Sherdog.com's Guide to TUF 8

“Why is this happening?”

Not sure exactly who said it, but this week one of the contestants finally vocalized what all of America is thinking about this season of TUF. I’ll get to what brought us to this point in just a minute. Last week Dave Kaplan took the wrong approach and got dismantled by Phillipe Nover. This week it was time for the light heavyweight bracket to be set as Kyle Kingsbury and Krzysztof Soszynski were the last two to fight.

“You’d be surprised at how many people and who I’ve made tap on my table,” said the doctor as he worked on Soszynski’s injured hand.

Kaplan and Tom Lawlor decided to get some drinking in for the ubiquitous post-loss celebration. Kaplan and his freshly blackened eye took down shot after shot until shot until statements like, “UFC, keep having me back because I cannot be knocked out,” began to emerge. Kaplan and company kept drinking until things escalated to the point that they were drinking each other’s urine.

Yes, that’s right. On the heels of last week’s body fluid bonanza, Lawlor spritzed into a shot glass and then Kaplan knocked it down like a fat co-ed on Jaeger. Kaplan then took it a step further, reaching for the entire glass while Bader booted up his lunch in the kitchen. Those that weren’t laughing recoiled in justifiable horror as Lawlor yanked the glass from Kaplan and finished it.

“Why is this happening?”

Even Steve-O would be appalled. Of course Lawlor had feelings and he wanted everything to be fair, so he then drank Kaplan’s pee. What a treat. I’m officially done with dudes. I don’t ever want to enter another locker room. I don’t ever want to see a prefight weigh-in. I don’t want to be in another golf foursome. I’m not cooking out with you or going to your bachelor party. From now on, I’m sticking with the fairer sex. Sure, they’ll get bossy with you and talk your ear off, but for God’s sake, they won’t make you drink their pee-pee or rub their junk on your coffee mug.

Of course the night wasn’t over for these two. You can’t just get drunk, drink each other’s expel and go to bed in peace, now can you? Kaplan was serious about the fact that he can’t be knocked out. So much so, that he tried to convince Lawlor to hit him in the face. He begged and pleaded until finally Lawlor walloped him on the chin and knocked him out cold.

Kaplan dropped like the Dow Jones, and afterward Lawlor slapped him around to revive him. According to Kaplan, he was conscious the whole time: “I mean, did it knock me down? Yeah, but I wasn’t knocked out.”

Kaplan might want to reexamine the definition of the term. If Kaplan’s still never been knocked out, then I’ve never told a lie and dinosaurs do not exist.

After he recovered, Lawlor asked Kaplan, “You do realize what just happened, don’t you?”

Kaplan nodded, answering “No.” Here’s what happened, Dave. You lost your fight by allowing your opponent to hit you for free, spent the night drinking piss and low-priced vodka and finished the night by getting slapped loopy. Someone call VH1 because you had the best week ever.

Back to more hygienic hijinks as Team Nogueira decided to give the house prank monkey, Krzysztof Soszynski, a taste of his own medicine. Every item in the house that wasn’t tied down was shoved into Soszynski’s room. Soszynski was unaware, as he got to spend some time with Dan Henderson, who had showed up to help him prep for his fight.

“Even though he’s got a hurt hand, I’ve seen him push through worse injuries,” said Henderson, convinced that Soszynski would prevail.

Back at the house, Soszynski got revenge by stacking every plate and piece of silverware on the basketball court. Fighters were fetching bowls and spoons all day long, much to Soszynski’s delight.

This week I watched TUF with my Sherdog radio partner, Rodney, and to give you an idea of how nasty this show has gotten, we were both legitimately elated to see the coaches challenge. Each season the coaches have to compete in a non-MMA sporting event for money. It usually sucks and will bore you to tears, but for once it was a welcome change from having to watch boys drink each other’s wiener water.

This season the challenge was soccer, and although Nogueira is from Brazil, he’s no Pele.

“I was the only guy who didn’t play,” he said. “I never played soccer in my life because I was the worst player in Brazil.”

Nogueira laughed, but Mir wasn’t convinced. Let’s be real honest. Even the worst player in Brazil could probably beat 99 percent of Americans in a shootout. Both of the coaches were truly terrible, trading awful shots on each other until Kyle Kingsbury got into Mir’s head by screaming “Gooooaaaal!” like a proper Latin American announcer.

Mir is an accomplished fighter that can handle himself well in the broadcast booth as well, so it was funny to see him squirm over something as trivial as soccer.

“At first I was really upset with them, as far as how disrespectful they are, but then I realized a lot of them are losers. They’ll never be studs. That’s just the way it is,” Mir said.

Just a tiny bit of insight into his competitive nature; these guys don’t like to lose at anything.

Nogueira pulled out the win and took home the perfunctory 10 grand. His team celebrated with him since they got some cash too.

Time for the fight, and while Kingsbury was hoping to make the transition from football standout to fighter, he had a tough draw in Soszynski. Kingsbury had built a solid record outside of the show, but it was against opponents nowhere near the caliber of what Soszynski saw when he was in the IFL.

Soszynski is widely regarded as one of the better strikers in the house, and he connected early with a good body shot in his fight with Kingsbury. The fighters traded a few knees, some landing off target and catching Soszynski in the pills. After a warning from Herb Dean, Soszynski landed a few more hard shots until settling for the underhooks and working in an uppercut or two.

Kingsbury jump-planted Soszynski onto his back, but from there it was over as Soszynski snagged an arm and worked in an easy armbar about halfway through the first round.

“I got jiu-jitsu too!” he warned the other team as he stalked the ring.

Kingsbury showed promise, though, and I doubt we’ve seen the last of him. Next week we’ll see the final lightweight fight between George Roop and the hugtastic John Polakowski.

Ed. note: This review was based on an advance copy of the episode. The urine-drinking scenes did not air; they were reportedly cut at the last-minute.