Contributor: Josh Hall
The Ultimate Fighter has become a stale product over the last few seasons, but this season has been a nice change of pace. Tonight’s episode was one of the best in quite a long time, as the drama between teams was kept to a minimum and was over with quickly. The focus was almost entirely on the fighters that were going to battle later, and they deserved every second of it. It is hard to find two more likeable fighters than Roxanne Modafferi and Jessica Rakoczy, and the only downside to the episode was knowing that one of them had to lose.
An odd situation starts the episode, as Dennis Hallman was introduced as a guest coach for Team Tate and almost immediately finds himself in an altercation with Rousey’s head coach Edmond Tarverdyan. It appeared to happen out of nowhere and escalated quickly with Rousey stepping into to try and diffuse the situation as only she can, by getting in someone’s face herself. Dana White talks with both coaches and made them promise to cut out all of the extra garbage, saying he would stay at the gym until everyone left to make sure no unscheduled fights were going to break out.
Multiple fighters from team Rousey wrote in their blogs for the episode that Hallman was the instigator of the event, having come in and stared down Tarverdyan immediately in events that were left unaired. Jessamyn Duke had this to say:
“The confrontation of the episode was between coach Edmond and Team Tate’s guest coach Dennis Hallman, a UFC veteran. At one of the weigh-ins, which they didn’t show on TV, Hallman was staring a hole through Edmond. This was the first time we had seen Hallman and for some reason he decided to try and mean mug Edmond. It’s one thing to glance and catch eyes with somebody but he was making it obvious.”
(http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1786938-tuf-18-jessamyn-duke-fighter-blog-episode-4)
Shayna Baszler said more of the same, and both women believed he was brought in by Tate specifically to stir up trouble:
“Team Tate brought Hallman in to egg Edmond on. Period. From the second Hallman got there, he was fronting Edmond. A brilliant and dastardly tactic, really. Edmond was our head coach. He ran practice while Ronda Rousey trained right alongside us. If he gets kicked off the show, we are essentially screwed. If Hallman gets kicked off, who cares, really? And if you know Hallman, then you know he can be a bit of a dick.”
(http://themmacorner.com/2013/09/25/the-queens-manifesto-shayna-baszlers-tuf-18-blog-week-four/)
Where the truth actually lies, I don’t know, but you should read their posts in their entirety anyway. Getting to hear about some of the off camera stuff is great in general, and reading the fighter blogs has been one of my favorite aspects of this season. Anyway, that is enough of the drama, onto the fighters themselves.
We find out that Jessica Rakoczy is the unofficial mother to the rest of the fighters in the house, doing most of the cleaning and in general helping take care of everyone there. We hear about her shoulder injury suffered in the fight to get in the house, and a gut wrenching story of pain her family suffered at the hands of her abusive stepfather. She tells a story of leaving home at the age of 15 as a result, and breaks down when talking about the death of her mother that occurred not long after she moved out. Sobbing, she apologizes for not being able to finish the story. It was a hard segment to watch, but gave good insight into what Rakoczy had to go through at a young age.
We also get to know more about Roxanne Modaferri, and everyone in the house confirms she is pretty much the nicest person ever. Shayna Baszler tells the story of fighting Roxy in Japan years ago, and after beating her having Roxy show her around Japan and eventually teach her the language, saying she hoped her win would propel her to stardom. In the lead up to the fight Roxy made a “man” out of paper towel rolls and a paper plate, naming him “Plato” due to her never ending love of puns. She talks about the Power Rangers and Dragonball Z being her inspirations for getting into the sport, and how she stays positive all the time because it makes her feel better as a person.
The weigh ins were more fun than normal, as Roxy showed up acting goofy with her nunchuks while Rakoczy countered with a Nerf gun, both at the urging of Baszler. Rakoczy talks a bit about missing her son Jesse and jokes that it makes her look like a p#%@y. Roxy gets choked up by a note of encouragement from Julianna Pena, and the scene has a very different tone than the last time Pena wrote a note for a fellow fighter (Pena’s note to Chris Holdsworth was met with laughter from a lot of the guys in the house). Finally it is time for the women to meet in the cage.
Jessica Rakoczy (Team Rousey) vs. Roxanne Modafferi (Team Tate)
Round 1:
Early on Rakoczy tried to work her far superior hands, but Modaferri is able to get in close quickly and score a takedown off a Muay Thai dump. She passes to side control but gets swept with just over 2 minutes to go in the first round. Modaferri immediately looks for submissions off her back from full guard, and comes fairly close with an armbar attempt before Rakoczy elects to stand back up. Modaferri secures a trip takedown with 22 seconds to go in round one and rides out the rest of the round there. 10-9 Modaferri on my scorecard.
Round 2:
From the outset of round 2 Modaferri looks exhausted, and she gets dropped briefly by a left hook early 15 seconds into the round. Rakoczy continues to land big shots on the feet while Modaferri desperately looks for a takedown. With 3:51 to go in the round the referee calls for a time with the fighters pressed against the cage and warns Rakoczy for a cage grab for the third time in fight, but does not deduct a point. Modaferri secures the takedown finally, ending up in top position in Rakoczy’s full guard. She gets swept just over 20 seconds later and makes the terrible mistake of holding onto the position despite Rakoczy lifting her into the air.
For the second time in her career Modaferri finds herself the victim of a powerbomb, and she is left looking up at the lights, clearly dazed by the blow to the back of her head. Modaferri tries to velar the cobwebs and fight back, but she is simply unable to. A big right hand on the ground forces the stoppage mercifully
Jessica Rakoczy defeats Roxanne Modaferri via KO at 2:32 of round 2
Modaferri shows off her level of sportsmanship yet again, asking for Rokaczy to come over so she could congratulate her before even fully regaining consciousness (and still lying on the mat looking at the ceiling). Roxy breaks down in tears and lets out a scream of pure anguish, and it is quite the scene watching Jessica embrace and console her opponent. Pure class is shown by both ladies. Roxy sheds more tears on the shoulder of her close friend Shayna Baszler after exiting the cage, and it is hard to watch one of the best people in the sport suffer like that. Tears may or may not have formed in my eyes during the aftermath of the fight. The next fight is chosen by Ronda Rousey, and it will pit David Grant from her team against Louis Fissette of Team Tate.
It was great to see a TUF episode that was light on the petty drama and heavier on the character of the two fighters. This episode also had the some things TUF has missed out on as of late such as fighters that fans can get emotionally invested in easily. This was not the typical meaningless TUF fight between 2 fighters fans know nothing about and as a fan you could really feel the difference. More episodes like this are precisely what the series needs, and the inclusion of female fighters is providing a breath of fresh air to the show and fans watching alike. All in all it was quite a good episode, and even more so in comparison to recent TUF seasons.
-Josh can be reached at [email protected] or @jhall282.
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