CAUTION: SPOILERS INCLUDED – The Junie Browning show continues on episode five of The Ultimate Fighter: Team Nogueira vs Team Mir, but has the Kentucky lightweight finally gone too far with his latest antics?
CAUTION: SPOILERS INCLUDED – The Junie Browning show continues on episode five of The Ultimate Fighter: Team Nogueira vs Team Mir, but has the Kentucky lightweight finally gone too far with his latest antics?
As this week’s show commences, it picks up in the Octagon, where Team Nogueira’s Efrain Escudero has won the first lightweight bout of the tournament by submitting Team Mir’s Shane Nelson. Incensed by his teammate’s loss, Browning jumps the Octagon fence and tries to get at Escudero. Immediately, interim UFC heavyweight champ Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira intercepts Browning and holds him back. When the dust settles, Nogueira says of Browning, “He’s scared, and he’s gonna be the next to tap.”
UFC President Dana White isn’t pleased by this latest outburst from Browning, and luckily for the Team Mir lightweight, Nevada State Athletic Commissioner Keith Kizer wasn’t in the gym that day, saving Browning from a possible suspension.
Junie apologizes to his coach, Frank Mir, but the former heavyweight champ seems skeptical.
“Make it up,” says Mir. “Now you made me look stupid.”
This latest incident did nothing to endear Browning to his housemates, and Team Nogueira’s Shane Primm tells him that jumping over the Octagon like he did was “the most disrespectful thing you could do.”
Browning is defiant though.
“There’s nobody on their team that can beat me, and I’ll prove it,” he says.
Once that incident is put to the rest, it’s back to practice, and Nogueira has brought in a special guest – UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva – who puts the team through their paces and stops the gym when he spars with light heavyweight Ryan Bader.
Back at the house, plenty of time is spent on pranks, with everything from frozen underwear to itching powder and sardines getting involved. The itching powder made it hard for certain fighters to sleep, and Nogueira notices this in Escudero, who is resting on a bench in the gym.
The Brazilian superstar decides to talk to Mir about the situation, but Mir only agrees half-heartedly with what Nogueira has proposed to him about talking to both teams about the pranks. Nogueira then decides to go to the house with his assistant coach Al Stankie to discuss stopping the pranks, but no one really listens.
In this week’s fight, light heavyweights Elliot Marshall (Team Mir) and Shane Primm (Team Nogueira) square off, and Marshall makes Primm pay for his aggression by taking him to the mat and submitting him midway through the first round with a rear naked choke.
After the bout, Marshall and Krzysztof Soszynski talk about meeting up in the finals, and Vinny Magalhaes, a fellow light heavyweight and a pre-show teammate of Soszynski takes offense to such talk.
“I can beat both of them,” says Magalhaes, “probably in the same night.”
After this week’s bout, Team Mir gets on the board and now trails 2-1 in the competition while taking control for next week’s bout pick. Here’s how the teams look:
TEAM MIR
Krzysztof Soszynski
Vinny Magalhaes
Elliot Marshall 1-0
Tom Lawlor – Eliminated in week three by Ryan Bader
Junie Browning
Shane Nelson – Eliminated in week four by Efrain Escudero
Dave Kaplan
George Roop
TEAM NOGUEIRA
Ryan Bader 1-0
Shane Primm – Eliminated in week five by Elliot Marshall
Kyle Kingsbury
Jules Bruchez
Phillipe Nover
Efrain Escudero 1-0
John Polakowski
Roli Delgado
For weekly recaps of The Ultimate Fighter, as well as fighter profiles, stay tuned to UFC.com.