(Seriously? Not even *one* vote for Jason Guida?)

The 16th season of The Ultimate Fighter kicks off tonight on FX, and while we wouldn’t exactly say we’re looking forward to it, the premiere of a new season always puts us in a reflective mood. In this week’s installment of the CagePotato Roundtable, we’ll be paying tribute to our favorite cast-members in TUF history, and joining us today is a very, very special guest — Luke O’Brien, an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Fortune, and many other outlets that are much more respectable than the one you’re reading right now. (I first discovered Luke through his excellent MMA reporting for Deadspin.)

Shoot us your own favorite TUF guys in the comments section, and if you have a topic for a future Roundtable column, e-mail us at tips@cagepotato.com

Luke O’Brien

Has there been a more unlikely TUF champion than Amir Sadollah? In 2008, the Persian-Irish surgical technologist came out of nowhere — or in his case, Richmond — to win the seventh season of the show by beating All-American wrestler C.B. Dollaway. Sadollah armbarred Dollaway not once, but twice. Before that, he triangled Matt Brown, who oozed tough. And before that, he TKOd Gerald Harris, who certainly looked tough. At the time, Sadollah had never had a pro fight. Not one. I liked him immediately. Not because he was an upstart, a little doughy around the middle and a bit of a lumberer. There were purer reasons that drew me to a fighter who walks out to Iranian techno music.

For one, he had a mullet. This wasn’t the unaware bumpkin coiffure found in many stretches of this country. Rather, it was a curated flange of keratin that complemented the smirk often playing on Sadollah’s face. It was a mullet that, like its owner, didn’t take itself too seriously. A mullet that grasped irony. And irony has always been in short supply on TUF. The premise of the show — quarantine 16 fighters for a month in a house stocked with unlimited amounts of booze and see what happens — is absurd, although I guess you could say the same about all reality television. As much as I enjoy TUF, the only way I can fully appreciate it is at a sardonic remove. Sadollah allowed me to do that.

(Props: movieclipsTRAILERS)

By Elias Cepeda

If you ask a movie reviewer what sets great movies apart from good ones, many would tell you that great movies are the ones that manage to transcend their premises. The Rocky series wasn’t about boxing; it was a story of an underdog who succeeded through hard work and determination in the face of impossible odds. Fight Club wasn’t about dudes beating each other up in basements; it was a dirge for our lost masculinity and the rise of anonymous consumerism.

And the new MMA documentary Fightville isn’t about the fighting; it’s about the struggle.

Directed by Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker — who have previously collaborated on four other full-length features, including the Iraq war documentary Gunner Palace — Fightville is a gritty and thought-provoking glimpse into the human condition that should appeal to fight fans as well as fans of good filmmaking. Simply put, it’s the best MMA documentary since The Smashing Machine.

(Porier before his UFC debut)

With the recent run of awesome mixed martial arts documentaries we’ve been treated to the past few years like Renzo Gracie: Legacy, The Reem, Driven, Once I was a Champion and Like Water, there’s a pretty good chance that we’re in for a drought, especially if you consider that there was a six-plus-year span between the current block of flicks and The Smashing Machine.

Before we enter into our next six years of obscure docs loosely-related to MMA like Joe Son’s Prison Diaries and Gus Johnson at LeCage, we still have one fantastic looking one to look forward to: Fightville.

The film, which is set for limited theatrical release and for On Demand viewing by select cable and satellite providers April 20, follows the lives of a number of Louisiana-based fighters, most notably fast-rising UFC featherweight Dustin Poirier and his coach and mentor, TUF 7 and UFC vet Tim Credeur.

Check out the trailer after the jump.

Pettis, and his hopes at a title shot, come crashing down (pic: MMAFightNews.net)

Judging from the sparse commentary throughout last night’s live blog, most of you were out sipping $20 Manhattans and discussing the latest issue of The New Yorker while a few of us sat on the couch watching free cage fights and loathing ourselves. It’s cool. You know what you did was wrong, and you came back home to us. We forgive you, and we’ll give you the gist of what went down.

It only took three minutes and fifty four seconds to send ten weeks of buildup crashing to the mat. The bout between Tony Ferguson and Ramsey Nijem was competitive, with both men finding a home for their hands, but Ferguson was able to employ his collegiate wrestling experience and the time spent with Lesnar’s camp after the show to dictate the fight and set the pace. Following a couple of successful takedowns, Ferguson flipped Ramsey’s switch with a left hook and Season 13 of The Ultimate Fighter crowned its asshole champion.

(Kyle Kingsbury is wearing that rainbow fanny-pack in honor of all the brave men and women who gave their lives defending our freedom in the Candyland-Disco War of Sissystan. / Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle. For more photos from this album, click here.)

