TUF: Team Nogueira vs. Team Mir Episode 5 Recap

The show picks up right where it left off last week with Junie Browning jumping into the cage after Efrain Escudero’s victory over Shane Nelson. Junie jumps in and is immediately restrained by Nogueira. After everyone calms down Junie is escorted out of the cage. 

Dana White says that it’s probably a good thing that Keith Kizer wasn’t there that day or he’d have revoked Browning’s license and kicked him off the show. Dana says that Junie has “nine lives.” I wonder if Dana remembers that he’s the one who gave Junie nine lives?

Efrain makes nice with Browning and shakes his hand after the victory inside Team Mir’s locker room. Junie apologizes to Mir for what he did and tells Mir that he’s sorry for making him look bad. Mir doesn’t actually accept the apology but tells Junie that he just needs to make up for it. 

Back at the house Shane Primm tells Junie that even though they’re friends that he wanted to punch Junie when he jumped over the cage because it was so disrespectful. Junie is obviously confrontational and says that coming on the show was the worst decision of his life. He says that if he can’t beat these guys in the house then he may as well go get a factory job because these guys are scrubs.

Thankfully the Junie Browning Show is over for this episode and we can get back to that show called TUF. Anderson Silva arrives at Team Nogueira’s training camp and puts the group through some muay thai drills. We also get a peek of Silva doing some hard sparring with Ryan Bader. Bader looks to be going pretty hard but Silva seems to be just fooling around with him. 

Back at the house Krzysztof Soszynski is back at it with the pranks. He freezes Efrains’ boxers and then proceeds to put itching powder in most of Team Nogueira’s beds. Efrain eventually locates his underwear after returning home from practice but the itching powder is unfound until the fighters go to bed. Kyle Kingsbury and Efrain take special offense to the itching powder, saying that messing with the beds is going too far. The fighters spend the next van trip deciding how to get back at Team Mir for the pranks.

At the fight picks, Team Nogueira talks about how Nogueira always keeps the fight picks a secret until it’s time to pick which seems to irritate a few of them. It’s determined that Shane Primm from Team Nogueira will take on Eliot Marshall from Team Mir.

Back at the house it’s been decided that they will use sardines as their weapon of choice, smearing sardines on the walls, grinding them into the carpet, pouring sardine oil on the other teams’ beds and generally making their rooms smell like rotten fish. Team Mir seems irritated but not totally pissed off by the prank. An eye for an eye, right? Well, except maybe Vinny Magalhaes who proceeds to piss on Efrain’s pillow because he believes he messed with his bed. Efrain doesn’t seem angry, though, and just washes his linens as if nothing happened. 

Now we get to see a couple of training sessions with both Eliot and Shane getting ready for the fight. Shane puts in extra time with Nogueira while Eliot trains in the Nevada heat. Eliot is a very impressive grappler and Shane believes they’re both all around good fighters so it should make for an entertaining fight.

At practice, Efrain is lying down on a bench and Nogueira tells him he doesn’t look so good. Efrain spills the beans and tells Nogueira that his bed has been messed with and tells him about the itching powder and the ongoing pranks. Nogueira seems concerned that it’s affecting the fighters who need to concentrate on fighting and tries to talk to Mir about it. Mir shrugs Nogueira off and says that he has nothing to do with it, that it’s his team and not him. Nogueira doesn’t like the way that Mir shrugged him off and says that Mir made a big mistake. 

Nogueira and his coaches decide in their locker room that they will head over to the house and try to set things straight with the two teams in regards to the pranks. Nogueira and his squad don’t have much luck, however, as Team Mir doesn’t show a whole lot of respect to the former PRIDE heavyweight champion and current UFC interim heavyweight champion. They compromise that they’ll continue to do pranks but that they’ll stay clear of anyone’s bed. Soszynski speaks up and says he apologizes if the itching powder went too far but that he’s bored and he likes pranks so they will continue. 

Finally, after much pranking and BS, it’s fight time. And if you forgot, it’s…

Eliot Marshall (Team Mir) vs. Shane Primm (Team Nogueira)

Eliot comes out firing with a good leg kick and solid combo that lands squarely on Primm, knocking him back. Primm rushes in with a superman punch but whiffs and gets caught in the clinc with Marshall. Marshall takes him down and puts him on his back, quickly passing guard and taking full mount. Primm gives up his back and Eliot punishes him from the back, landing solid punches and always threatening with the rear naked choke. Primm tries to reverse the position but lands back in full mount and Eliot just turns him over again, taking his back. Eliot lands more bombs and eventually is able to sink his forearm under Primm’s chin and lock up the rear naked choke for the tap.

Winner: Eliot Marshall via submission (rear naked choke)

After the fight Marshall calls out Ryan Bader and ribs Vinny in the locker room. Vinny doesn’t take kindly to it and says that he could beat Soszynski and Marshall in the same night if he had to. Vinny doesn’t really have a sense of humor. At all. 

Next week’s episode will pit Junie Browning against Roli Delgado in the second lightweight elimination bout. We’re shown Frank Mir talking trash to Delgado about his McDojo black belt and we’ll get to see Junie fight for real.