TUF 23 - Team Jedrzejczyk vs Team Gadelha

Paully D

This kicks off in a couple of weeks, so I thought I'd fire up a thread to get things started.

Men's Light Heavyweight and Women's Strawweight are the divisions. 16 fighters in each, 8 go through to the house. The list of fighters taking part is rumoured to the be the below:

Men:

Phil Hawes (3-0)
Andrew Sanchez (7-2)
Khalil Rountree (4-0)
Elias Urbina (3-0)
Abdel Medjedoub (3-0)
Marcel Fortuna (8-1)
Jamelle Jones (6-2)
Cory Hendicks (3-0)
Norman Paraisy (15-4-2)
Myron Dennis (11-4)
Eric Spicely (8-0)
Mo De’Reese (5-0)
John Paul Elias (3-0)
Trevor Carlson (10-2)
Josh Stansbury (7-2)
Ken Bergh (2-0)

The standout name there would probably be Phil Hawes who is really highly rated out of Jackson-Wink, while Khalil Rountree is a training partner of Anderson Silva and infamously KO'd him in sparring with a kick last year. Norman Paraisy will be another familiar name to European's. He's been on the Bellator and Cage Warriors circuit in the past (drawing with Chris Fields in Dublin a few years ago) and failed to make it past the elimination fight in TUF 11 back in 2010.

Women:

Jodie Esquibel (5-1)
Ashley Cummins (3-3)
Ashley Yoder (4-1)
JJ Aldrich (2-1)
Amanda Bobby Cooper (1-1)
Tatiana Suarez (1-0)
Kristi Lopez (2-0)
Jamie Moyle (3-1)
Amy Montengro (7-2)
Helen Harper (4-1)
Kate Jackson (7-2-1)
Mellony Geujes (0-1)
Lanchana Green (0-1)
Alyssa Khran (3-1)
Chelsea Bailey (2-0)
Irene Cabello (6-2)

Interestingly, Kate Jackson fought Joanna before and Joanna completely messed her up. Amy Montengro was involved in a cracking fight with Jamie Moyle at Invicta 13 which is worth checking out if you haven't seen it. I'm not really too familiar with the others apart from Jodie Esquibel who fights out of Jackson-Wink and would have to be considered one of the favourites on paper, but I can't recall seeing her up to much over the last year or so.

Anyway, the season premieres on Wednesday April 20th with a 2 hour special featuring the fights to get into the house. Same story as usual from then on with regards to scheduling. It'll be broadcast on Fox on Wednesday nights in the States, and available for us to "acquire" by Thursday morning.

I'm really looking forward to the fight between Joanna and Claudia at the end of the season. I've watched the first fight back a number of times now and I struggle to see how Joanna won it in any way, shape or form. No doubt she has improved immensely since then so it's a serious challenge for Gadelha, but it'll be intriguing to see how it goes.

Dana said previously that both fighters came to blows at the end of the season, but unfortunately the cameras didn't capture it so we won't get to see it. This is what he said in relation to the fight:

"Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Claudia Gadelha, on the last day of filming when everything shut down, got into a full-blown fist fight," White said. "Head kicks. Nasty fight in The Ultimate Fighter gym."

White separated Jedrzejczyk and Gadelha on Friday at the press conference just like he did in the final square off of the TUF season. But White was not around when the two were nearly alone together after the show wrapped, he said.

"The show is over, the cameras were put away," White said. "The sad and scary part was very few people were left in the gym. The last day of The Ultimate Fighter is almost like the last day of school. Everybody is signing each other's stuff and all this other stuff."

White said the two had a volatile relationship all season. And during the final faceoff, Gadelha cut off whatever Jedrzejczyk was going to say. White said Gadelha told Jedrzejczyk, "Shut the f*ck up, bitch."

"[She said,] 'I'm so ****ing sick of listening to your mouth,'" White said. "And they started going at it and I pulled them apart."

The UFC boss said after the show finished up they were sitting on the benches and Jedrzejczyk threw a water bottle at Gadelha. Then, it erupted.

"You noticed when they were showing each other the water bottles [during the press conference]?" White said. "Joanna Jedrzejczyk hit her with a water bottle and that's how the fight started. Wait until you see this season of The Ultimate Fighter with these two. They hate each other and the staredown in the gym was even crazy before the fight happened."

At the "Unstoppable" press conference, Gadelha made a reference to the brawl.

"The bottle didn't hit me, but I kicked you, remember?" she said.

The actual fight will not be aired, because cameras didn't catch it. But White said the season was intense.

The finale, which is headlined by the above bout for the strawweight title, takes place on Friday July 8th. The UFC are going to do with UFC 200 week what they did with UFC 194 week - have 3 days of consecutive events. This finale will be sandwiched in-between an as of yet unannounced Fight Night and UFC 200.

Paully D

Tonight.

Wrongway1985

Ya recognize a few of those straw weights from Invicta alright, namely Jodie Esquebel,Ashley Cummins, JJ Aldritch and Jamie Moyle. Certainly Jodie and Ashley provided the talent is somewhat decent shouldn't come close to winning this at all although there is 2 girls on there that don't even have a W.

Hopefully the Light heavys are decent as that division could really do with some new blood. The Josh Stansbury lad has been in there with Stipe before although at amateur.

