By Joe Fernandez
The first episode of SpikeTV's The Ultimate Fighter Season 5 debuted last night with 16 lightweight (155-pound) fighters vying for one contract.
One has already been eliminated.
Cole Miller caught Allen Berube in a triangle choke in the first round and eliminated Berube, who said he needed to improve on his own ground game.
"I'm still green," Berube said. "Every part of my game needs improvement. The only thing where I don't need improvement is heart."
Berube, a Maine native who owns "Monstah Lobstah," a restaurant in Tampa, Fla., was picked first to fight as Coach Jens Pulver's team had the first pick against the team that was coached by BJ Penn. The way the first episode was going, it looked as if the Yellow team, coached by Pulver, was going to pick the Blue team's Gabe Ruediger, who was heavier than the 155-pound requirement to fight.
"You know the show's for 155 [pounds], you can't go in the house 180," Berube said. Have a little respect for the show. He forgot what it was all about."
Berube also added what it was like to have Ruediger as a roommate.
"He's an a**," Berube said of Ruediger. "He's real, real cocky. Always said something to put someone down, make himself look better. I think it made him look worse. But everyone else for the most part was real cool. Even the other team, I got along with everyone."
The show, which begins each season with all the fighters working out with both coaches and then being selected by their respective coaches, hit a snag in that selection process when BJ Penn asked all the fighters who wanted to be on his team and not on Pulver's team to raise their hands.
Even though more than half of the fighters raised their hands, UFC President Dana White didn't allow it.
"It caught everyone off guard," Berube said. "You were just hoping that if you raised your hand, Jens Pulver wasn't going to pick you. If you're one of the last picks, Jens might have to take you. You get a little nervous toward the end of that thinking if I had my hand raised, Jens is going to pound me into the ground. He's not going to take care of me."
Check back each Friday afternoon of this season as Fightin' Words interviews the last person eliminated each week from The Ultimate Fighter: Season 5.
Comments (4)
who are the season 5 wrestling coaches for UFC the ultimate fighter
How about LI's own Matt Serra bringing it back to LI!!! UFC Welterweight champion of the world.
OY MY GOD SERRA BEAT FRENCHIE.
I'm writing this here b/c I don't know where else to put it. How can a popular LI MMA fighter take the UFC welterweight title, in perhaps the biggest upset in MMA history, and there's not a single mention in Newsday? Matt Serra literally shocked the MMA world last night in knocking out Geroge St. Pierre. You would think, or at least hope, Serra's hometown paper would at least give him a mention. And it's not like Serra is a stranger to Newsday - he took the time to write a blog for Newsday readers throughout his time on the Ultimate Fighter reality series. But hey, at least there's a full story on NYIT's win against C.W. Post in men's college lacross? Sad.