Thursday, November 4, 2010

Mitch the Intern's TUF 12 Recap: Episode 8

*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.*

The wildcard match-up!  The wildcard match-up!  It's all about the wildcard match-up!  Does Marky-Mark and the Funky Bunch deserve a second chance after crapping the bed in his first semifinal bout?  Should it have been Joe Native American in his place instead?  No one disagrees with Brit Eye-run Wal-king Some being there, because he does make an effort to speak the language, but was no one else beside Marky-Mark worthy?  Andy My Main Man thinks he was worthy, and he says so from a throne erected in the living room of the TUF House.

"I was worthy," he says, a diamond-studded cane in one hand and a scantily-clad brunette reclining on a purple pillow at his feet.

"My main man!" shouts P. Diddy as he cruises by the house in the back of a white stretch HUMVEE limousine. 

"I was worthy too," adds Jeffrey Livingston Lentz.

"I like pickles," says Jonathan, who could very well be an alien or some sort of human-muppet hybrid.  "Or maybe I like cucumbers."

But fight Marky-Mark and Eye-run Wal-king Some will, so they continue to train, side-by-side as usual and even going so far as to braid each other's hair and hold hands on the treadmill.  "We'll always be friends forever," says the fox.  "Yeah, friends forever," says the hound.

However, not "friends forever" is Josh Kosh B'Gosh and the "medic", who was added to the cast last week because the coach vs. coach dynamic has generated so much heat a snowflake would say, "Jesus, it's cold in here."  And that's not good television.

"You are a male nurse," says Josh Kosh B'Gosh to the medic when both are back at the locker rooms.

The medic puffs out his chest, opens his mouth, but seemingly forgets what he was supposed to say.  He pauses to glance at the index card in his palm.  "Uh, no.  I am not," he retorts in a monotone.  Someone off-screen hands him a waste paper basket and gives Josh Kosh B'Gosh a plunger.  "And now, we will fight," says the medic.

The two spar comically for a bit, and when it's time for the wildcard fight weigh-in, their battle spills out into the main training room, where Josh Kosh B'Gosh manages to pull the medic's shorts down.

"Stop, I am naked," says the medic, and he shuffles around with his shorts around his ankles and then does a poorly-staged pratfall on his face.  When the medic rises a questionable scuffle ensues - Josh Kosh B'Gosh shouting "male nurse!" and the medic fumbling for his index card and his scripted response - and from his post near the scale Nevada State Athletic Commission Grand Poobah Keith Kizer yells, "Hey, cut it out, Nevada ain't sanctioning no works."  But before the "fight" can get broken up, Joe Native American takes an errant pompom in the face and storms off angry.

Both Georges St. Pierre and Josh Kosh B'Gosh follow him, and corner him in the hallway.

"You do not 'ave to, er, get so up-set, Joseph Nay-tif Ameri-cain.  It ees all just a ploy to git bet-terr ray-teens," says the Canadian in Canada-Speak.

"I can't understand you!" Joe Native American shouts in exasperation.  "No one can!"

Meanwhile, back at the TUF House Bruce Leroy and Chris Rock on Steroids don't get along.  They're aren't urinating on each other's comforters, scrapping on the patio or threatening each other with bodily harm, but there's at least a moderate dislike.  In the background a SpikeTV producer can be heard cackling with glee, and their "feud" is given camera time.

"Yeah, if I had to, I would fight him," says Chris Rock on Steroids.  Oh, the tension as the two UFC aspirants tuck each other into bed!

It's almost fight time, but before that joy a producer hands Eye-run Wal-king Some a telephone.  On the other end is someone purporting to be the Brit's mom.  "Eye-run?  Your Nana is dead."

Eye-run Wal-king Some squints.  "Uh, ma?  She died years ago."

"Yes.  But she's still dead."

And then it's fight time, and Marky-Mark is large and in charge throughout Round 1, looking like a true number-one TUF draft pick.  He gets his opponent down easily and demonstrates a variety of jiu-jitsu techniques, including the "almost armbar" and the "almost triangle".  Unfortunately, Eye-run Wal-king Some knows how to do that complicated move known as the "guillotine", and in Round 2 Marky-Mark is caught in it.  He taps out.

"I guess I need to learn how to defend against the guillotine," Marky-Mark says to the camera at the Post-Fight Tree Confessional.

With the wildcard bout all taken care of, Dana White calls the two coaches into his Den of Sin.  Why?  Because it's time to make the quarterfinal match-ups, and he usually likes hear what the coaches have to say about the matter.  Sadly, the language problem rears its ugly head.

"Eet would be an een-terr-est-ting fight, er, if a lion and a ti-gerr fought with-in the cage, I tink," says Georges St. What?  "Wid dat in mind, perhaps pair-ring up Chris Rock on de Stair-oyds and may-bee Bruce Lee-roy would, er, make for…"

"Oh my God, please stop talking," says Dana White.

And with that, he shoos them out and makes the match-ups on his own.  His choices, which he announces to the remaining fighters assembled in the TUF Gym: Jonathan vs. Armenian Fighter Wannabe #34, Spuds McKenzie vs. Banh Mi, Dr. Watson vs. Eye-run Wal-king Some, and Chris Rock on Steroids vs. Bruce Leroy.

The end.