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.

By Brett Okamoto

Published Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009 | 11:47 p.m.

Updated Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009 | 8:25 a.m.

Justin M. Bowen

Kimbo Slice, aka Kevin Ferguson, poses for a portrait at "The Ultimate Fighter" media day in June.

Okay. So maybe we’re all still disappointed that Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson decided to cancel his fight with Rashad Evans at UFC 107 in Memphis in order to take an offer to act in the new ‘A-Team’ movie.

But the hype is still building that the 10th season of The Ultimate Fighter may be the best one yet. So we’re bringing you a recap of every episode this season.

We’ll start with a running blog of the series before giving our favorite moment as well as the Kimbo watch.

The Episode

The season opens with Rashad telling Rampage he can’t beat him because, ‘You’re too slow and your head too big, it’s too easy to hit.’ You can’t write this stuff.

The first 15 fighters line up before Dana White comes in and introduces the 16th fighter: Kimbo Slice! The man responsible for one of the greatest TUF commercials ever: You know, the one where he flexes his pec muscle as a resounding ‘Boom’ fills the air. If you haven’t seen it, find it … but only after you turn your sub to max.

Rampage professes his man crush for Kimbo immediately to everyone in the room. I don’t why this is awesome to me, but it is.

Devout UFC fans probably knew James McSweeney even before the clips on the show revealed his connection to Evans. McSweeney is one of Rashad’s favorite training partners and he was in Las Vegas at UFC 98 to help him prepare for Lyoto Machida.

Not all the times, but sometimes, I can’t understand what Kimbo is telling me.

First matchup is Jon Madsen from Team Rashad against ‘Big’ Abe Wagner for Team Rampage. Madsen boasts the wrestling background while Abe says he’s the better striker. I tend to agree with Rashad, I’m a little worried about Team Rampage’s strategy for this first fight.

Less than a minute into the fight and Madsen takes Abe to the ground and works his ground and pound. The fight goes downhill for Abe from there and did anybody else notice the difference in what each coach was yelling to his fighter? Rashad to his winning fighter: “Posture up and punish. Posture up and punish.” Rampage to his fighter getting completely dominated: “Do what you got to do Abe. You got to do something Abe.” Abe ends up losing a lot of blood and Jon wins by decision.

Best Moment

‘Big’ Abe to Jon prior to the first fight: You gonna touch gloves?

Rampage’s head peeking over the Octagon: Don’t worry about touchin nothing. Worry about whoopin his (expletive). Don’t touch hands with him. Touch his face with your fists.

Kimbo Watch

Good first episode for Kimbo. We didn’t get to see him a ton, but his cardio looked good from the clips that were shown. According to Rampage, he needs to work on his ground game but has solid takedown defense.

And the guy has a flat-out awesome beard.