight, would watch again.

Jeremy Stephens vs. Spencer Fisher

I personally thought this was the best fight of the night. Spencer ‘The King’ Fisher is an extremely aggressive striker with good wrestling and excellent conditioning, and Jeremy Stephen’s is a new 155lb fighter who was coming off a complete squashing of TUF alum Cole Miller (excellent fight by the way, look it up on UFC on-demand). The fight was a mix of striking and ground based scrambles that lasted all three rounds and went back and forth. Highlight was, without a doubt, the RIDICULOUS elbow that Spencer landed from Stephen’s half-guard, a behind the back spinning back-fist-elbow-ninja craziness move that I have never seen before. After seeing that I half expected Spencer to Shor-yu-ken Jeremy right out of the cage. Stephen’s had some good moments as well, landing big with looping punches standing and catching The King in a decent guillotine attempt in the third round. Spencer Fisher took a 29-28 unanimous decision. Both fighters proved to be tough as sh*t and exciting as hell and if you had to watch only one fight from this card, this would be the one to watch. Watch Fisher’s next fight where I’m sure he’ll work in some type of fireball move or high risk bicycle kick to the face.

Dante Rivera vs Matt Riddle

If you didn’t watch this season, this fight was pointless and confusing. These two guys had words during the show, with Dante saying if Riddle ever beat him, he’d retire from the sport. Their fight was actually OK, better then I expected it to be, but there were still fights on the un-televised under card that I feel should’ve been in this spot. Fight was basically a clinch fest, where both fighters kneed the crap out of each other’s midsection and spun each other around like a whirling dervish. Rivera clearly wanted to get the fight to the ground to work his submission game but had no answer for Riddle’s strength, who came into the fight looking absolutely huge and in incredible shape. Riddle won a lopsided decision and screamed ‘I love you mom.’ Decent fight.

All in all a really solid card. I really appreciate the UFC realizing I’m not really interested in seeing a bunch of guys who I watched lose on the show fight on a big event. Big fights with real implications, for both the 170 and 155 divisions made the night exciting and worth the 3 hours it took from my evening, although I feel like Kendall and Evan maybe should’ve played 2^nd fiddle to the Fisher / Stephens bout, since that fight had at least one guy in the hunt for a title, I was satisfied with the main event. Hard to beat for free. The UFC also announced (officially, though its been on the net for some time) a July 18^th card where their 185lb champ Anderson Silva will move up in weight to fight 205lb gatekeeper and paradoxical anomaly James Irvin in a non-title bout. This fight will be free on Spike TV.

(Image source: MachoChip.com)