TUF 13 reaches its conclusion tonight, with “Stripper” Ramsey Nijem facing off against “Jerkwad” Tony Ferguson for the mythical six-figure contract and glass trophy. Plus: Anthony Pettis makes his official UFC debut against Clay Guida in a guaranteed thriller with lightweight title implications, the suddenly-badass Kyle Kingsbury looks to put Fabio Maldonado’s 11-fight win streak to an end, and much more.

If you’ve got nothing better to do, it’s not a bad way to spend a Saturday night. (If you do have something better to do, count yourself lucky, and come back later to let us know what the outside world is like.) The action is already underway at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas — and streaming live on Facebook — but we’ll save the spoilers until the end of the night, because some of you crybabies get sooooo sensitive. Round-by-round results from the Spike TV broadcast will begin to pile up after the jump starting at 9 p.m. ET; refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest.

Dammit, who are all you guys again?

Say what you will about The Ultimate Fighter (not like you need an invitation), but the finale shows tend to be pretty damn fun. This season, we actually have two fairly solid finalists, a dynamite co-main in Pettis-Guida, plus a handful of other matchups calibrated for striking showdowns and crowd amazement.

Here’s a quick and dirty rundown of the fights scheduled for this weekend, with a few of those fancy moving pictures that you like so much. Who ya got?

Ramsey Nijem

VS

Tony Ferguson

Well, either this fight is the one you’ve been waiting for, or you’re just wondering what these two nobodies are doing on your UFC card. Tune in to find out which guy gets a contract with the UFC. (Spoiler Alert: It’ll be both of them.)

(It was truly a great night for gashes. Image courtesy of MMA Mania.)

The UFC doled out $30,000 best-of-night bonuses to four fighters at last night’s "Diaz vs. Guillard" event. The extra bread was awarded to…

Fight of the Night: Nate Quarry and Tim Credeur for their three-round slugfest, which Quarry took by unanimous decision. I would have given it to Carlos Condit and Jake Ellenberger, whose fight was much more technical and varied, but hey, the crowd loves a good brawl, and Quarry/Credeur was a great one.

Submission of the Night: Nate Diaz, who was responsible for one of the night’s three guillotine-choke submissions. Amazingly, this is the fifth-straight fight in which Diaz has won an end-of-night bonus. Previously, he received Fight of the Night bonuses for his wars against Joe Stevenson, Clay Guida, and Josh Neer, and a Submission of the Night bonus against Kurt Pellegrino.

Knockout of the Night: Jeremy Stephens by default, since there were no other KOs/TKOs on the card. Stephens didn’t actually knock Justin Buchholz out, but he was whaling on him pretty good until the fight was stopped in the first round due to the hatchet-wound shown above.

UFC Fight Night 19 drew 7,500 spectators for a reported live gate of $650,000.

(Mark Coleman — master of kino escalation. Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle.)

— An oddly appropriate light-heavyweight matchup may be in the works for UFC 100 (July 11th, Las Vegas). According to MMA Mania, bout agreements have been offered for Mark Coleman to face Stephan Bonnar at the milestone event. That’s right: The UFC’s first official heavyweight champion and early star of the SEG era will likely be taking on the man who helped take the UFC mainstream in the Zuffa era with his epic TUF 1 finale battle against Forrest Griffin.

Kind of an interesting way to pay tribute to the Octagon’s history. But for the fighters themselves, the matchup will be all business. Coleman most recently put in a shambling wreck of a performance against Mauricio Rua at UFC 93, eventually losing by TKO in the third round, while Stephan Bonnar was out-hustled by Jon Jones at UFC 94, losing by unanimous decision. Both men need a win here to remain relevant. UFC 100 will also reportedly feature fights between Frank Mir and Brock Lesnar (for the unified heavyweight title), Georges St. Pierre and Thiago Alves (for the welterweight title), and Michael Bisping and Dan Henderson (for the right to get their ass kicked by Anderson Silva at some point in the future).

— TUF 8 lightweight winner Efrain Escudero has fallen prey to the Amir Sadollah curse. Due to a rib injury suffered in training, he has been forced to pull out of his first post-TUF fight, which was scheduled to be against Jeremy Stephens at UFC Fight Night 18 (April 1st, Nashville). Taking Escudero’s place will be Gleison Tibau, the American Top Team fighter who snapped a two-fight losing streak at last month’s UFC Fight Night 17 card with his first-round submission of Rich Clementi. Unfortunately for Stephens, his bout may now be relegated to the undercard in favor of the Tyson Griffin/Rafael Dos Anjos match.

(Brad Blackburn is moving on up.)

The UFC has been busy this week. Between throwing together the July 19 Anti-Affliction show and preparing for the TUF 7 Finale on Saturday, someone in the Zuffa offices has definitely earned themselves a vacay (don’t worry, Anderson Silva will fill in for you while you’re gone).

