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The Ultimate Fighter 21 Finale: American Top Team vs. Blackzilians (7/12/2015) - Las Vegas, NV (MGM Grand Garden Arena)


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The Ultimate Fighter 21 Finale: American Top Team vs. Blackzilians

July 12, 2015

Las Vegas, NV (MGM Grand Garden Arena)

 

Jake Ellenberger (170.5) vs. Stephen Thompson (170.5) - Thompson, KO (spinning wheel kick and punches), R1 (4:29)

TUF 21 Welterweight Tournament Final: Hayder Hassan (170.5) vs. Kamaru Usman (170.5) - Usman, SUB (arm triangle choke), R2 (1:19)

Michael Graves (170.5) vs. Vicente Luque (171) - Graves, DEC (unanimous)

Jorge Masvidal (170)** vs. Cezar Ferreira (171) - Masvidal, KO (standing elbow and punches), R1 (4:22)

Michelle Waterson (115) vs. Angela Magana (115.5) - Waterson, SUB (rear naked choke), R3 (2:38)

Maximo Blanco (148.5)* vs. Mike De La Torre (145.5) - Blanco, TKO (referee stoppage), R1 (0:16)

 

Fox Sports 1 Preliminary Card:

Josh Samman (186) vs. Caio Magalhães (185) - Samman, SUB (rear naked choke), R1 (2:52)

Russell Doane (135.5) vs. Jerrod Sanders (136) - Sanders, DEC (unanimous)

Dan Miller (184) vs. Trevor Smith (185.5) - Smith, DEC (unanimous)

George Sullivan (170.5) vs. Dominic Waters (171) - Sullivan, DEC (unanimous)

 

Fight Pass Preliminary Card:

Darrell Montague (125.5) vs. Willie Gates (125.5) - Gates, TKO (strikes), R1 (1:36)

 

*Forfeits 20% of purse for missing weight

**Reweighed after weighing 172.5 on first attempt

 

Event Bonuses ($50,000):

Performance of the Night: Josh Samman

Performance of the Night: Jorge Masvidal

Performance of the Night: Kamaru Usman

Performance of the Night: Stephen Thompson

 

Attendance: 4,844

Gate: $291,000

Rating: 691,000 viewers

 

Cancelled Bouts:

Benson Henderson vs. Michael Johnson - Bout Nixed

George Sullivan vs. Márcio Alexandre Jr. - Injury to Alexandre Jr. (Ribs)

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The whole season has been set up so that one team will have more points than the other after the final weekly episode... so why are they having a finale? Although the points system is kind of BS anyway. If you've got a series of 12 fights and one team wins 7, that's game over, right?

 

On t'other hand, the only two Harley owners in Miami are probably happy about not having to repeatedly ride past the camera crew every week now.

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The whole season has been set up so that one team will have more points than the other after the final weekly episode... so why are they having a finale? Although the points system is kind of BS anyway. If you've got a series of 12 fights and one team wins 7, that's game over, right?

 

No, the fights were worth more as the season went on. The first four were worth 25, next four were worth 50, and the last four are worth 100.

 

Blackzilians won most of the fights early on except for one, but they started trading wins midway through the season. ATT was in danger of losing based on points in the last two episodes. Then, Michael Graves (ATT) ended up coming from behind to beat Jason Jackson (Blackzilians) to tie it up on the penultimate episode. The season will be decided on the final episode.

 

Blackzilians won seven fights out of eleven, but the first four wins were the fights that were 25 points.

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Guest Edwin

Did the season really provide any decent not so known fighters?

 

I partially watched half of the first couple of episodes as I was intrigued by the different setup with the 2 teams, but quickly lost interest when the fighters weren't so great.

 

Curious to see how Masvidal does at 170 in the UFC. I just read he hasn't fought in that division in almost 10 years. Mutante is no slouch, but Masvidal should beat him if he doesn't decide to win the first round and then think he has it in the bag and just decide to do nothing for the next 2 rounds.

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Did the season really provide any decent not so known fighters?.

 

Hayder Hassan and Kamaru Usman. Hayder hasn't really shown anything besides knocking people out and has decent cardio. Usman is a pretty good wrestler, but he is raw and certainly not crowd friendly.

 

The next tier of guys is Vicente Luque, Carrington Banks, Jason Jackson, Michael Graves, and Steve Montgomery. Creepy Steve already fought on the Florida card and got knocked out. Banks might be good, but hard to tell based on the show. Luque and Jackson will most likely be cannon fodder for much better fighters. Graves too but he will probably get a longer UFC run based on that crazy comeback he had on last week's episode. That will give the commentators something to go on about.

 

Nathan Coy fits in that second tier more than the first. He'll probably be a serviceable gatekeeper. Buscape as well.

 

Those are the guys (besides Creepy Steve) who deserve to be on the finale. Eight guys for four fights would bring the card to thirteen fights. Cristano Souza, who replaced Creepy Steve when he had his seizure, hasn't fought. However, he was on Fight Master and got on the show by beating...Steve Montgomery. So yeah, circle of life. He lost to Sam Oropeza, who should be in the UFC, in Bellator after the show. Decent fighter, but he is more famous for his floor routine than fighting. That says a lot.

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Guest Edwin

Off the top of my head I'm only familiar with a handful of guys who were on the show like Buscapé who's been around for years and fought in PRIDE, Andrews Nakahara who got knocked out on the show I believe and fought in DREAM, and Steve Carl who fought in Bellator and got his leg torn off by Palhares and Coy who's fought in Bellator.

