James Horne is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir. He currently serves as an assistant coach under Frank on season eight of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 8 on Spike TV. He will provide a behind the scenes perspective as we head head into the homestretch of the series. This column is sponsored by Kill It Clothing.
Last night's episode of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) begins with a recap of the lightweight fight between Phillipe Nover and Dave Kaplan. Of course, it didn't last long because Dave -- by his own admission -- stepped into the Octagon with a horrible gameplan.
In fact, he was more than likely doomed to lose in the locker room before the fight.
He simply didn't do what we had talked about in training and while preparing for the fight. We knew that Phillipe was very dangerous, resilient and well rounded. Dave walked out there and stood in the center of the cage and basically dared Phillipe to exchange with him without offering up much of a defense … or offense for that matter.
Dave is actually a member of our gym at Striking Unlimited in Las Vegas, Nevada. He continues to train along with me and Frank Mir. And from working with him so much we know that he is a very talented, durable and smart fighter. I think he just got caught up in the moment and lost focus on what he had to do to win against Phillipe.
That's some real bad timing, especially against an unforgiving fighter like Phillipe.
In the end, Dave paid for his mistake and it's unlikely he'll make it again. Frank always talks about how mental mixed martial arts is … and he's right. In short, Dave is an intelligent guy and he learned his lesson.
Or did he?
Shortly after the loss Dave drowned his spirits with massive amounts of alcohol. Tom Lawlor, being the good friend that he is, made the selfless sacrifice to ensure that Dave did not feel alone, drinking himself silly alongside Dave for most of the evening.
What happened later, therefore, should not have come as much of a surprise. Unless, of course, your name is Dave Kaplan.
Even to this day Dave talks about how he has such a good chin and can take a punch with the best of them. Again, from experience, I can vouch for him to an extent -- Dave has a great jaw and not many 155-pound fighters could turn his lights out.
The only problem is that Lawlor is a big guy at 205 pounds … much bigger than Dave. I think in his drunken state Dave may have lost sight of the obvious size difference and he paid dearly for it.
Despite what he says or thinks, the cameras proved that Dave was knocked out, unless there was a faulty microphone that was buzzing and he decided to take a nap at that precise moment. Put simply, with that many drinks and a 205 pounder throwing a straight right with no gloves it's a guaranteed knockout.
Next up was the coaches challenge, which pitted Frank against Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira in a soccer-style showdown. Frank can probably count on one hand the number of times he has kicked a soccer ball, much less tried to score a goal.
Frank is a very competitive guy, so it came as no surprise that he became quickly irritated when he missed those first few shots. The cameras made it appear that Nogueira was some amazing goalkeeper, diving left and right to save all these shots.
That's the beauty of editing -- Frank actually put six in the back of the net even though it appeared that he scored like only twice.
In addition, no matter what he says, Nogueira has played enough soccer in his lifetime to know that he is not good at it and to know he doesn't like it. That's way more than Frank can say -- he has never played has never played soccer a day in his life.
Whatever, that's the hand he was dealt and he played it well despite the movie magic. What wasn't magic, however, was the behavior of Kyle Kingsbury screaming "Gooooooooooooooooooal" throughout the competition.
That was clearly over the top, but karma is a bitch. Walking off the field, we knew that Krzysztof Soszynski was the man who would ultimately shut up Kingsbury with his fists. We were right … kinda.
Krzysztof has some real heavy hands and his striking is very good. That's the reason there was so much concern surrounding his injured thumb. It's nearly impossible to be as effective as possible if you can't close your fist and do what you want to do.
It's just one more thing he has to worry about and plan around come fight time.
Fortunately, he has a solid ground game, which the cameras seem to have neglected throughout training. He works over at Team Quest with Dan Henderson and those guys so he drills all aspects of the sport.
I was glad, therefore, that he ended the fight with a nice quick armbar. Krzysztof is clearly not just all stand up and master prankster. Last night's first round submission win proved that fact.
In addition, it is nice to see a fighter take this opportunity for what it is and not get wasted every night and act a fool but instead put his pent up energy to his clever and hilarious pranks. It was also nice not to hear Kyle Kingsbury scream "goal" at the end of his fight.
He should spend more time on the mat and less time cheerleading for Noguiera.
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