By Brent Wilson

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So I was dead wrong on the big fight from this weekend....but I'm man enough to admit it. I thought that Lovemore N'dou was tough enough to stick on the outside and land enough shots to keep it close with Kermit Cintron....and Cintron blew him out, even attempting a behind-the-back punch. Oh yeah, and that Brock Lesnar thing to.
The only way to ease this gnawing pain deep inside my soul is to make fun of Frank Mir's conditioning.

Frank Mir has poor cardio.

Phew, I feel much better.

Show recap----

Tonight we have the final quarterfinal bout, it's at Lightweight between Team Mir's George Roop and Team Nog's John Polakowski.
We get a quick recap of last weeks fight where Krzystof Soszynski beat Kyle Kingsbury by armbar, a lot of people questioned why Kingsbury took Soszynski down as he had no jiu-jitsu....however he also had limited standup which was where Soszynski's real strength lies. After the fight Soszynski walks around the cage yelling "I've got jiu-jitsu too!" but Junie Browning sums it up correctly with "Yeah, but Kingsbury didn't."

John Polakowski gets his gimmick of "the hyper guy" driven home with a montage of him hugging his housemates and jumping around. Junie feels that Polakowski is one of those guys that you can't help but like. Phillipe Nover asks how anyone could fight Polakowski...well Olaf Alfonso (who is Polakowski's only opponent, three times over) will fight anyone.

George Roop relates his tough upbringing as a white boy on the mean streets of Tuscon, Arizona. He feels he turned his life around at eighteen by getting into MMA and that he's also fighting against people's perceptions that he'll never make any money fighting. While sparring in the cage with Shane Nelson, Roop gets pushed back defending a takedown and hyperextends some fingers on his right hand getting them caught in the cage. The hand swells badly and Roop has trouble making a fist but says he will fight through it no matter what. Finger and hand injuries are very, very common while training, it's just that most guys fight through them and you never hear about it. Soszynski fought through a thumb injury on the last episode for Team Mir.

Polakowskis' hyper-nice guy montage from earlier is a prelude to him getting pissed at marshmallows going missing from his Lucky Charms.........seriously. Polakowski felt that he was nothing but nice to the other team, and that this is a slap in the face to him. He says he won't do anything back but wants to settle it in the cage. Polakowski feels that Roop throws lots of kicks, and that he'll use that to step inside and in-fight with punches and elbows. We see Polakowski apologize to Nover while sparring with him and Nover wonders if Polakowski has the mean, aggressive spirit to win in the cage. Nogueira thinks that Polakowski is a killer on the inside.
And Nog is right, Polakowskis first fight against Olaf was an incredible standup war and got some underground support for Fight of the Year for 2004.

Roop's hand is no better and is having trouble punching with it. Mir says the gameplan for Roop will be to work the jab, right roundhouse to the legs to keep Polakowski on the outside, and then when Polakowski runs in to take him down as Polakowski has the worst ground game in the house. That's probably not too far off, Polakowsi took that fight in '04 on short notice and there was special rules limiting fighting on the ground. Nog agrees that Roop has the big advantage on the ground, but notices immediately that Roop's right hand is swelling huge. Dana agrees with me that the fight should be gangbusters as both guys are scrappy and Polakowski has a huge chin.

This might have been my favorite episode so far this season in terms of building the fight. They've just spent all episode so far focusing on the two guys, Polakowski's personality, how they're both super-tough, how they both have liabilities in their ground game for John Polakowski and a ganked up hand for Roop. It's simple, but it works, as almost everyone watching hasn't seen these guys fight outside Roops clipped fight win against Roli Delgado from the prelims by guillotine and Polakowski winning by injury stoppage against Wesley Murch....where Polakowski showed his ground game liabilities in losing the first round.

Wait, the Spikes promo to congratulate Brock Lesnar for winning the title was "SIZE MATTERS"? Are they trying to troll the internet fans? Seriously, they're just encouraging the dumb dumbies who think Lesnar only wins because of his weight, and that MMA needs more weightclasses....even though MMA currently has more classes from 170+ than boxing does.

George Roop (8-3) vs. John Polakowski (2-1)

Round 1

The two hug after touching gloves.

That deserved to be its own paragraph. Roop sticks to the gameplan throwing a blocked headkick, pumping two jabs, and finishing with a leg kick. Roop with another blocked head kick, and again. Roop with a push kick then a knee to the body, Polakowski comes up short on a pair of jabs. Roop is doing a great job of keeping the distance so that he can land kicks to the legs and body but that Polakowski is coming up well short on his punches. Polakowski misses several more times before landing a hard left, the best shot by either so far. Roop ducks under Polakowskis punches and takes him down easily with a double leg shot. Roop postures up in Polakowskis full guard and lands some hard left elbows. Roop crouches and lands some more lefts, he throws his first rights from the ground as well. Roop passes to side easily throwing Polakowskis legs away and lands some left hammerfists and knees to the body. Polakowski kicks off the cage and it looks like he thought about rolling for a leglock attempt but at the very least regains full guard.
Roop stacks Polakowski against the cage in halfguard and starts landing elbows again.

