And being that I, too, am a “fatherless bastard”, I can understand how a drunk Leben broke down the way he did. You have to imagine that emotions are already running high while being cooped up in a strange place with a group of strangers who you have to fight as cameras follow your every move. Eitherway, not having a father in your life is a significant hurdle to overcome and everyone deals with it differently. You can never underestimate the conditions of a person’s life… Even if you’ve lived it yourself.

Moreover, just because he started crying doesn’t make it right for a couple of punks to spray water on him while he’s trying to sleep outside. That’s just plain wrong. (In my opinion it should be against the rules of the show to interfere with eachother’s sleep, food, and water because they are all essential to live and train at the best of your abilities, but that’s another story entirely…) Waking up in Leben’s situation after a long night of drinking to see the shit-eating grin on Southworth’s face (the man who had already shown an utter lack of respect for him) would drive many people over the edge. Just think about it.

Regarding Junie, I certainly don’t agree with much of what he did on the show, but I don’t think any of it should prevent him from having the oppurtunity to prove his potential in MMA. And why on earth would you hold that against Xtreme Couture?

Ultimately, I just think it’s sad that someone who condemns the show’s antics wouldn’t be able to see past the reality TV to the real people.

Good article. Two corrections though….

1. Efrain’s nickname is not “El Matatdor” like Roger Huerta. It’s “Hecho En Meixco” which means “Made in Mexico.”

2. Probably just a typo but Philipe speaks Tagalog (pronounced ta-GA-log).

I’m Filipino too so i was rooting for Nover all the way. But i noticed during the intros something was wrong. Efrain looked calm as can be coming into the cage. Nover had an anxious look in his eyes; also letting out deep breaths as if to try to calm himself down. i think the pressure of him being expected to win was definitely in his head. He didn’t look like the same animal in the cage as he did in his other fights, like he couldn’t flip the switch. I have no doubt that he’ll see future success in the UFC. Like you said, now he’ll be able to do so with a little less spotlight on him.

Good luck Phillipe!

When I watched TUF 1 I liked Kos because he could fight, he could focus, he was always in control of himself, and his taunting of Leben was something a man with some self-respect should have been able to take. Leben acted like a 5-year-old on that show and I felt like he deserved far worse than Kos gave him. Now Leben has much improved? Sure, with the help of steroids. Seriously, who didn’t see that coming?

For some reason, TUF seems to have started low and sunk even lower. It’s less about mma and more about piss-drinking, spooge-eating, and drunken tantrums. Where does Dana find people like this? How many more qualified fighters do the producers have to turn down before they finally come up with a Junie Browning? I saw enough of Junie on TUF 8 to make me doubt, actually, that he has anything near Leben’s potential to become either a capable fighter or a mature adult. And I say that as someone who thinks steriod cheats don’t even deserve 2nd chances.

That said, maybe Junie improved by the finale. I wouldn’t know. I didn’t see him in the finale, because who cares if he improved? I’m just sick of Dana foisting this guy on viewers who tune in to watch promising, serious, disciplined fighters, not punks. Sheesh.

My opinion of Xtreme Couture as a quality school plummeted when I heard they agreed to train this guy. You can build your name training great fighters who give the sport a good name or by attaching yourself to PR disasters. One approach cashes in on the long-term admiration of real mma fans and the other cashes in on short-term, empty-headed attention from people who could care less about mma and just love a good train wreck.

Just because Dana chooses to insult his audience by passing over better fighters in favor of casting idiots on TUF doesn’t mean anyone is obliged to play along. I don’t watch something just because it’s on TV and I don’t plan on following this guy’s career in the UFC. If and when he fights, I’ll channel surf until the next fight. I really don’t care if he’s successful, but am just sick of personality disorders being passed off as sports entertainment. I’m wWaiting for TUF to choose fighters for qualities that will make them great, not for qualities that will make for cheap bullshit drama. Junie got more than his share of chances already, I’d say. When the UFC gives exposure to guys who deserve it, like Escudero and Nover, that’s when I tune in. It’s just a shame the UFC kept Junie on the show in place of someone else. If Junie benefited, just think what a young fighter with way more character could have done with the same opportunity! That’s who we’re missing out on right now.

I also think that Koscheck’s role as villain on TUF is being underplayed and Leben’s is being overplayed. I can still remember originally watching the Leben/Koscheck fight on TUF 1… I wasn’t a fan of Leben’s but I’d never rooted so hard against a fighter as I did with Koscheck.

I’ve read comments by people saying that Junie was acting up on purpose to get camera time. I think that’s BS, at least partially. Trash talking and the like aside, on previous seasons some of his antics would have gotten him kicked out of the house 3 or 4 times over, no question, so why would he assume it’d be different this time? There’s not much camera time if you’re off the show. Unless Dana pulled him aside and told him to act the moron and there wouldn’t be any negative repercussions (which is not beyond possibility at this point.) As much as i dislike the guy i saw on the show, I hope his change is for real, and permanent.

And ACK! is totally right. Everyone thinks of Chris Leben as the original “TUF Bad Boy” but shit, coming from the same kind of background that he did, if someone had called me a “fatherless bastard” and I tried to remove myself from the situation only to have that person let a water hose loose over my head, I would have lost my shit, too.

And going from Soszynski’s interview, it seemed Junie had a plan all along to get camera time.

A couple things stuck out to me though, it’s all a matter of perception, but I felt like Nover was trying to run through Escuerdo like he was a paper thin wall. What I mean, is that he was loading up on every punch, every knee and that’s what allow him to be taken down with such ease. If he was fighting not to lose, my thinking is that he would have been more concerned with his takedown defense and probably wouldn’t have loaded up with his shots so much. I mean, I really felt like he could get a knockout at any point on his feet. Escuerdo was just too sly and elusive to allow him to connect.

Another thing that really bothers me is how Leben is always mentioned along with Junie, because their experiences on the show weren’t really all that similar. What was the worst thing Leben did? He peed on someone’s pillow, but so did Magalhaes and no one mentions that. He blew up once and broke a window along with a door or two, but it’s hard to hold that against him considering that he had attempted to remove himself for a volatile situation by sleeping outside when two drunken idiots decided to spray him with a hose. Other than that, he was mostly guilty of being immature, somewhat egotistical, and emotionally unstable.

The thing is, what made his story interesting is how he grew up while being on the show. He took the oppurtunity seriously and it inspired him to become a better person as a result. We watched that transformation take place during the entire season. Junie, on the other hand, seemed to become more erratic and childish as the season went on. He showed an utter lack of respect for his coaches, his fellow fighters, and even himself. In my mind, he experience on the show was dramatically different than Leben’s, to the point of being nearly opposite.

I know my sentiments are tangential to your primary points, but for some reason they stuck out to me. Otherwise, it’s a fantastic article.

As for the winners, I think light heavyweights will struggle with Bader, he is young and ever improving. And the man thats been overlooked this entire time, Efrain Escudero, will definitely have a bright future in the ufc’s lightweight division, especially with his wrestling background that he showed off last night.