Paully D

Wrongway1985 wrote: »

Ya recognize a few of those straw weights from Invicta alright, namely Jodie Esquebel,Ashley Cummins, JJ Aldritch and Jamie Moyle. Certainly Jodie and Ashley provided the talent is somewhat decent shouldn't come close to winning this at all although there is 2 girls on there that don't even have a W.

W's are overrated. :pac:

Zero-Cool

Looking forward to this!

Richard tea

Will this be available on ufc.tv tomorrow?

mailburner

bt sports 2 @ 3am
roll on the morning

clever user name

First episode is always the best, lots of fights and no bullsh*t. Couple of surprises there and some decent fights.

Khalil

,

Josh

and

Sanchez

look good. I thought the

Jody

and

Ashley

fight definitely should have gone to a third round.

Fair play to the two british girls, they looked good. Will be rooting for them. Especially Lanchana, kneeing machine.

I added spoiler tags because I don't want to ruin it for anyone, someone let me know if I should bother doing this in future

mailburner

not sure what the rule is on that one..maybe 24hrs after being aired?
repeats on bt2 at 10 tonight

John_D80

As per the forum charter, No need for spoiler tags in this, the official thread.

But spoiler tags must be used for 48 hours after the show airs if it's betting discussed in another thread.

fermanagh_man

Great first episode

Much better standard than last TUF in my opinion

CatFromHue

looks like they've put all the fights up on the UFC youtube page

Richard tea

I honestly thought fight pass included the latest fights. Unless I'm missing them?

ASOT

That soccer kick to the ribs by Khalil made me wince, he will be very tough to beat.

Zero-Cool

Great 1st ep. Lots of great fighters but lots of doo doo as well. Some were missing basic jiujitsu while some couldn't strike to save their life. Awesome when Lanchana unleashed the knees and some amount of RNC's. Same as Asot, winced with that kick to the ribs.

martyos121

Saw it earlier, Khalil looks like the man to beat so far, reminds me a bit of Dudley from Street Fighter with that stache but that's neither here nor there! :pac:

Paully D

Hawes was so disappointing.

You'd have to feel for Jodie Esquibel who was robbed. Everyone in the building including Yoder seemed to think so too.

Rountree v Hendricks is a very interesting to fight to start things off in the house with them being teammates and training partners.

It looks like an enjoyable season ahead.

Devastator

ASOT wrote: »

That soccer kick to the ribs by Khalil made me wince, he will be very tough to beat.

a hugely underused strike in MMA!

ASOT

Devastator wrote: »

a hugely underused strike in MMA!

I'd imagine because if it isn't timed right you'll end up getting a point deduction for it!

Devastator

ASOT wrote: »

I'd imagine because if it isn't timed right you'll end up getting a point deduction for it!

point deduction for kicking someone in the ribs?

ASOT

Devastator wrote: »

point deduction for kicking someone in the ribs?

If its mistimed it could strike the head.

Devastator

ASOT wrote: »

If its mistimed it could strike the head.

:pac: Not sure if your on the wind up or not :pac:



If someone's timing is so bad that they aim for the ribs but kick the head instead they really need to find another sport.

ASOT

Devastator wrote: »

:pac: Not sure if your on the wind up or not :pac:



If someone's timing is so bad that they aim for the ribs but kick the head instead they really need to find another sport.

Not just timing if the person moves etc, well that's what I always took from it why it hasn't been used haha

Devastator

ASOT wrote: »

Not just timing if the person moves etc, well that's what I always took from it why it hasn't been used haha

Not sure about movement either. Using the TUF fight as the example, when a fighter in down, turtled up and trying to survive how quickly or where/how could they move their body that their head would take a strike rather than their ribs? I think if it does start to be used more then it will be a move that there will be talk of banning, I think the risk to broken ribs possibly punctured lungs etc makes it a hard strike to watch.

Why is it not used more? I think most fighters when they see their opponent turtled like that automatically think they have to swing punches until the ref steps in or flatten them out to get a choke or another sub.

TimRiggins

Nobody is liking this Joanna/Gadelha feud more than Dana.

MagicIRL

Really enjoyed the opening episode. The soccer kick KO was incredible. I don't see him winning it though, especially after his post fight interview about getting angry for yer man having the cheek to try choke him. Think he could struggle against a technical striker too, but not sure any fo the 205ers have that in their locker. We shall see...

I thought the most impressive was the jiujitsu lad (Can't remember his name) who came in, single legged, took the back and sunk in the choke in the blink of an eye. Very technical.

shrapnel222

Devastator wrote: »

:pac: Not sure if your on the wind up or not :pac:



If someone's timing is so bad that they aim for the ribs but kick the head instead they really need to find another sport.

isn't that known as the "POC kick" ?:pac:

smilerf

shrapnel222 wrote: »

isn't that known as the "POC kick" ?:pac:

I'm really hating Johanna.
She's a arrogant bully

clever user name

Joanna coming across as a bit of douche in that episode.

Johner

This is my first time watching TUF and I'm enjoying it so far. One question though.

Is Khalil out of it now after he lost? Or does he get another chance later? Does he leave the show now? Was sure he would beat Cory

Johner

smilerf wrote: »

I'm really hating Johanna.
She's a arrogant bully

clever user name wrote: »

Joanna coming across as a bit of douche in that episode.

I'll be rooting for Claudia in the rematch.