 

Buscapé doesn't have a particularly crowd friendly style either, but he's an excellent grappler and very effective at what he does. People used to rave madly over his fight with Luiz Azeredo from years ago on a PRIDE Bushido event. Anyway, last time I saw him fight he beat Toby Imada on a CFA card in Florida.

 

I didn't really pay much attention to the show and haven't been following the sport as closely for bit as I used to.

 

Some fights that could be decent on the card, Maxi/de la Torre, Montague/Gates, Waterson's UFC debut and Masvidal/Mutante.

 

God I hope Waterson beats Magaña.

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People were raving about Kamarudeen Usman's strength and wrestling ability and Bloody Elbow ranked him as the best WW prospect last year IIRC. Was his wrestling "pretty good" in the sense he hasn't translated his amateur skills to MMA or was he a bit overhyped? I didn't even know he was on the show because TUF is basically a non-entity for me. 

 

Is Tyrone Spong a possibility for the UFC at this point or is he still wanting to do kickboxing, boxing, and MMA? Was he featured much on the show?

 

I'm with you, grizzleydwin, on hoping Waterson wins. I don't think she's particularly good but Magana is not a likable human being.

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Off the top of my head I'm only familiar with a handful of guys who were on the show like Buscapé who's been around for years and fought in PRIDE, Andrews Nakahara who got knocked out on the show I believe and fought in DREAM, and Steve Carl who fought in Bellator and got his leg torn off by Palhares and Coy who's fought in Bellator.

 

Buscapé doesn't have a particularly crowd friendly style either, but he's an excellent grappler and very effective at what he does. People used to rave madly over his fight with Luiz Azeredo from years ago on a PRIDE Bushido event. Anyway, last time I saw him fight he beat Toby Imada on a CFA card in Florida.

 

I didn't really pay much attention to the show and haven't been following the sport as closely for bit as I used to.

 

Steve Carl looked terrible on the show. With how he got talked about by Dana, I doubt he makes it on the roster. Then again, Lyman Good eventually got a UFC deal.

 

I wanted Nakahara to do well and was looking forward to him on the show. Then, Hayder punched him in the face and Nakahara went down in a heap and subsequently off the show. He has a fun style but his chin is miserable. He might be suited for the smaller promotions anyway.

 

I haven't seen Buscape since he fought Massaranduba in Bitetti Combat. Alex Davis, Buscape's manager and translator at the time, was doing commentary and talking up Buscape like he was the single greatest thing since sliced bread. Then, Massaranduba kneebared him in two minutes. It was amazing. I'll never forget that shit.

 

People were raving about Kamarudeen Usman's strength and wrestling ability and Bloody Elbow ranked him as the best WW prospect last year IIRC. Was his wrestling "pretty good" in the sense he hasn't translated his amateur skills to MMA or was he a bit overhyped? I didn't even know he was on the show because TUF is basically a non-entity for me. 

 

He has good credentials and been able to soundly do that on the show. Will he able to do that comfortably when he makes it on the roster against people who will meet him with resistance? I dunno. He probably can.

 

Best welterweight prospect? Yeah, I probably wouldn't say that right now. I might like Covington better. Dalby is certainly up there.

 

Covington would have mashed most of the Blackzilian guys to be honest. For teams with an array of talent, it sure felt padded out. Most of the guys who would have made sense on the show, especially for the ATT side, were already in the UFC by the time the show started filming.

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I thought Luque beat Hayder Hassan the final episode of the season. However, I guess I was technically right about who the two notable fighters were. However, after watching the Luque vs. Hassan, I would say Luque might have a brighter future than Hassan based on being able to deal with a pressure fighter. Hassan got dropped about five times and was just kinda bewildered that someone was pressuring him instead of vice versa. We might have a Diego Brandao type front runner.

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May just be me, but I can't think of a single round Hassan won last night, not even the second which was his best.

If you're grading on a curve (meaning not getting his ass kicked like in RD1), he won the second and then the tiebreaker round. That's the only way the judges could've seen it because it didn't look like they were using the actual criteria.

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I think it's the one fight from the season where Home Gym advantage actually worked. I mean, you could say that Luque didn't fight as smart as he could have done, when he slowed in the second and let Hassan back into the fight. And that he got away from the leg kicks for most of the second round and all of the third, even though they were clearly having an effect in the first (and the barrage he hit at the end of the second). But at the same time, I had him winning the second and the third, and if you think you're winning and you know you're exhausted, why try harder?

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I dunno how a lightweight is fighting a middleweight at 170 and the lightweight is the one who misses weight. Gamebred is reverting back to the old "not really giving a single shit" Gamebred. That doesn't portend well for his future at welterweight.

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Any pairing out of Gamebred, Brown, Larkin, Tumenov, Thatch, Story, Erick Silva, Wonderboy, Gunnar, Jouban, Dalby, and Means can't possibly suck. You can round robin that shit.

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Any pairing out of Gamebred, Brown, Larkin, Tumenov, Thatch, Story, Erick Silva, Wonderboy, Gunnar, Jouban, Dalby, and Means can't possibly suck. You can round robin that shit.

Don't forget Jake "I'll make you foam from the mouth" Ellenberger and Carlos "I don't know how to have a boring fight" Condit if he can string some wins together.  Lightweight is the best division, but Welterweight is the ALL MAN division.  You better have some hair on your chest if you think you can compete with those dudes.

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