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I can offer nothing by way of introduction that would set the stage more fittingly for the no doubt earth-shattering events about to unfold on this, our season finale of The Ultimate Fighter, than these words from Dana White himself. BEHOLD:

We’re all of us accustomed to “Boom, another hit is landed,” but “Boom, the shit hit the fan,” that’s something else altogether. Something I don’t know if I’m ready for. Something I don’t know if we, as a people, are ready for. But stiffen the sinews! Summon up the blood! Lend the eye a terrible aspect! Other stuff too! This is a once more into the breach situation, basically.

As the show opens, we are reminded of Jesse’s entertaining and yet somewhat heartbreaking stupidity. The things that man says. The things. Is this hinting towards who ends up blowing their spot on the Finale through limo shenanigans? We know Jesse says stupid things, but does he do stupid things?

I guess in order to leave plentiful time for limo shenanigans to unfold, we’re headed straight into Amir vs. CB. CB, who is a solid wrestler and kind of a jerk, and Amir, who is a decent kickboxer and a pretty chill bro. Amir has drawn a lot of internet fire for his haircut, his purportedly emo haircut, but to my eye it is merely a vaguely rocking haircut that should not be a stain on his character.

This is your basic Steve Mazzagatti situation (blows will be rained down) with your standard Burger King dollaz incentive$, as you’ve come to expect by now. CB comes out aggressively with Amir circling and backing off. CB clinches and throws a couple of knees but he doesn’t stick with it; he pushes off. Amir lands a solid body kick which knocks CB down, but CB is back up and grabs a double, planting Amir and finding himself inside Amir’s full guard. Amir looks composed. He switches his hips for an armbar attempt, but doesn’t come particularly close. Cameron (*swoon*) is right: Amir needs to use that underhook to sweep to his left. Everything Cameron says is so true. CB is keeping the pressure on, keeping his weight forward and trying to just sort of explode through Amir’s guard — they’re not particularly technical pass attempts, but he is staying busy and making Amir work. Amir gets both feet inside CB’s hips, pushes off, and scrambles up. Amir gets the better of a brief exchange of strikes but CB gets another takedown and he’s back inside Amir’s guard. CB passes nicely to the his left, and Amir gives up his back with less than half a minute to go in the round. “No worries, no worries,” Forrest says from the corner. I guess because of the takedowns and the positions, you’ve got to give that round to CB, but if I’m in Amir’s corner, I’m pretty comfortable with how things are going so far. Perhaps I am just at ease in Amir’s corner because Cameron is also there.

Round two! I’m sure CB hits hard, because he is a strong dude, but his strikes are slow and a little awkward. Amir lands another solid body kick that knocks CB down, but after a scramble CB ends up on top, landing in half mount. Amir gets his guard back though. And throws up a triangle! That could totally turn into an armbar as CB rolls! No, he’s kind of got nothing, actually, as they’re both face down but not in that armbarry way, you know? CB is back inside Amir’s guard, and looks like Amir has quite a cut below his eye. Amir’s corner wants him to push off CB’s hips and get back to his feet, but CB is keeping the pressure on (sort of). Mazzagatti stands them up, and they both look seriously tired. If anything, though, Amir is overly eager despite his fatigue, he fails to keep his distance, and CB takes him right back down. CB has got to be up two rounds here. And, again, they both look seriously gassed.

Round three begins with Amir rushing in, which seems like exactly the wrong move. CB clinches Amir against the cage, and works for the single. “This takedown is the fight!” Forrest yells from the corner, and it probably is. Amir fights it but eventually succumbs. CB takes his back and goes for the hadaka jime, the rear naked choke. Amir’s corner is yelling “turn into the choke!” which puts me in mind of my first instructor having me in a really snug choke when I’d been training for only a couple of months. I turned the wrong way and he gave me a “WHAT DID I TEACH YOU?” that left me shook and shamed but not once since have I turned the wrong way in that situation, so that is pedagogically sound. Amir turns in, escapes the choke, looks for the armbar, and actually CB fals into a kind of yoko sankaku jime position but it’s not tight. All of this confusion ends with CB back inside Amir’s guard. This has got to be frustrating for Amir’s corner because his guard game looks pretty dangerous but CB is plainly on his way to winning a decision here. Amir’s corner is asking the ref to stand it up but CB is smartly staying just busy enough to prevent that. OH MY GOD ARMBAR OUT OF NOWHERE WHAT A FINISH. Oh man, that is seriously an awesome finish. He threw up the triangle and quickly switched to the armbar as CB stood up out of it. Clearly I am an Amir partisan here but that was tremendous.

Rampage’s read: he thinks CB won the first two rounds, and just got caught in the third. That’s pretty much it.

CB is shown sitting down crying in the shower. That is rough. Amir is shown getting his eye stitched up. Equally rough.

My thoughts turn immediately to Limogate, though. If Amir gets kicked off for nonsense after that fight, it would be a real shame. If Jesse gets kicked off for nonsense stemming from his natural stupidity, that would be tragic in a cosmic sense. Either way, this is going to be as rough as a needle under the eye or a weepy, seated shower.

