by: Denny “The Mad One” Hodge

The episode begins with a re-cap from last week with Efrain’s win, and Junie blowing up after the fight.

Coach Mir talks about the fact that Coach Nogueira was basically forced to restrain Junie after the emotional fighter jumped the fence, screaming to Efrain about laying on Shane Nelson the whole fight.

UFC President Dana White once again points to Junie having “9 lives”, and that he dodged another bullet with the absence of NSAC Executive Director Keith Kizer. Dana said that had he been present, Junie may have lost his license to fight and likely would have been kicked off the show.

The title of the show on my Direct TV schedule was “From Chill to Kill”, which is a quote from Junie saying that he can “go to chill to kill real fast.” It’s going to be interesting to see how much of the talk this guy can back up. Coach Nog believes that Junie’s big talk can be attributed to him being scared and insecure, and that “he’ll be the next one to tap”.

Junie obviously wants to fight Efrain, and Efrain lets the viewers know that he wants to be the one to take Junie out as well. Hopefully we will see this match up later down the road, if Junie doesn’t get thrown out of the house first.

Shane Primm

Junie knows he is once again fortunate to stay on the show and approaches Coach Mir to apologize for his latest antics. Mir lets him know that his actions reflect on him as a coach, and that he didn’t do anything to get this attention. Mir lets Junie know that he has to “make it up” with actions and not just talk going forward.

Back at the house, Shane Primm is in the hot tub talking with Junie and lets him know that the talk is that Phillipe Nover may be the one to fight Junie next. Junie refers to Phillipe as the “the sacrificial lamb”.

Junie remains relatively calm throughout the discussion but does mention that being on the show is the worst decision he has ever made and that, “I hate having to be in this [expletive] house without being able to [expletive] punch someone.”

The enigmatic fighter goes on to say that if he was to lose to any of the guys in the house that he will stop fighting and get a job at a factory. I couldn’t even imagine working with that guy in a factory!!

At the training center, Team Nogueira is starting their training session, when the door pops open and Anderson Silva walks in. Its obvious that the team is excited for the opportunity to train with Silva, with Primm calling Silva “a ninja on his feet”.

Silva is animated and joking as usual, and his English is much improved as he talks about the talent that the team has, and steps into the Octagon for some sparring.
Ryan Bader is shown sparring with “The Spider”, and the session warms up fast, with Silva pushing to Bader to keep coming. Silva tells Bader to come at him full speed, and Bader obliges, catching Silva with some nice shots, that Silva just shrugs off.

It’s prank time back at the house with the usual suspects. Krzysztof Soszynski is leading the way once again, collecting Efrain’s underwear, drenching them in water, saran wrapping them, then freezing them. I’m not sure what the fascination with underwear is on this show, but they seem to be a repeated target for this team.
The fun is just beginning, as itching powder is put into all of the beds, and even on Phillipe’s robe.

Efrain returns and finds the note about his underwear and is pretty amused at first. The team helps him find his frozen garments, but they have yet to discover the powder, until Efrain complains about his butt itching.

Junie Browning

In the van on the way to the gym, talks of retaliation are now in full swing with ideas ranging from altered meatballs, shaven remnants of personal hair, to tuna water.

It’s now time at the training center for the fight pick, and team Nogueira mentions that it is usually pretty secretive and often they don’t even know who is fighting until Nog’s announcement. Big Nog announces that Eliot Marshall will be fighting, then informs everyone that Shane Primm will be facing him for the LHW elimination bout.

Back at the house, Team Nogueira quickly decides that stinking cans of sardines are a perfect remedy for their revenge. The team works quickly spreading juice, and fish parts all over the beds and walls of the Team Mir members. They even take it a step further by pouring the oil from the cans in between the mattress and box springs of the beds.

Team Mir returns and finds that their rooms have been contaminated with sardine remains and aromatic oils. Sos as usual is pleased with his efforts. Most of the guys don’t think it’s a big deal commenting that it doesn’t even really smell that bad, but Vinny Magalhaes is pretty pissed off about the whole thing.

Vinny tries to find who is responsible, and upon finding an open bunk, he whips it out and urinates on the bed which happens to belong to Efrain Escudero.

The next day, Big Nog believes that Shane will win the fight and is impressed with his positive attitude and strong work ethic, commenting that these attributes made him want to pick Shane first.

Mir talks about Eliot being a beast in training, and that if he could match his performance from training in his fights that he will one day be “a very famous person”.

At the gym Efrain is shown laying down taking a break and Nogueira asks why he is so tired, and finds out about the pranks at the house. Nogueira is worried that the pranks and lack of sleep will effect the fighters performance. Big Nog approaches Frank Mir to get them to stop, and Mir pretty much walks away without much of a response.

Nogueira and “Stankie” show up at the house to try to stop the “games”. Most of the fighters don’t seem too concerned and Sos apologizes to anyone that feels he went too far, but quickly lets everyone know when the next prank will take place.

It’s now fight time with both fighters looking very confidant.

Eliot Marshall

The bell rings, and Shane looks relaxed and throws a superman punch, and moves in for the clinch to try to work some knees. Eliot takes the fight to the ground from there and quickly gets a dominant mount position, forcing Shane to roll.

Eliot then takes Shane’s back, locks in a body triangle, and goes for an RNC.
Shane defends well, but is unable to roll into Eliot to reverse position. Eliot alternates arms and keeps the pressure on going for the choke. Shane looks relaxed but makes a mistake leaving the door open for Eliot to get one arm deep under his chin, forcing him to tap pretty quickly.

In the locker room, Krzysztof and Eliot are discussing the rumor that Shane Primm really gives Bader problems in sparring, and this prompts the two to believe that they may be facing each other in the finals. Vinny is upset over this talk, and disagrees that this will be the case.

The win for Team Mir swings control to them, and the preview shows that Junie will be facing Roli Delgado next week. The previews show parts of the fight and Delgado seems to be hanging in their with Junie pretty well in the standing game. Will Junie come through in this fight or prove to be just a lot of hype?

You can catch Denny “MadOne” Hodge every Thursday morning on TAGG Radio at 11:00am CT giving his recap of the previous evening’s TUF 8 episode. Denny trains at Guardian MMA in Murfreesboro, TN which happens to be the former home gym of Shane Primm, who is on this season’s The Ultimate Fighter.

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