With the US and UK teams now set following last week’s final preliminary bouts, we advance to the first quarterfinal matchup on The Ultimate Fighter 9.
UK coach Michael Bisping is joined by assistants Mario “Sucata” Neto and Dave Jackson while US coach Dan Henderson has tapped Heath Sims, Cyril Diabate, Ricardo Feliciano, and Gustavo to help him coach the American squad.
Team US will choose the first matchup, but are concerned about Team UK’s extended two week layoff compared to just a few days since the US fighters last stepped into the octagon. The team eventually settles on having welterweight Mark Miller square off with Team UK’s Nick Osipczak.
With Bisping having been unable to watch Team US’ opening fights in person, the UK coaching staff and Osipczak review tape of Miller and devise a game plan. Osipczak, who fought his opening fight as a southpaw, will switch to orthodox for this fight in an attempt to disrupt the plans of Miller, which were likely to rely on his southpaw stance.
Back at the house, the season’s pranks commence with Team US writing on a shirt Team UK left behind and, later at the gym, the US goes up “2-0″ in the pranks by writing on a pair of wrestling shoes which are left behind.
In the 170-pound contest, Osipczak and Miller engage on the feet and the canvas until Osipczak secures a guillotine and nearly submits Miller, who appears to tap but the referee allows the bout the continue with Miller escaping the hold. In the second round, Osipczak knocks Miller out cold with right head kick that immediately halts the contest and puts the UK squad up 1-0.
TEAM USA
WELTERWEIGHTS
- Mark Miller – Eliminated by Nick Osipczak on Episode 4
- Jason Pierce
- Damarques Johnson
- Frank Lester
LIGHTWEIGHTS
- Richie Whitson
- Santino DeFranco
- Cameron Dollar
- Jason Dent
TEAM UK
WELTERWEIGHTS
- David Faulkner
- Dean Amasinger
- Nick Osipczak (1-0)
- James Wilks
LIGHTWEIGHTS
- Ross Pearson
- Martin Stapleton
- Jeff Lawson
- Andre Winner
Latest
Team USA better get it’s head out of it’s a$$ before there are none of them left! They need to quit with the dumba$$ pranks and concentrate on why they are there in the first place. They are clearly being outclassed by their British counterparts. Great job of coaching by Bisping.Great game plan. Miller on the other hand didn’t follow his and try to keep the fight standing. Well placed head kick to end a good first fight.
To be fair, Nick didn’t exactly stick to his game plan either. He fought Southpaw quite a bit in the fight despite the plan being to fight regular.
Agreed timcat
USA is in huge trouble. The Brits are totally focused and working hard, and the Americans seem to be more interested in finding the right bleach pen to use for their next prank. Bisping has his team well under control and said it best when he told them to rise above it and the only tally that matters is the W/L tally. Can’t imagine how Henderson feels right now at the prospect of his #1 pick getting KO’d by what he thought was the Brit’s weak link.
Bisping is establishing himself as one of the best coaches ever in TUF. The guys clearly respect him, rally around him, and follow his directions. He is kind of reminding me of Ortiz as a coach in many ways.
How do you figure that Miller was the number one pick? Henderson just picked someone that was on weight and ready to go on a quick turnaround, not necessarily who the “top guy” was.
Haha. Don’t be too bitter justin . Just accept that UK won
I do accept that the UK guy one. I’m just saying Miller wasn’t necessarily the best guy on the US team.
“Bisping is establishing himself as one of the best coaches ever in TUF”… no way that can be established after 1 fight.. let’s see how they do over the next few weeks before you anoint him King of the Trainers®
I *do* like how he told them to just ignore the stupid pranks and focus on the fighting, we’ll see if that holds out.
He might not have been thier best pick,atleast i dont think he was but as far as the UK is concerned they might have thought that he was their best since he was tossed out there 1st. So if anything, by the UK winning, that will give them that much more of a boost thinking that they just knocked out the US’s top guy…. headgames are great :D Go UK~!
it was a pretty good fight to me, nick was by far the more talented fighter in the octagon. it looked like the brits were training harder than the american boys, but thats based off of what was shown on the episode. the usa guys need to quit whining about bisping’s trash talking and do something to shut him up. I do not like the talking, however bisping has had his team back it up. I liked the cheerio comment towards the end, I was laughing at that, damn brit. I cant take a guy serious who has an accent like that. hes like “I will rip off your bloody head and destroy you then go home and have tea and crumpets with mum.”
dude i didn’t watch this one cuz my wife made me watch “nights in rodanthe”…
They’ll probably do a replay tonight at 11, check spike.com to find out.
