TUF 10: Episode 5 Preview and Thoughts

It’s worth making a note, now that the Ultimate Fighter is halfway through the first round, that this season has featured the worst performance by any coach in the history of the franchise. Objective assessments presents that Rampage, as the only coach to open his first four matches without a win, is completely outmatched in terms of the team dynamic.

In a pickup game of basketball, this kind of ass whupping is one where you reassess the teams and mix things up a little. Unfortunately, there’s no such mercy rule for Rampage. The only question will be whether Rampage can get a matchup against one of Rashad’s lesser fighters and manage to have a tougher guy on his team pull off a W. At this point, though, it looks like Rashad is going to make that pretty tough for him.

For some historical perspective, four coaches have gone 1-3 in the first four fights: Randy Couture on season one (though, given the “challenge-based” format of the season, there were some mitigating factors for Randy), Ken Shamrock (previously touted as the worst coach ever to appear on the show), Matt Hughes and Rampage, during season seven. If you want to include team No Love from season four, feel free. That team went 1-3 and, over the course of the first round as a whole, went 1-7, which is the worst performance by a team in the history of the show (Shamrock, Hughes and Rampage each went 2-6).

What’s most disappointing about Rampage’s performance, though, is the general level of apathy.

Going into episode five, while we don’t know what the matchup is, what we do know is that Rampage’s fighters aren’t going to be at their best stepping into the cage, and that’s a little troubling. Regardless of who Rashad picks, there is going to be one overlaying mitigating factor that is going to impact the fight: Team Rampage is in a bad state of mind, the training partners aren’t their best and half the team, since being removed from competition, probably isn’t training as hard.

Demico Rogers made a statement that “[Rampage's] probably not the best coach.” But we all knew that from watching season seven. Ken Shamrock was “not the best coach,” but at least he had the decency to show up and support his fighters. Demico admitted that it “did affect me,” but he was pretty equivocal. He shouldn’t be. Whether the clips were dramatized or not is irrelevant. The fact that there wasn’t a single coach in the room facilitating things is just ridiculous. This is the biggest fight of the guy’s professional career. Give him some support. If Rampage isn’t embarrassed by this, he should be.

As far as looking ahead to episode five, Rampage seems to have three outs to prevent a shutout: Junk, Jones and Sims.

Junk, as even Team Rashad seems to know, is a UFC caliber fighter. Not one of the better guys in the UFC, not one of the best guys in the house (given that this season has a lot of solid guys), but definitely a good fighter. If Rashad waits or gives Junk an easy matchup, that could be problematic, but the fact is, there really aren’t any weak guys on Rashad’s team. Schoonover (who, in my opinion, should get matched up with Team Rampage’s Zak Jensen) might have a tough time with a veteran like Junk, especially if he tries to stand, but Schoonover might have an even harder time with a giant like Sims or Jones. Still, Justin Wren can beat Junk. In my opinion, Matt Wessel might be able to beat Junk and Matt Mitrione, while less experienced, is powerful enough he could give Junk some problems.

Sims is dangerous purely because he’s a veteran. He’s not a great veteran, but he can be a tough guy to beat because of the experience. Again, Wessel can probably beat Sims, purely by being more conditioned and controlling the pace of the fight. Wren could definitely beat Sims. Schoonover could definitely submit Wes Sims (given that Sims has been submitted by jiu-jitsu savants like Antoni Hardonk).

Jones, in my opinion, is the toughest guy for Rashad to pick against. Marcus is big, he’s aggressive and while his cardio isn’t great, whoever he fights is gonna get worn out pretty quickly with a 290 pound giant leaning on them. My problem is that Rampage is going to put Mitrione in with Jones and, as far as I’m concerned, Mitrione is just a smaller, less experienced version of Jones. Mitrione doesn’t have the size to keep up with Jones in an athletic contest, and he doesn’t have the experience to push Jones in a technical battle. That said, anything’s possible, and Mitrione could pull it out. If he does, then I think the book is pretty much closed on Rampage.

Still, Jones may be the Ed Herman of season ten. Herman basically fought his way through season three of the show on his background, submitting Danny Abaddi (a throwaway matchup based on Ortiz’s failure to plan for the final fight) and Rory Singer. If anyone on the show is that guy, it’s Jones, who’s tall, strong and capable (from the training video on the last episode) of crippling anyone he fights.

Anyway, I’m rooting for Marcus, because he seems like an incredibly nice guy and a phenomenal fighter, but Team Rampage as a whole is in deep trouble, and I’m curious to see what will happen in the event of a shutout.