For Saturday night’s show, Tim Credeur vs. Cale Yarbrough has been officially added, bringing the total number of scheduled bouts to eleven. They won’t all fit into the three-hour broadcast, but that might just mean we get spared having to sit through another Marvin Eastman joint.

For the July 19 show, former IFL fighter Brad Blackburn has reportedly been signed to take on fellow UFC newcomer James Giboo. As previously reported, another former IFL fighter, Reese Andy, will make his UFC debut as he welcomes Brandon Vera to the light heavyweight division.

While a lot of fans may not be familiar with Andy, he’s a former college wrestling standout at the University of Wyoming who could potentially give Vera some problems on the mat. He’s also competed at heavyweight before, so he probably won’t be giving up too much weight.

Also expected on this card — which is officially titled UFC Fight Night 14 — is Frankie Edgar squaring off with Hermes Franca, Jake O’Brien and Cain Velasquez, and Kevin Burns against Anthony Johnson.

Oh, and that Anderson Silva guy will be taking on James Irvin. If that sort of thing interests you.

(Amir gets all “Rocky” on us.)

I’m assuming that most of you watched last night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter — which, hype aside, was easily one of the greatest episodes in the show’s history — so I won’t bore you with extraneous details. But here’s a quick recap:

— CB Dollaway and Amir Sadollah square off in the last semi-final fight. Aside from a couple of hard body kicks and a close armbar attempt from Amir, the first two rounds are all CB, who controls the action from the top, and delivers a Rampage-style body slam as well as some brutal elbows that open up a large gash under Amir’s right eye. CB nearly locks in a rear-naked choke in the third round, but Amir spins out, momentarily tries to figure out a toe-hold, then catches CB in another armbar that immediately causes him to tap. With his professional MMA record still 0-0, Amir Sadollah has battled his way to the TUF 7 finale.

(Afterwards, getting sewn up.)

(Tim Credeur in happier times.)

Every Thursday morning, Team Rampage member Gerald Harris blogs his reactions to each new episode of The Ultimate Fighter 7 on CagePotato.com. Here’s what he had to say about last night’s ep, in which Forrest Griffin proved that white men can jump, and Mongo Taylor smothered his way into the finals.

***

This episode was pretty good, but I can’t wait until next week. It feels like yesterday, I was sending in an application and audition tape. Now, I’m sitting at home watching all the action unfold like I wasnt a part of it.

As you know by now, Team Rampage has been losing a lot in everything except Go Karts and shit-talking, so when the basketball challenge was announced I “assumed” we finally had a chance to win. My college coach told me that when you assume you make an ass out of yourself and I felt like a big hairy ass when Forrest started kicking Rampage’s. Before the game started I did every dance move known to man as I held 10 grand in cash, but they were slowly shut down by Forrest’s accurate shooing and Rampage’s attempt to build a house with all them damn bricks. He admitted that he sucked at basketball, but it hurt to lose again — not only did we lose, but Forrest put some stank on it and dunked at the end. Damn!

Well, once again America gets to see the many sides of Jesse. Me and Jesse were cool because of Team Quest and I mentioned before that we were both fathers, so we talked about missing our families. I was obviously rooting for him, but I doubted him because of his actions in the house. You didn’t see me in many scenes of his outburts, but I thought he was throwing his opportunity away; I felt like he was taking his position for granted. Little did I know that he’s an animal — not CoCo the monkey, but like King Kong in that damn cage. He’s not that exciting, but very solid. Sure, the dude pisses his shorts, but he kicks ass, so what can you say?

(Tim Credeur puts away the pretty-boy.)

Every Thursday morning, Team Rampage member Gerald Harris blogs his reactions to each new episode of The Ultimate Fighter 7 on CagePotato.com. Here’s what he had to say about last night’s ep, in which Jeremy May tried to stir up some more shit, and Tim Credeur and CB Dollaway battled their way into the semis.

***

Well, I have to say that this was my favorite episode. There was a lot of *bleeping* going on tonight so let me translate for you. Our evening started off with the usual Jeremy May bashing, especially when we weren’t at the house. I was a little shocked at how much people talked behind each other’s backs; it sounded like Americas Next Top Model at times. (I don’t watch that show, but I saw an episode or two…) Anyway, when Jeremy walked in and heard JT he told me his bright idea to get JT kicked out of the house. I had no idea he was going to call him a “Jewish bitch”! Now, that’s not a smooth move — imagine if someone called me the “N-word” or a “Black bitch.” JT was offended and flipped out, but I quickly sat him down and told him to think about his son. You’re in the semi’s man, don’t let anyone stop you from achieving your goal. Things cooled down, but I did laugh when he called Jeremy a broke-nosed bitch!

