Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Episode 8: The last soldier

TUF No. 10

Spike TV

The cast of The Ultimate Fighter No. 10 poses for a shot for the popular reality show that debuts on Sept. 16 on Spike TV.

Last chance for Team Rampage…but it is Marcus Jones.

Will the former NFL first round pick save a little face for Rampage? Or will Mike Wessel lock in the perfect record for Rashad?

Should the other doors in the training facility fear for their life?

Episode No. 8 will tell us.

The Episode

Episode starts with a recap of last week’s fight between Mitrione and Junk. Junk says if there would have been a third round he would have won. If there would have been a third round they both would have died from a heart attack.

Rashad reacts to Rampage’s door incident by calling him a clown and offering the assessment that you get out of something only what you put into it. “There's no need to tear down a door…fool.”

Mitrione won the fight but he’s hurting. He goes straight home and covers himself in blankets in his dark bedroom. He says his brain is “(expletive) up.” That’s never good.

Jones is training for his fight and Rampage is showing a renewed focus on being a better coach. Jones has been wanting to fight this whole time, and now he’s the last soldier. Rampage warns that if Jones loses, he better lose fair and square.

Jones gets up at night to go to the ‘baffroom’ (did anybody else hear him say it like that?) and almost steps on a nasty, white scorpion creature. Justin Wren laughs, saying that Jones is a gentle giant but I’m with him man, that scorpion looked deadly.

Wessel reveals that his wife has had surgery and has cancer. Rules of the show say that Wessel can’t see his wife while he’s filming the show, a sacrifice Wessel says you have to make if you want to be the best.

Back at the house, Brendan Schaub has drawn caricatures of Jones and Wessel wrote that he, ‘sucks (expletive)’. Jones comes back and is not happy. Jones says he doesn’t appreciate it, even more so because he has kids? Schaub says it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Jones says that he’s not messing around and if he gets Wessel in an armbar during the fight, he’ll rip it off. Hope Herb Dean is listening.

Aw, Rampage puts in the effort and makes up with Darrill Schoonover, saying if he didn’t like him he wouldn’t have called him ‘titties’, he would have called him ‘(expletive) tits’. Things were looking good until Rampage caps off the apologies by grabbing Darrill’s man boobs. Just like that the truce is over.

It’s fight time. Who you got? During episode 3…4?....I made the prediction that Rashad was going to go undefeated. I hate to say it but I think I’m going to retract it here in the final one. I’m going with Rampage’s big boy Jones.

First round starts with a few exchanges before Jones gets a takedown off a busted trip attempt by Wessel. Wessel makes the mistake of giving up his back and Jones looks for a rear naked choke but Wessel worms out. Wessel tries to land some shots but Jones grabs his arms, gets his legs up and lands the armbar.

Jones obviously showed some great jiu-jitsu there but he also showed his athleticism and strength. He defended that trip like a defensive lineman and made Wessel look just weak by grabbing his arm and putting it exactly where he wanted for that armbar. That was impressive.

So now the fighters get a chance to say who they’d like to fight to Dana White, Rampage and Rashad. Fighters come and go with nothing much to report until Roy Nelson gets up and he and Dana get into it because Nelson just ‘rubs Dana the wrong way.’ Those paying attention know that Dana’s feelings towards Nelson haven’t changed much since the show stopped taping.

Results are in: Roy Nelson v. John Madsen, James McSweeney v. Darrill Schoonover, Marcus Jones v. Matt Mitrione, Bredan Schaub v. Justin Wren

Roy, Justin – Brendan, John – James, Matt – Marcus, Darrill

Best Moment

Rampage: “It was a temper tantrum, it was embarrassing. That door didn’t do anything to me. I don’t know why I did that. I wanted to apologize to the door but it was too late, it was already gone. Door, if you can hear me, I’ll never do it again.

Kimbo Watch

Again not too much from Kimbo Slice in this one, except that he turns down an offer from Rashad to switch teams and train with him. Actually Rashad makes the offer to the entire team but no one takes him up on it. Kimbo says he can’t disrespect Rampage like that, you have to ‘Ride or Die’ together.

On a bigger note: previews of next week show that Mitrione is sent to the hospital and all eyes are on Kimbo to take his place. I think this will be another false alarm…but I guess we can hope.

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