Thursday, September 08, 2005

The Ultimate Fighter 2

On Monday's installment of The Ultimate Fighter we got to take our 1st look at the heavyweights. Brad Imes and fought Rob MacDonald.

During the entire episode Rob was whining about his shoulder being hurt but kept insisting he would not use it as an excuse, then he'd mention his shoulder again. He went to his coach, Welterwieght champ Matt Hughes and discussed the injury. Matt let Rob know what a lot of fighters, or people who compete on some level, it is extremely rare to go into a competition 100%. If you choose to fight you should get in there and fight. He choose to go into the ring and fight for his right to stay. Very admiral but his choice would prove to be an unfortunate one.

He seemed to be controlling the action when he was able to gain postion and sink in a Guillitine Choke, which would require a lot of strength from that injured shoulder. He qas quickly defeated after sinking the choke and having his shoulder give out on him. In the end he had his a lot of damage to his shoulder and arm. Part of his bicep muscle tore from the shoulder and balled up in the middle of his arm. Looked pretty nasty!

OK, if you are any kind of professional athlete you need to understand the difference between being hurt or being injured. if you are hurt you can still compete, if you are injured you cannot. If you are hurt you need to tape an aspirin to it and move on. In the immortal words of my high school football coach, "Bruceleeroy! Why are you complaining about that broken rib, you have like 13 more!? Get in there and hit someone!" Although on some level you have to be responsible to yourself. Men are proud and stubborn to a fault. Rob showed a tremendous amount of heart that many would not, but in this case he may have caused some perminant damage to himself. I truly hope not.

It was also learned in the begining of this episode we also learned that not only did Melvin Guillard break his hand in the losing effort against Josh Burkman, but Burkman also ended up out. Josh Burkman broke his elbow blocking a kick from Melvin. Now Burkman is out as well. I am sorry to hear about all these injuries during this season. It would kill me to get that far in a competition and be eliminated by an injury instead of by getting knocked out far and square.

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