Now to the semi match ups — Creduer vs. Cramer and CB vs. Yarbrough. I was a little thrown off at Tim’s constant compliments about Cramer. Every time he speaks of him he says that “Cramer is hot,” “Cramer is a heart throb,” or something in that manner. I know that we were locked up for a minute, but I wasn’t thinking about Cramer, I was trying to get a peek at the ring girls or any woman driving on the highway as we went to practice. I don’t want to seem like I’m hating on Tim, but I did want to fight him extremely bad. The first time we spoke I told him that I was going to miss my kids and he says “yeah, I know how you feel — I got two dogs at home.” Then after his victory he randomly walked up to me and a couple other guys that lost. He calmly explained to us how he has $20,000 and how he has the ability to be losing a fight but win, and how we were winning our fights and lost.

(Tim Credeur takes a brain-scrambling illegal upkick.)

One of TUF 7‘s brightest prospects had to work his ass off to keep his place in the house on last night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter, as Tim Credeur battled his way through a very game (but ultimately too inexperienced) Matthew Riddle. The fight was one of the best in recent TUF history, but before it went down, the following happened:

— Jesse Taylor, who we’ll henceforth refer to as “Mongo,” followed up his brilliant can’t-figure-out-the-dishwasher performance from last episode with a sequence of him not being able to figure out how to open a bottle of beer, then accidentally breaking some wooden window blinds. He also has “questionable spots on his body,” and with Paul Bradley’s herpes scare still fresh in their minds, Mongo’s housemates spray him down with Tinactin. Mongo is unfortunately poised to be the Private Pyle of the house.

— Matt “Chipper” Riddle is chomping at the bit to fight. His goofy enthusiasm rubs Dante Rivera the wrong way, and some trash talking ensues. Rivera claims he’ll retire from fighting if Riddle ever beats him, and after it’s announced that Riddle has been picked to face Tim Credeur, Rivera tries to bet Riddle $500 that he’ll lose the fight. Riddle refuses, and accuses Rivera of trying to get inside his head. “I live inside your head,” Rivera says. “You’re my son right now.”

— Tim Credeur knows that the Ultimate Fighter experience is a do-or-die moment in his career; if it doesn’t work out, he may need to find a different line of work. And the fact that he could be derailed by some punk-ass mama’s boy visibly upsets him. “For [Riddle], it’s a cool time, it’s neato mosquito,” Credeur says. “But for me, this is not neato.” He then says “let the good times roll” in French.

— Rampage tries to instill hatred of Team Forrest in his guys by suggesting that “Team Brown Nose” gets better treatment. “I bet their gloves fit them,” he says. In one scene, he goes to CB Dollaway for his take on what the next matchup might be; Dollaway may be emerging as Rampage’s consigliere.

So, Tim Credeur (Team Forrest, 10-2) and Matthew Riddle (Team Rampage, 1-0) finally go toe-to-toe, and it’s a wild one.

The process of weeding out the pussies and posers from the real fucking fighters was completed last night on The Ultimate Fighter, as eight more guys earned beds in the TUF house and eight more were sent back from where they came. The episode started out gruesomely, with Matthew Riddle’s jaw-breaking knockout of Matt Serra student Dan Simmler (the moaning aftermath of which is shown above). Even as Simmler was being loaded into the ambulance, he still wasn’t sure whether the knockout came during practice or during an actual fight. We hope the spiderwebs have cleared by now.

As for the rest of the fights…

Luke Zachrich def. Patrick Schultz via rear-naked choke
Tim Credeur def. Erik Charles via armbar
Brandon Sene def. Aaron Meisner via rear-naked choke
Gerald Harris def. Mike Marello via decision
Daniel Cramer def. Jeremiah Riggs via decision
Jesse Taylor def. Nick Rossborough via rear-naked choke
Matt Brown def. Josh Hall via TKO

If I were one of the coaches, my first pick would be Credeur, a 10-2 BJJ black-belt who finished his opponent in under a minute. He could be the Mac Danzig of the show — far too experienced for these other jokers to deal with.

The end of the episode brought a glimpse at what was to come during the rest of the season, and man was it ugly. The property destruction and general mayhem inside the house reaches Lord of the Flies levels; apparently, winning one fight on 48 hours notice doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not a douchebag poser. If this is what we have to look forward to, then the season’s promise of “big changes” was a joke. And to be honest, the first two episodes weren’t all that groundbreaking to begin with. In my opinion, the fighters’ personal stories and interpersonal conflicts are what make The Ultimate Fighter so entertaining; watching wall-to-wall, heavily-edited fights between relatively untalented guys I don’t care about doesn’t really do it for me.

Am I wrong?

UPDATE: A much-higher quality version of the Riddle/Simmler knockout is here.