OK, so, a night on the town gone wrong, is what we’re looking at here. We have security footage of Jesse Taylor kicking the window out of the limo, and Dana tells us Jesse followed that up by marauding through a hotel, harassing the female guests, and doing a YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I AM A UFC FIGHTER kind of thing. As boneheaded as all of that is, I am mostly feeling sorry for him. He is just a profoundly dumb guy. I am not saying he should not be held accountable for his actions: I am saying that I am receptive to a tragic sense of life. Call me Miguel De Unamuno if you must.

The coaches have been assembled to talk about this. “That’s, see, that’s not a good idea at all,” Rampage opines; “You don’t want a guy like that representing your company.” Jesse is called in, clearly without any real idea what is up, decked out head to toe in ludicrous Tapout gear. What would Punk Ass make of all of this? Hightower? Mask? “I drank a little too much and just got a little rowdy,” is Jesse’s explanation.

Dana suggests that what he’s seen here tells him that Jesse “is not mentally ready to be in the fucking UFC.” The list of things Jesse Taylor is mentally not ready to do is probably extensive. “The bottom line is you’re fucking out, bro.” Tough but fair, obviously. No, please, don’t hit yourself in the head, Jesse: that is a step in the wrong direction here, friend.

Jesse says this is probably the worst moment of his life. He says something semi-coherent about how ever since he was a kid he had a feeling that he was going to be something, a hero to people, and now that’s gone. I feel indecent watching this poor soul flail around here. He’s like indecently dumb, this poor guy.

Tim vs. CB will fight for the final spot, which seems the only fair thing to do here. I see CB laying on top of Tim for three rounds and getting the decision, but we know CB can get caught. And apparently Tim is a BJJ black belt. Tim claims he will beat CB to death, which I am going to go on the record as saying is unlikely

Mazzagatti again! Round one: Tim seems much more conscious of keeping his distance against CB than Amir did. Tim is getting the best of these exchanges, but CB has some snappy little kicks. Tim has CB backing up. CB keeps throwing those kicks to the legs and the body, though. Tim is punching with this crazy erect posture like he’s putting his dukes up old time boxing style, you know? He just threw the single most overhand overhand right I have ever seen and somehow CB saw it coming. We are about four minutes into a pretty crappy kickboxing match. Tim floors CB with a right that lands behind the ear, I think, but in the ensuing scramble nobody really gets position and they’re back to the feet with ten seconds to go. CB gets a take down with about three seconds to go. I think you’ve got to give that round to Tim, though.

CB shoots early in round two, but Tim is back on his feet almost immediately. Tim throws a kick to the body and slips. He’s in the classic shameful Inoki position here, throwing kicks to the knees. CB lets him back up, but I don’t know about that. OK, shows what I know: CB starts absolutely wailing on Tim, dropping him in the corner. CB had Tim in real trouble, but Tim managed to find his feet, and with two minutes left in the round, both guys look seriously gassed, and they’re both throwing wide, looping shots. Rampage is yelling for CB to use the jab: “It don’t take much energy to use the jab.” But this is not a round of jabs. Nor indeed a season of jabs. Rampage wants CB to get the take down to win the round (it’s probably already won, but why not?), and it is the most tired shot you will ever see, but it totally works. CB’s round.

Somehow, Dana thinks that it’s either 2-0 or 2-1 at this point. Only two rounds so far, big guy.

CB lands early in round three and gets the takedown. It doesn’t seem like he wants any part of Tim on the ground, though. Man these guys are tired. CB with another double, Tim working for the elevator sweep. For a moment. Back up. Another double. This fight kind of stinks. They were dead tired halfway into round two, and everything since then has been awful. Except for this: Forrest wants Tim on his feet and in the centre of the ring — “Tim, Tim, centre, Burger King.” That was great. Tim lands, so CB takes him right back down. This, I think, is CB’s round, and his fight, 30-28.

Yep: CB takes the decision, so it’ll be a CB/Amir rematch on the Finale. THE SMACK TALKING BRUISER VS. THE NEVER SAY DIE WARRIOR is what we are promised. OK! Also in the main event we’ve got Kendall Grove, who recently came out strongly against white people, matched with the complicated Evan Tanner for whom life has not been easy. And Tanner is a white guy so this should be HEATED. If you’d asked me only days ago if Kendall Grove was a white guy I would have answered “probably,” but I would have been wrong. Given a sizable portion of the UFC’s audience, coming out against white guys could turn Kendall Grove into the company’s hottest heel. And so well played, Kendall Grove.

Final thoughts, then? Dana says that the CB/Tim fight summed up this whole season, but he means that in a good way. Which is not how you might. For my part, I enjoyed it all well enough — there were definitely some solid fights this season. But there was an awful lot of awful, too. The format is pretty much completely played out at this point, and the inclusion of a bunch more fights in the first two weeks didn’t do much to change that. There’s nobody on this season of the show that is likely to have any real shot of sticking in the UFC, and I’m not sure how well the show managed to build the Forrest/Rampage fight aside from the net-firing antics of several weeks ago. That’s a fight I’m totally eager to see anyway, but I don’t think I’m any more keen because of the show. Not that I know anything about anything, but I’m not sure The Ultimate Fighter does that thing that it used to do: make new stars and build big matches. Not that it matters much to me, as I’m down for whatever. Come September 17th, I am ready to go for Team Nogueira vs. Team Mir.

ARE YOU?

MAYBE, RIGHT?

OK COOL.