Second Chances

Last night marked the final episode of The Ultimate Fighter Season 6. It was full of second chances. Mac was scheduled to fight Ben from Team Serra. While preparing for the fight, Ben cracked a rib and didn't want to continue. Therefore, Matt Serra and Dana White needed to pick a fighter to replace him. It looked like it might've been Ritchie Hightower vs. Mac and that would've been awesome. However, Ritchie didn't show much interest in wanting to fight. In fact, most of the guys on Team Serra really didn't seem too interested in fighting Mac. As much as I wanted to see Hightower fight Mac, I was very pleased with who Dana picked. My pick, John was chosen to redeem his loss. I wanted so badly for John to beat him and advance to the finals. However, Mac beat him again. The second encounter between these two was better. John made a stupid mistake and Mac capitalized. There was a second semi-final fight between "Mini Hughes" and George. Believe it or not, I wanted Tommy to win this fight. George is the only guy on Team Serra that I really didn't like. He doesn't know how to be a team player. Fortunately, Tommy knocked his ass out. There is a down side to Tommy winning. The Final fight consists of Mac vs. Tommy. Both are from Team Hughes. We're looking at an all-Hughes final. I'd have much preferred an all-Serra final or a Team Serra vs. Team Hughes final. It would've been a better ending to the season. I don't care which team the finalists are from, Matt Serra won the competition in my opinion. In the preliminary fights, Team Serra finished 6-2. In the quarter-finals, they drew even. In the semi-finals, Team Hughes finished 2-0. The sad part is that Matt Serra had to give two of his fighters to Hughes in the quarter-finals. It's weird that they didn't do that in Season 3 and Season 5 when Tito Ortiz and Jens Pulver were dominant against the opposing team. Things should've stayed the same. Here's the bottom line from all of this. Hughes only had two good fighters on his team. They basically had to carry the load for the rest of the team. I'm trying not to make excuses for Team Serra not being in the finals, but there has to be some reason to why they didn't make it. Mac has four years experience in mixed martial arts (MMA). The rest of the guys on both teams didn't have that experience. It would have to have been a lucky punch, kick, or a quick submission to beat Mac. The guy's very good at what he does. Hell, he's leaving the house with $15,000 because he submitted Joey and John. As for Tommy, there's a reason why I call him "Mini Matt Hughes". His style is the same that Hughes in his fights. He's a country boy that got his strength from working on the farm. Hughes was able to relate to him on a variety of levels and that helped him get Tommy in the finals. Hughes pretty-much pulled one out of his ass. If he didn't have Mac and Tommy on his team, Matt Serra would've wiped his team out. I don't want to hear that Matt Hughes won the competition. I don't want to hear that he's one of the greatest coaches that The Ultimate Fighter ever had, because he sucked at both. Matt Serra won the competition and he was the better coach. Like I said before, Hughes only had two good fighters and the fact that both are in the finals doesn't mean he won the competition. I'm sure some will see me as biased and sore that my hero, Matt Serra didn't get one of his boys in the finals. They may be right, but the facts are right there. Hughes...got...lucky, end of story. Matt Serra did say something that did get me thinking. He said, "I never thought I'd find myself pulling for Matt Hughes, but I hope he beats GSP (George St. Pierre)". He said that he wanted to fight Hughes to finally shut him up. Personally, I'm pulling for George St. Pierre because I don't think Hughes deserves a championship opportunity. Then again, if Hughes did win, I wouldn't have too much of a problem with it. I'd love to see Matt Serra knock out or submit Matt Hughes. What would Hughes say if Matt Serra beat him? Would he say it was another "fluke" victory? It'd be kind of hard to say that the champion got a fluke victory on supposedly "one of the best welterweight fighters" in the UFC. The finale for The Ultimate Fighter season 6 is on Saturday. I could care less who wins, but my prediction is that Mac's experience will help him pull off a victory. Either way, it'll be a Team Hughes victory.