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Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was back on cable television last night (Fri., April 13, 2012) with episode six of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 15 "Live" on FX.
And the most interesting character on the show has fallen.
Indeed, the oft troubled Chris Tickle climbed inside the cage for his first fight since making it into the house and the result was a first round submission defeat at the hands of Joe Proctor.
The louder they are, the more pleasurable it is to see them get choked out.
Tickle's antics, namely the fact that he's simply a natural heel and an easy to hate character, provided one of the few bright spots for a show sorely lacking excitement over the first half of this latest season.
And now he's gone.
That's the bad news. The good news is he may have been replaced by an even more interesting character with even more fighting skill -- Justin Lawrence.
The Team Black House trained striker made waves when sparring with Mike Rio and directly disobeying the rules of the gym, rules put forward by Dominick Cruz himself. When Rio didn't take well to this, Lawrence displayed a rebellious, unapologetic side we hadn't been exposed to prior.
In short, he gave hope that he would not only kick ass inside the cage like he did in the very first fight in the house, but he would also provide a few cheap thrills in the training room.
Hey, with a show like this, you take what you can get.
This rings especially true when considering the two coaches have yet to do much of anything to bring across the point that they don't actually like each other. Sure, they've made a few cracks at one another but the best Cruz could come up with for Urijah Faber was the following put down:
"The only thing you could ever beat me in is a short off, Faber."
Yes, those words were actually uttered on a television broadcast featuring a grown man talking to another grown man. This is the state of this stale show.
Nonetheless, it will go on and next week will showcase yet another fight between two guys we hardly know but will have 45-minutes to learn about next Friday night.
Joy.
For complete results and the running live blog of last night's TUF 15, episode six click here.