Polakowski rolls over and looks to stand, Roop takes his back and sinks one hook in. Roop locks the other in and flips Polakowski onto his back while backmounting him. While fighting off a rear naked choke attempt Polakowski is able to turn his right leg to the outside of the hook and then turn into hit, ending up on top in Roops guard. Roop frames his hips up to look for a submission attempt but doesn't have posture or arm control and so this just results in him eating some hammerfists. Roop now breaks down Polakowskis posture and lands a short elbow from the bottom. Polakowski is able to posture up a few times but is having trouble landing, he's too wide on his shots and Roop is doing a great job of swimming with the shots making them land to the outside. At the very end of the round Polakowski takes better control by dirty boxing on the ground with measured shots and has more success. Even still Roop was probably more active with strikes from the bottom. Easy Roop round, he's not letting Polakowski brawl it up and fight his fight. Team Nog somehow tells Polakowski he won the first.

Round 2

There will be no hug this time as Roop sprints across the cage and lands a body kick and another. Polakowski is throwing a lot more shots, but still none of them are landing as he is standing on the outside throwing and not wading into the pocket to throw. Roop steps in for him and Polakowski lands a hard left.  Roop looks a little shaken by that and ends up too close to the cage, he starts to circle away but the cage keeps him in punching range and Polakowski lands two shorter lefts. From the clinch it's Polakowski with knees to the body, Roop looks a little gassed and his mouth is wide open. Roop has seemingly lost his footwork and is standing right in front of Polakowski looking to trade and losing. Roop eats a right. Polakowski with a knee to the head from the clinch, Roop with a push kick with nothing on it. Roop got really tired really fast and Polakowski is easily able to close in and land, Roop with a nice uppercut back from the clinch and seperates. Polakowski just walks back in, walks through a knee in the clinch and lands two overhand rights while Roop holds the clinch Rosholt-Osterneck style. Roop has had enough and shoots in and dumps Polakowski down into side control. Polakowski shrimps back to halfguard and then to full easily.

Roop is still easily able to posture up and hits with a few punches. Roop with a nasty elbow the cuts Polakowski open on the bridge of the nose. Roops gastank is still betraying him on the ground as he isn't very active, and Polakowski is able to take advantage by kicking away while Roop is crouching, postured high in his guard. Polakowski scrambles to his knees but Roop sprawls nicely and flattens out the reversal attempt and quickly switches to Polakowskis back. Roop sinks both hooks in and again flips Polakowski onto his back. Roop locks a body triangle in this time to prevent Polakowski from turning into him this time. Polakowskis is using the earmuff defense to fight off the rear naked choke which leaves him open to elbows to the body from Roop to try and drop Polakowskis hands. Polakowski also isn't keeping his chin tucked so if Roop slips an arm in it will be over. Polakowski is able to squirm enough to fight off the attempt to close out the round. Close round due to Polakowski dominating in the early going but Roop probably takes it in the judges eyes by closing out the round in control and threating a submission for a full ninety seconds. Roop 10-9 and 20-18.

Decent fight, and again it went largely how you would expect it to, Roop in control when it's on the outside, Polakowski when Roop ventured inside and brawled it out, and Roop able to dominate on the ground. Dana thinks that Polakowski got robbed since Roop did no damage on the ground. Roop had a body triangle from back control? What damage was he supposed to do from there? It was a close round but far from a robbery, and far from the worst scoring on this season alone.

They pump up the upcoming semi-finals in the coming weeks, it'll be Vinny Magalhaes vs. Krzystof Soszynski in an all-Team Mir and all-Team Quest Temecula LHW semi and Eliot Marshall vs. Ryan Bader in the other, which I think is the fairest matchups. Apparently Junie Browning "crosses the line" and does some crazy, will he get to fight? Who knows? Some big time deja vu there.

To close out this episode Soszynski throws some eggs at the rest of the guys while they're in the hot tub, Junie goes crazy early and charges up onto the deck and slams the door yelling and screaming.

For the Lightweight Semis we have Team Mirs Junie Browning vs. Team Nogs' Efrain Escudero and Team Nogs' Phillipe Nover against Team Mirs' George Roop.

Anyway watch Strikeforce on Friday, Smith/Martin, Edwards/Bang, and Riggs/Stewart are all great fun...and Babalu/Southworth and Kim Couture are, ummm, free fights. I'll be forced to record it and watch it later as I'm going to be semi-close to ringside for Steve Molitor/Celestino Caballero, where hometown boy Molitor is going to get wrecked. So yeah, watch fights because fights are good, and stuff.