CARL REVIEWS: THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 32, EPISODE 5

One of the best fights in TUF history, we are told.

EPISODE 5: FULL OF VIOLENCE

Full of violence. These men are positively full of violence. Fit to bursting with violence. If either of these men ingests even one more grain of violence, they will expire. Please, make these men less violent before something terrible happens, such as violence.

PREVIOUSLY ON THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER: Awkward times were had in a hot tub, Omran Chaaban choked out Shamidkhan Magomedov, the winning ratio on the season has begun to look lopsided, and Dana White promised the best fight in TUF history on this episode.

CURRENT STANDINGS: GRASSO 3, SHEVCHENKO 1

We begin this week once again back in the hot tub, where Omran is telling Shamidkhan about having his leglock scouted and using that awareness to win their fight. Both men are handling it pretty well, with Omran admitting Shamidkhan's kneebar was deeply painful and Shamid admitting he didn't expect Omran's chokes to be as good as they were. The well-adjusted future of fighting is a thing to behold.

Zygimantas Ramaska, who the show pretty much only calls 'Jigga' because everyone is a big fan of rappers who got too rich to remember their identity, is worried about his weight cut. He has to cut nine pounds in five days, and given the degree to which the show has refused to discuss weight cuts at all for the first half of this season thus far I cannot help wondering if this is foreshadowing. Zygi commits to training in a sauna suit, which is, admittedly, not very fun, and we get footage of his knocking people out in a very Pride-reminiscent ring for a company named Blade Fights in his native Lithuania. I looked it up out of curiosity: Blade Fights held exactly two events in 2023 and haven't updated their website or social media in 56 weeks. God bless you, regional mixed martial arts.

Zygi says he will win because he is tall and has strong feet, and angry STEMM-rock and sounds of tigers growling plays over footage of Zygi throwing the same back knee and left hook at pads over and over. Boy, we're really padding this one.

Back at the house, Bekhzod Usmonov discusses how good travel is for the soul and the process of moving from Tajikistan to Russia with his father as a child. Bekhzod is--and I can't believe this has become a tired theme in this season--happy to come from a loving family background with two parents who support him and his mixed martial arts dreams, and with familial support he moved to Thailand at 19 to train in Muay Thai and thereafter to Albuquerque to train with Jackson-Wink, one of the best fight camps in the world. He lives in a little fighter dorm room where he does college courses between training and working at Starbucks. Also, his girlfriend has a tiny desk and what I think is a My Little Pony.

I know I keep commenting on this to the point of repetition, but it is, genuinely, the most fascinating thing about the show for me. If there's one singular use of The Ultimate Fighter in the modern era of MMA, it's as a time capsule of what an outlaw sport this used to be and how little stability the life of a fighter really held. Fighting's still far from glamorous or financially sensible, but the presence of any kind of structural support is such an enormous change of pace from the still-recent past.

Bekhzod still has three pounds to cut before fight day, and boy, I'm getting a real sinking feeling about the time spent on the weight cuts this week. It's his turn for fight video, and we get a neat flying knee knockout and a german suplex, which automatically makes me a fan. In a genuine surprise, the UFC acknowledges the existence of the Bareknuckle Fighting Championship by showing footage of Bekhzod winning fights there, too. I suppose that shows how much of a threat the UFC perceives them to be. Both men have emphasized their striking: Zygi wants to move forward behind high kicks and Bekhzod wants to use his size disadvantage to keep on the move. But Bekhzod only gets instrumentals over his shadowboxing, so clearly, he's going to lose.

Zygi talks about his Lithuanian military background back at the house, and by "talks about" I mean they show a bunch of photographs of him holding an assault rifle and footage of a training exercise where he rappels out of a helicopter and walks around in the woods. His mother left his father as a child, and realizing they are at risk of establishing a backstory, they immediately change topics into Zygi being a dog person and show lots of footage of Zygi playing with his dog, whose habits include trying to destroy his bathrobe and whining in the car.

Zygi's been a judoka since nine, he transitioned into sambo and jiu-jitsu shortly after, and in a stark contrast to Bekhzod's life at high-powered supercamps, Zygi trains out of a low-budget gym that operates out of the back of a synagogue. There is a sort of traditionalism here I appreciate, but that may be the dog footage talking.

With 24 minutes left in the show we go to weigh-ins, which means either this fight is going to be very long or I was right about the foreshadowing and chicanery is about to ensue. Sure enough: Bekhzod weighs in at 146.5, meaning he is a half-pound over the allowance. Alexa is shocked and apologetically tells Valentina that he'll cut the weight during his additional hour, and Valentina's underreaction makes me think either she's cool with things going wrong in this format, or she knows her fighter's in trouble too. Zygi opts to hit the scale with the aid of The Box That Covers Up That You're Naked Because You Think You're Not Going To Make Weight, which sure does seem like a bad sign.

Zygi also misses weight at 146.5. Subtle, these editors are not.

Both coaches immediately agree that since it's only half a pound and neither has a weight advantage over the other they're fine with simply fighting at an equal catchweight so neither fighter has to continue their cut, and administrator Jeff Mullen agrees that sounds reasonable. Which, like, it is, a half-pound of weight really isn't a big deal, fuck it, but boy, it sure does throw into focus how silly all of this is.

