TUF 8 – Team Nogueira vs. Team Mir – Episode 9 Re-Cap

By Denny “The Mad One” Hodge

It’s time for the Light Heavyweights this week with Krzysztof Soszynski facing Kyle Kingsbury.

The real KO action this week is seen before the actual fight in the Ocatagon, and takes place at the TUF house.

Nover’s performance from last week cemented his place as a real threat to walk away as the lightweight Ultimate Fighter this season.

Kryzstof is shown with his thumb being worked on and it looks pretty bad with Sos thinking that it may possibly be fractured.  Mir brings in his guy Don House to evaluate the extent of the injury and to give Sos some pointers on protecting his hand.  House concludes that the injury will be fine for Krzysztof to continue in the competition.

At the house the drinking has begun with Kaplan and Lawlor hitting multiple shots of Vodka.  Dave begins the talk about not being able to be KO’d.  Dave is pretty blitzed and starts calling out fighters challenging someone to try to knock him out, all while clad in speedos.

Kaplan and Lawlor head back into the house, with Dave pleading with Lawlor to hit him to test his theory about being immune to KO‘s.  Tom doesn’t want to play this game, but agrees and drops Dave with a right as we go to commercial.

Back to the show, and Kaplan looks like he is out cold.  He claims that he wasn’t knocked out, but the video proves that he was sleeping like a baby.  I’m no Herb Dean, but even I can recognize a knock out.

It’s time for the fight announcement and there really is no build up as we know that the match up is between Sos and Kingsbury.  All of the fighters comment that Krzysztof is overlooking Kyle and looking ahead to the finals.  Krzysztof adds his own two cents saying, “There is nobody in this house I have a fear of… they are all scared of me.”

Bader and the rest of Team Nogueira is already planning the next prank, with Krzysztof being the target.  The team starts with moving Sos’s bed and other effects, and then proceeding to stuff as many household items as possible into his room.

We get to see Dan Henderson in this episode as a guest coach to work with Krzysztof, bringing him some familiarity for his training.

Krzysztof arrives and finds the handiwork of Team Nogueira, and his slightly impressed with the prank, while planning his next phase of trickery in the house.

Now we get to see the coaches challenge.  Soccer is the challenge, and like 99.9999% of Brazilians play the sport.  It seems that this was challenge was set up for Nogueira to run away with.  We quickly find out that Big Nog has never played soccer (or so he says).

It’s a one on one challenge, with each coach alternating taking shots at the goal while the other goal tends, first one to 10 wins.  Big Nog gets the early lead, and Mir starts to get pissed with Nogueira’s team yelling “gooooaaaaalll!!!”, every time there coach scores.  Clearly agitated, Mir remarks that “A lot of them are losers, they are never going to be studs, that’s just the way it is.”

Mir doesn’t seem to into it, stopping shots that come right to him, while Nogueira is diving left and right to stop everything within range.  Dana sums up Mir by saying, “He’s not [expletive] up his hair to win this game, OK.“

Big Nog hits the last goal and secures victory for his team, earns a bonus of $10,000 for himself, and $1000 each for his fighters.  Mir continues to whine about being a better athlete, but sure didn’t show too much in this challenge.

Kyle gives us a brief background about him playing college football at ASU, and that his father originally didn’t support him fighting, or to be more exact boxing.  “Krzysztof was the first pick and that’s a good thing, because that puts all the pressure on him.”

Krzysztof is back at it again, taking all of the dishes, utensils, and even the dining room table out to the basketball court for his latest prank.  Krzysztof tells us about the harshness of living in Poland, and the families decision to move to Canada for a better life, paving the way for him to chase his dreams.

Back from the break and Sos’s prank is revealed with every dish layed out side by side all around the basketball court.

Krzysztof admits that he is feeling the pressure being the number one pick for the LHW’s.  Kyle appears relaxed and tells the world that he is not intimidated by the tough guy looks and the bald head.  Enough of the talk, it’s time for the fight!

We are underway, with a touch of the gloves.  Sos starts with a low kick, and a nice body shot.  In the clinch both fighters are working knees with Kyle being a little busier.  Krzysztof catches a knee to the jewels, and Herb warns them to keep it clean.

Krzysztof lands a nice right, and gets double unders driving Kyle into the fence.  Sos uses the positioning for some dirty boxing with a nice uppercut.  Kyle works and earns a takedown and finds himself in Sos’s full guard.

Sos works a high guard with Kyle trying to stack him, but Krzysztof works and gets an arm.  Kyle struggles to defend the arm bar but taps moments later.  Krzysztof by arm bar in Round 1.

Kyle admits that 6 months on the ground is not enough to fight guys of this caliber on the show, and Nogueira extends an invite for him to attend his school to sharpen up his jiu jitsu.

The semi’s are now set for Light Heavy’s, and we have Roop and Polakowski matched up for the final slot for the Light Weights.  Next week we will also get to see the match ups for the semi’s.