THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER SEASON 12 EPISODE 1 REVIEW PART 2

Only a select few fights were aired in their entirety. Check out the first part of my review of the first episode of the newest season of The Ultimate Fighter to see what occurred there. This article focuses on the fights that were aired with cuts, and were shown as highlights. What was shown was still pretty impressive, though:

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER SEASON 12 EPISODE 1 REVIEW PART 1

The first episode was pretty awesome, as it was literally all about the fights. I'll start by reviewing the fights that were shown on air in their entirety, and then continue with the highlights tomorrow.

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 11: ROAD TO THE ULTIMATE FINALE REVIEW

“The Ultimate Finale 11: Road to the Finale” is a recap episode for the entire season. It contains a few extended and additional scenes cut out from the rest of the episodes. None of these scenes are really very significant, however, and aren’t really very impressive by themselves. They’re just some added bits of drama that possibly only absolute completionists of “The Ultimate Fighter” will want to see.

It’s a very effective transition to the live finale if you’ve missed most of the episodes, however. It summarizes the entire season pretty clearly so that you get pretty much all the important details.

HER'S A LIST OF THE ADDITIONAL SCENES:

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 11 FINALE REVIEW PART 1: MCGEE VS. MCCRAY

Gotta say that I’m really very happy with the outcome here. I’ve said it several times during my reviews of the season, but I’ve always been impressed with Court McGee, despite his loss to Nick Ring, and I have never been too impressed with Kris McCray.

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 11 EPISODE 11 REVIEW

Wow, it’s finally the end of Season 11 of The Ultimate Fighter, huh? A spectacular two – hour special greets us this season ender, which promises loads of content and the semi-final matchups.

The episode begins exactly when the last one left off, with Rich Franklin introducing his assistant coaches to the team and surprise, surprise (unless you were massively spoiled like I unfortunately was)! It’s Forrest Griffin, Gray Maynard, and Tyson Griffin. We then immediately cut to the next semi-final matchup: Court McGee vs. Brad Tavares.

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 11 EPISODE 10 REVIEW

Okay, so this is pretty much the best episode of the season thus far. Containing literally the best fight of the season, and several memorable twists and surprises, this episode makes me incredibly happy that this show is still continuing after being on the air for so long.

The show starts off immediately after the last one, with Chuck steaming after Dana tells him that he won’t get to fight Tito anymore. Aside from a lot of expletives from Chuck, nothing really materializes out of it, though. He doesn’t come crashing into Tito’s room like Rampage or Rashad would’ve in their season. Tito looks to have overheard all of Chuck’s badmouthing, though, but is shown to not do anything about it. It looks as though Tito’s merely accepted the fact, and expects Chuck to become angry and call him names. Both fighters come off as incredibly mature in this moment, though, with neither starting any sort of ruckus after the news is dropped.

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 11 EPISODE 9 REVIEW

Yeah, um, wow, that was a very interesting episode. Did I mean that in a good way? Yes, absolutely, but others may not agree.

The episode almost immediately goes to the first match, which is between Kyle Noke (16-4-1) and Kris McCray (5-0), which is something I have always wanted the series to do. What with Noke’s record and the fact that his first fight against Clayton McKinney really impressed me, had me rooting for him all the way.

At least 90% of the match takes place on the ground. Tito’s gameplan for this fight is clear: take advantage of what he surmises is Noke’s weak wrestling game, and have McCray, a very experienced wrestler himself, take full advantage of it. And guess what? It works; totally. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make for the most exciting match in the history of the sport.

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 11 EPISODE 8 REVIEW

Very excellent episode we have this week, with plenty going on every step of the way to keep the viewers excited. It starts off almost immediately with the wild card fight, featuring Kyacey Uscola and Kris McCray. Now, Uscola really impressed in his fight against Rich Attonito. He was showing a very good stand up game until he got disqualified for that illegal knee. McCray, on the other hand, didn’t impress me at all. His skills didn’t seem sharpened enough and he gassed way too early in the fight. So, needless to say, I was for Uscola all the way in this fight.

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 11 EPISODE 7 REVIEW

Pretty average episode this week, I’d say. The fight wasn’t the most exciting thing ever, but was pretty decent just the same, and there really wasn’t much to the rest of the episode as well.

Nick Ring’s left knee has apparently gone through surgery a few times, and it’s been bothering him ever since his preliminary fight to get into the house. Right after his fight with Court McGee, he goes to see the cage-side doctor to get some advice, and after his next training session, his knee just gives out on him during a sparring session. Tito looks at it and is very dismayed as he’s had this type of injury before and knows that it’ll be a very rough time for Ring. He’ll look into getting something done about it as fast as possible.

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 11 EPISODE 6 REVIEW

We have a very exciting episode this week, which is great, since it more than makes up for the medicority that was the last one. There's a lot of things going on here that can keep viewers plenty excited.

The episode basically starts with Tito sitting his team down and addressing all the negativity going around, particularly with Kyacey Uscola’s stance that Tito’s training remains taxing even before a fighter has to enter the cage, so much so that they’re body’s still broken down before it has the chance to be a hundred percent before the fight. Tito addresses this by saying that, according to his observations, his training regimen works, since his fighters’ endurance, strength, speed, and so on, have all been increasing steadily for the past few weeks, and their skills are becoming sharper and sharper as well.

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 11 EPISODE 5 REVIEW

Okay, so the episode starts off with several of the fighters wondering who will replace Rich Attonito in the competition. I mentioned in my episode 4 review that, while Attonito won his match as a result of disqualification, he was still officially removed from the competition because of a broken hand.

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 11 EPISODE 4 REVIEW

It’s always great when the show gives us two fights per episode and this time was no exception. And, as one might expect, both fights are fairly short? Does that mean two finishes in one episode? Read on.

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 11 EPISODE 3 REVIEW

Alright, alright, I admit it. Egg on my face, shame on me. I wrote in my TUF 11 episode 2 review that I was very hyped for this episode because the preview was making a big deal of the “shocking announcement” that would take place this episode, alongside official news that Rich Franklin has indeed replaced Tito Ortiz as Chuck Liddell’s opponent at UFC 115.

Rumors have been circulating for weeks now that Tito will, at one point, be “kicked off” the show for some reason and be replaced by Franklin. So, was the reveal shown this episode? In a word, no.

Needless to say, I was still a bit “shocked” by the announcement, but not nearly as much as I wanted to be, since it was something totally different from what I expected (or wanted).

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 11 EPISODE 2 REVIEW

Okay, here’s my week – late review of the The Ultimate Fighter Season 11 episode 2. Nothing too exciting in this episode, as it’s pretty much straightforward TUF fair. I kept my review of episode one very spoiler – free, but I don’t think I can do that with the succeeding episodes unless I want my reviews to be just one or two – liners.

So, yeah ... SPOILER ALERT!

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 11 EPISODE 1 REVIEW

 I’m a huge UFC fan. That being said, while I’ll of course be placing reactions to most things about the current UFC events and about mixed martial arts in general, I’ll be mostly publishing them late. Like, a day or two late, which is like an eternity in Internet Time. This is because I like to think about them for a bit after I view them so I can organize my thoughts somewhat.

Alright, now on with the review! Long story short, I loved it, suprisingly so. Why surprising? Well, to tell you the truth, I wasn’t excited about this new season AT ALL.

First of all, it’s the freakin’ eleventh season. And while literally all the seasons had their moments they’re mostly the same. Up and coming fighters train, generally maniacal behavior in the house, arguing coaches, flared tempers all around, and lots of bleeped swear words from Dana White. And after ten straight seasons, I wasn’t really confident that they’d keep ANYTHING about the show fresh.