EL OH EL! Sucks to be you man.. at least Diane Lane is still kinda good looking..
This whole season is a sham and an attempt at growing the sport in England. Im not sayin it to disrespect UK fighters, who I have a lot of respect for. But if you look at the way Bis was allowed to fight his first few big fights in the UK against lesser opponents it started a trend. The biggest jerk in TUF history was browning last season, so what does he do this season…..bring his clone brother to the tryouts who gets beat by a 155er with love handles!! The US team is less than stacked, Lester has less than 2 yrs. One of the UK fighters has been on the show before. Before the first fight Dana says “I think Miller is gonna win” when has he ever said that. Im not saying this because of the loss, I’ve been saying it since before the first show aired. I call BS on season9!!
Im sorry but that ”We don’t have our best fighters” line is BS. First of all, the guys that represent the UK are no where near our top fighters either. That Nick Osipczak is only 3 and 0…he’s a noob. I doubt highly this was set up to make the brits win, thats bullsh1t. you win some, you lose some in MMA. Its simple, it looks like most of these US guys are taking everything for granted and are taking the brits lightly…the brits on the other hand are fu.ckin hungry, they know they don’t get a chance to be on TUF very often so there taking it seriously.
I call BS on your BS
I’m USA to the bone but we are definitly not fielding our best fighters. It seemed like several of the “weaker” fighters won their opening matches. “Anything can happen” bit us in the bum.
I respect MMA around the world but to me, it looks like the Brits may get a freebie from us this go round. Just make sure you dont let those crumpets go to your heads and you should sweep this one clean.
As for the pranks…lame. Sure it would make for better TV if the UK guys would get all into it and someone actually pulled some decent pranks….Ohhh I wrote on your shirt and shoes…got you. NO, you suck, leave the prank wars to the grownups and pack your 3rd grade antics and go home via 1st round KO.
Disgraceful.
For any of you Brits out there, Americans are not all as lame as TV portrays.
“leave the prank wars to the grownups and pack your 3rd grade antics and go home via 1st round KO.”
It is my personal opinion that grownups do not engage in prank wars, and that any sort of prank war can only be high school to college level at best.
A-freakin-men! Leave the pranks up to the boneheads in Jack-A$$, etc.
they should pull some funny pranks like farting on a guys pillow so he gets pink-eye, (according to knocked up it can happen) putting clingwrap(that clear wrap you put on cakes and such I forgot what its called) under the toilet seat so the pee shoots back or the poo gets squashed, thats priceless, or putting that wrap across a doorway, i saw it on americas funniest videos, drawing genitals and comments on a guys face with a permanent marker, putting itching powder in a guys jockstrap. those are just a few I have used and had used on me.
oooh, what would be even funnier would be taking a hammer and smashing someone’s head while the sleep!!1!! That would be so cool, pranks are teh awesom3!!
I hope that Demarques gets eliminated soon. I can’t stand listening to his borderline retarded ramblings. Please UK…beat him down.
The US guys might not be the cream of the crop, but i wasnt blown away by the guy from the UK either. The whole episode propped him up to be a real awesome fighter because he was fought southpaw in the prelims and hes actually an orthodox fighter, and i felt as though there was nothing but hype around him. And at the point in the fight they were both at i think either of them could have got KO’d. I must say that the UK guys looked really good in the elimination fights, and Nick definately isnt the best they have to offer.
One of the fighters is a very good friend of mine (David Faulkner) so therefore I am routing for him/the uk team to win everything possible. However I gotta say that the courtesy and support we are getting from the us public is very very kind indeed and a little further up in the comments somebody said something along the lines of “not all Americans are like they are on tv” what I gotta say is judging by the comments left on here, Americans seem like a really fair minded and respectful people. And by any Brits Reading this it is probably both noticed and appreciated!