Thursday, September 24, 2009

Things That Won't Happen at Strikeforce Challengers "Kennedy vs. Cummings"

The latest installment of Strikeforce Challengers graces our television screens on Friday night, and the Showtime-broadcast event is chock full of wrestlers. Seriously, the event is named "Kennedy vs. Cummings" because Tim Kennedy and some scrub named Zak Cummings are meeting in the main event, but with all the wrestling pedigrees on the card a more apt name would've been "Wrestlemania Strikeforce". Or something. I dunno. Here are things that won't happen at the event.
  • Active-duty US Special Forces operator Kennedy will not line the cage with M18A1 Claymore antipersonnel mines and detonate them should his fight against wrestler Cummings go poorly. No, the mines will be set up in Cummings' locker room.
  • Kickboxing great Ray Sefo will not win via omoplata. That's just a hunch, though.
  • Zach Light will not win.
  • In the battle between two-time Olympic wrestler Daniel Cormier and two-time state wrestling champ Gary Frazier, no takedowns will be attempted. Instead, they'll engage in a stand-up war resembling 18th century-style prize fighting.
  • After Travis Calonoc and Thomas Longacre fight, fans still won't know who they are.

Mitch the Intern's TUF 10 Recap: Episode 2

*Editor's note: Mitch the Intern is an NYU undergrad whose favorite Wednesday night pastime includes the TV in his dorm room, a green beanbag chair and two hits of acid. Enjoy.*

Last week was all about the Man-Love Dry Hump, but there will be none of that this week. No siree. Instead, we get a bit more Kimbo, some Roy "Big Country-Fried Steak" Nelson, a TUF 9 Team UK leftover and a towering behemoth with no cardio. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. No lungs at all.

Coach Quinton Jackson and his lieutenant Tiki-Tiki-Head (yes, he's a giant wooden Hawaiian statue of a head - weird, huh?) train Kimbo on the art of avoiding getting raped by a dude, instructing him to push on the head and scramble out. If that doesn't work, use pepper spray, blow your rape whistle, and consider getting a good therapist. People are starting to come around about Kimbo, reconsidering their initial opinions of him being a thug and his beard some sort of sinister homage to the Taliban. Brandon Cottonswab even goes so far as to hand the former backyard brawler a valentine with "I Heart Kimbo" scrawled on it.

Meanwhile, Team Rashad trains and everyone loves each other and gives each other back rubs, but being a cut above the other contestants sets Roy "Big Country-Fried Steak" apart from the others, and he lets them know this. Also, he eats a production assistant, and the young P.A.'s cries from within Nelson's belly are disconcerting.

"I can't train you," says one of Coach Rashad Evans' lieutenants. "You know too much, you eat people whole, and all day long we have to listen to them cry from inside you while they're being digested. You're like a bipedal Sarlacc Pit monster, and if you don't stop I'm going to get Andrei Arlovski to knock you out again." At that, Nelson promises to play nicer with the other kids.

Jackson is in charge of picking the match-up for this week, and he chooses Rashad's British TUF 9 Team UK wanna-be James "Mike Bisping Foreva" McSweeney to face his pet mutant Johnny Asthma. Johnny Asthma used to play in the NFL, but he was cut when they realized he had no lungs. Seriously. None. Zip. Zero. Nada. Nothing in there at all. McSweeney and Johnny Asthma do the ceremonial pose down and already the eight-feet tall Johnny Asthma is winded.

Everyone trains a little. Medicine balls go flying. Push-ups. Sweat glistening on Kimbo's beard. Nelson licks his chops at a camera man. Brandon Cottonswab twirling nunchucks. Assistant coach Mike Van Arsdale making everyone shoot takedowns on trees. Someone straps a flamethrower on their back and incinerates a heavy bag.

Then it's fight time. Coach Evans trains with McSweeney back in the real world, so he's expecting great things from his mate. The towering Johnny Asthma enters the cage and already he can't breath. They square off, the referee gives them the signal, and they engage. Well, sort of. Johnny Asthma is huge, and dangerous when there's still oxygen being fed into his bloodstream, so he initially manages to bully McSweeney around by using his gigantic limbs and circus-freak show mass. But McSweeney survives, survives a lame keylock attempt, survives a rear naked choke attempt and being mounted, and once Johnny Asthma has no more gas (really, none. Nada. Nothing. Zippity-do-da.), it's all about the Brit throwing a kick here and there and waiting to catch his breath while the Team Rampage fighter dies a slow, oxygen-less death within the cage.

This goes on for far too long. As he's begun to turn purple from his diminished lung capacity, Johnny Asthma looks horrid. As he cannot seem to finish a near-dead opponent and is gassed himself, McSweeney looks awful. And though McSweeney garners the majority decision when the scorecards are read, the only real winners here are the other fighters in the house, for the bar has now been set lower than ever and everyone else couldn't be as bad, right? Right?

The two teams are gathered together again to announce the next fight. Unorthodox? Yes, but only one match-up could warrant such a thing: Kimbo is going to face Roy "Big Country-Fried Steak" Nelson. Fade to black.