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TV Reviews
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The Ultimate Fighter
The Ultimate Fighter Review 4/1 (Episode 1): Fighters arrive at house, new format debuts, fights begin right away
By Frank Hyden, MMATorch columnist
Apr 4, 2008, 15:21
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The Ultimate Fighter review
April 2, 2008
By Frank Hyden
The show opens with the fighters arriving. When 32 fighters show up, they all know somethings up. Dana White arrives and introduces Forrest Griffin and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. Dana reveals the twist to this season that you must win your way into the show. Some of the fighters look stunned and practically mess themselves.
Each fighter is given 24 hours to make weight for a fight 48 hours away. Some had to drop some major weight but they all manage to do it. Forrest and Rampage will be taking notes on all the fights and basing their team choices accordingly.
FIGHT 1- Prince McLean vs. Mike Dolce
Dolce rocks Prince with a nice left. They both scramble to their feet after a brief exchange on the ground. Dolce crushes Prince with a stiff right hand for the KO. "Dayum!" is the only note Rampage needs for Dolce. As Mike walks away Rampage quips that Dolce's odor is what really knocked Prince out.
WINNER- Mike Dolce
FIGHT 2- Cale Yarbrough vs. John Clarke
Forrest is rooting for Cale as they start very slowly. Some good groundfighting goes down as Cale gets the edge. John is actually doing a great job of fighting off Cale but spends all of his energy trying for submissions. Cale pounds him out for a TKO.
WINNER- Cale Yarbrough
FIGHT 3- Steve Byrnes vs. Amir Sadollah
Both guys sport horrible haircuts. They spend the entire 1st round groundfighting and boring the audience. In the 2nd round Amir wins with an armbar. The best part of the fight was when Amir was trying to celebrate and jumped onto the top of the cage because he quickly fell off in a comical way.
WINNER- Amir Sadollah
FIGHT 4- David Baggett vs. CB Dollaway
Only highlights aired of this short fight as CB pounded out the quick and decisive win.
WINNER- CB Dollaway
FIGHT 5- Dante Rivera vs John Wood
Again, only highlights of Dante submitting John. Not much else to say here.
WINNER- Dante Rivera
FIGHT 6- Nick Klein vs. David Mewborn
Another highlights only fight as Nick makes David tap.
WINNER- Nick Klein
FIGHT 7- Paul Bradley vs. Reggie Orr
Paul is a great wrestler but not much of anything else. He laid on top of Reggie for 10 minutes and hit some weak kidney punches. The coaches were unimpressed, to say the least. Dana said it was liking watching two turtles fighting. Luckily, we weren't forced to watch more than a few seconds.
WINNER- Paul Bradley
FIGHT 8- Dave Roberts vs. Jeremy May
Dave is Rampage's boy but he doesn't show anything as Jeremy rocks him with a quick left. They go to the ground and Jeremy wins with an armlock. After the fight Jeremy takes the talking too far and offends Rampage. That's not something I'd choose to do.
WINNER- Jeremy May
Judging this show was more like reviewing a PPV or UFN show in that the entire focus of this episode was on the fights. As a matter of fact, I'd say this episode featured more fighting than most UFC PPV hours. Forrest and Rampage as coaches will rank just behind Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock in terms of entertainment value. The widescreen feed used throughout the show looked great and the overlays of Dana, Forrest, and Rampage commenting on the fights was great. Definitely something they should use again, if they can. The fights themselves were hit or miss. Having them packed into a single episode, however, made for an exciting hour overall. It's way too early to call a favorite but Mike Dolce and CB Dollaway looked very good. It'll be very interesting to see how this season plays out. Having to fight your way onto the show should do much to eliminate as many of the guys who don't have what it takes as possible. The future looks bright for this season.
NEXT WEEK- The final 8 fights and a huge KO that sends a guy to the hospital.
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