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By Matthew Kimura

If you aren’t in the know, Team Pulver is up 1-0 on Team Penn right now. Last week Cole Miller made Allen “The Monstah/Crustacean Sensation” Berube tap via kimura. After the fight, Cole was crying because he was so happy that he’d won. He figured a lot of other fighters have had to wait seven, even eight, years to get into the UFC. Up to that point, he’d only been in the fight game for three years. He knows the big opportunity that he’s gunning for, and he respects the steps that he still has to take to get to the finals.

Team Penn was pretty down in the dumps afterward, as their first fight of the season was a loss. Some of the guys noted how dull everything seemed without Monstah in the house. Sure enough, Monstah came in through the front door with a big smile on his face. He announced that he was allowed to stay in the house and train. In the case that someone gets hurt, he will be placed in that fighter’s spot. If I were him…I’d work on the ground game as much as humanly possible. I mean heck, he has one of the best jiu-jitsu guys in the world with BJ Penn.

It was everyone’s lucky day, as they all got massages. Matt Wiman was waiting his turn when Gabe Rudiger came into the room and started to talk the smack. Since they’re on the same team, Wiman was a little confused as to what was going on, and he told Rudiger that he’s making Team Penn look bad by going against one of his own teammates.

The bad blood subdued for a bit, though, as both teams made their way to the training facility for the next fight announcement. BJ Penn took Rob Emerson into a separate room to discuss strategy…not fight strategy though…reality TV strategy. Penn tried to manipulate the choice for the fight, and told Emerson to call out 6’4 Corey Hill, and even gave Emerson a script to read.

Emerson played along and really got into it: “Come on big man. All bark and no bite. Big dog with no bite. Why don’t you come get some big dog?”

I was actually surprised that Corey, who’s usually the most high strung out of the group during training, didn’t completely wig out. He just stood and nodded, replying: “You’ll get what’s coming to you. Don’t worry.”

Jens Pulver knew what Penn was up to, so he didn’t play along. He called Manny Gamburyan out from his line. Manny asked Ruediger if he’d cut enough weight yet. After a few more moments of bickering, Manny changed gears and pointed out Noah Thomas. To make it official: Manny Gamburyan (Team Pulver) v. Noah Thomas (Team Penn)

Just a few notes on both fighters:

Noah Thomas (25 yrs/ 5’5”/ 67.5 reach) is a former member of the US Marine Corps. He has over 40 fights under his belt…all coming from the last two years. The thing that Penn really emphasized was that as long as Noah could keep the fight standing, then the fight was his for the taking.

Manny Gamburyan(25 yrs./ 5’5”/ 66 reach) has been in the fight game for fifteen years. He trained with his cousin, UFC veteran Karo Parysian. He’s a judo fighter, but looks really well rounded. On a side note…I do judo too. I’ve been looking forward to seeing Manny fight since I heard he was going to be on the show.

Back at the house… a few of the guys are in the backyard when they see a couple of girls riding horses. They call the girls over, and when they get to the front of the house one of the horses slipped and hurt its legs. Ruediger, being the classy guy that he is, laughed about it. After the rest of the guys filed out of the house to try and help the situation, an animal ambulance arrived and took the horse away…probably to the glue factory.

Later on, Team Penn goes to the training facility. Wiman and Ruediger are still going at it, ready to actually throw down right then and there. Everyone sat in a circle while the two aired out their problems. Penn was mad because both guys were wasting everyone else’s time. He was ready to send them home, but wound up getting a handle on the situation quickly. Noah seemed pretty confident in his training. A lot of striking…and he looked pretty mean with it, too.

Team Pulver seemed to be pretty close with one another (no bickering). They even made a championship belt to give to whoever wins their fight (Cole had it on this week, since he won the previous fight). When they get to the training facility, Manny looked like he was ready for a war.

The next day, BJ Penn gave his fighters the day off. As Team Pulver was training, Team Penn got bored, so they wrote on the walls. At first they wrote encouraging notes for the troops that were overseas, then Emerson took it to another level by writing “Suck it Team Pulver” on the wall. When Team Pulver got home, Nick Diaz blew up and was ready to hurt someone. He took his shirt off and went nose to nose with Emerson. Then the rest of the team started to yell at Emerson, who at that point looked like he was ready to crap a brick.

Whatever tantrum Diaz threw paled in comparison to Manny’s meltdown. He screamed, cussed, and basically did everything short of hitting somebody while freaking out about the writing on the wall. He’d threatened to hit Emerson, but just wound up talking about how the graffiti wasn’t cool. Some of the guys in the house thought that Manny wore himself out, and would be toast for the fight the next day. Corey thought so as well, as he was the one that helped calm Manny down at the end of the night.

The next day, before the fight, Manny talked about how much he hated Noah, and how he wanted to hurt him. Noah seemed very relaxed, and said that he never fights angry because usually angry fighters wind up losing.

THE FIGHT

They touched gloves and started to circle. Manny connected with a good punch early, and then backed Noah against the fence. Noah tried to stay up, but Manny threw him and then fell into Noah’s guard. Some good punches by Manny, as he had to stand up and then dive and punch to get back down on top of Noah. Eventually Manny gained side control. Noah kept trying to trap Manny’s arm, to apply an armlock, but couldn’t get a good hold on the arm. Then out of nowhere, Manny grabbed Noah’s arm and cranked it back with a kimura, forcing Noah to tap.

Your winner: Manny via submission with a kimura. Chalk up another for Team Pulver. They’re 2-0.

Manny pushed the pace the entire fight, and as soon as the fight went to the ground Noah was a dead man. That kimura was sick, too. If Noah would’ve waited a little longer to tap, he would’ve had a broken arm.

Next week’s preview: Gabe gets a colonic….no seriously. Plus: BJ yells at his team, Jeremy Horn makes an appearance to help coach, and Corey apparently trains too hard.

Check out The Ultimate Fighter: Season Five every Thursday at 10pm EST on Spike TV.

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Filed under: The Ultimate Fighter