We return to the house for the last time before the fight. Bekhzod and Zygi talk about missing their families; Bekhzod hasn't seen his in almost two and a half years and it is difficult. Suburban latchkey kids struggle to relate. This segment exists seemingly just to kill another few minutes before we go right back on to fight day. All rise for this week's national anthem.

let's go
we want the victory (victory)
we want the victory (we want the victory)
we want the victory
we're gonna slow it down 'til we make history (let's go)

I hate it when artists get their best hits up front. C'mon, guys. You were pitching grand slam throwback fight anthems in the first couple episodes and now you're just phoning it in. You're slowing down the victory? You just ruined my bicep curls, bro.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Bekhzod Usmonov (11-4, Team Grasso) vs Zygimantas Ramaska (9-2, Team Shevchenko)

Usmonov has the experience, Ramaska has the size with 4" in height and 6" in reach. Also, his hairline is much less unfortunate.

ROUND ONE

Leather begins flying quickly. Bekhzod tries to footwork his way around Zygi but gets backed towards the fence with heavy punches, and thirty seconds into the fight a big haymaker finds only shoulder, but in the ensuing exchange Bekhzod slips and eats a just-barely-legal kick to the head on his way up. Usmonov tries to work his way in behind front leg kicks and lunging rights and just can't quite land, but Zygi commits too heavily to countering and gets tripped to the floor. His length lets him land upkicks to the face and the chest while Bekhzod can't land anything other than a couple leg kicks, and despite working to try to find a way to follow him to the floor, the referee separates them so Zygi can stand up safely. The striking isn't too damaging, but it is one-sided; Bekhzod is throwing, but it takes him a lot of work to get inside to land a single strike and Zygi is hitting him three-four times on each attempt. Midway through the round Bekhzod tries for that trip takedown again and Zygi anticipates and defends it, but he tries to punish him with another counter instead of returning to his optimal range and Bekhzod, finally in the pocket, smashes him with a right hand and sends him hurtling to the floor. He drops hammerfists in search of a finish, but Zygi manages to get back to his feet and, even still visibly unstable, starts chasing him around the cage with right hands and knees in the clinch. Zygi is wobbly, Bekhzod is bleeding from the face, and Dana White, ever the violence elemental, is clapping with glee like a happy little baby at cageside. Bekhzod is straight up retreating from the onslaught Zygi is landing, and he is wearing each successive blow worse than the last to the point that the referee is concerned, but he survives to the horn, even if he had to turn his back and rush to the cage several times to do it.

Credit where credit is due, it's awful hard to win a round where you got dropped on your ass and I think Zygimantas still did it. Between rounds Shevchenko tries to get the lactic acid out of Zygi's arms while telling him to focus on the clinch because every knee is landing; Bekhzod's corner cleans him up and tells him to use the right hand to bait the left hook, and Alexa pleads with him from outside the cage to stay out of the clinch at all costs.

ROUND TWO

Both men are visibly drained from that first round, but Bekhzod is once again the first to wind up with his back to the fence. The constant movement has waned considerably, but so has Zygi's output. Bekhzod tries to land the lunging left but he's eating jabs to the face every time he does. A minute into the round Zygi shoves him over with a teep kick to the chest, but he gets overzealous charging in and Bekhzod almost chins him with a spinning backfist. Diego Lopes wants him to chain the jab into an overhand, but before he gets the chance to try Zygi shoots a double and dumps him on his back. The ground control only lasts a few seconds before Bekhzod is back on his feet, but it lets Zygi land a couple more clinch knees on their way out, and at this point Bekhzod looks entirely lost navigating the range. His only successes are coming when Zygi spends too much time close to him, and Zygi obliges by giving him the chance to land another big right hand, but the pop from the first round is gone and Zygi is, as he predicted, breaking him with kicks to the head and chest. For all his corner's exhortations, Bekhzod is at this point more or less reduced to winging big right hands when Zygi comes forward, and the referee actually warns Bekhzod that he needs to muster more offense or he may stop the fight. But he's not landing shit, and with one minute left in the round he continues to retreat while Zygi pecks at him with left hands and leg kicks. Bekhzod does manage to get a couple right hands in, but Zygi dumps him on the canvas again and returns to jabbing him to pieces. Dana White opines at ringside that this fight will definitely go to a third round, and I have no idea what fight he just watched.

Shockingly, Dana White is, in fact, wrong. Zygimantas Ramaska wins by unanimous decision. Dana gets in the cage to give both fighters a you're-so-tough egostroke and yells about how amazing a fight it was, and, like...it was fine? I didn't hate it, it was fun, but for all the 'amazing back and forth fight, what a show' it was more like a really one-sided fight with the exception of one really, really good punch. Which is nothing to sneeze at! There's plenty to praise in Bekhzod's toughness and Zygi's heart, but calling it a fight-for-the-ages kind of thing is overblowing it an awful lot, especially after a second round that came pretty close to being a 10-8.

As always, the winner is happy and the loser is sad. Bekhzod is happy he got anointed as a tough motherfucker by Dana, and the locker room reminds him that his performance will mean plenty even if he lost. Valentina picks the next Middleweight fight, and it's her team's Ryan Loder vs Grasso's Tom Theocharis, our Canadian representative. I'm pretty sure neither of these men has said a single word thus far this season.

NEXT TIME ON THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER: Ryan and teammate Evan have an argument during training. We can't even get out of the teaser without killing the anticipation, as the footage of the fight also shows Valentina stopping the fight. FEEL THE EXCITEMENT.