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UFC officials have revealed the 32 fighters who will compete on a special two-hour episode to gain entrance into The Ultimate Fighter house.

The series, which stars heavyweights Shane Carwin and Roy Nelson as coaches, begins September 14 on FX. Sixteen welterweights will gain a spot on TUF, with a future UFC contract awaiting the winner.

Carwin and Nelson are set to square off against one another at the finale on December 15. The two have drawn plenty of interest with their obvious hatred for one another.

“Carwin and Nelson are two guys who just can’t stand each other and Roy and I haven’t exactly seen eye-to-eye, either,” UFC president Dana White said. “He’s been a nightmare for me to work with on this show with all his stupid BS.”

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER: CARWIN VS. NELSON CAST

Bristol Marunde, 30, Las Vegas; Cameron Diffley, 27, Las Vegas; Colton Smith, 30, Fort Hood, Texas, via Ankeny, Iowa; Cortez Coleman, 30, Hugo, Okla.; David Michaud, 23, Pine Ridge, S.D.; Diego Bautista, 26, Lakewood, Calif.; Dom Waters, 23, Santa Rosa, Calif.; Eddy Ellis, 29, Olympia, Wash.; Frank Camacho, 23, Camp Springs, Md.; George Lockhart, 29, Atlanta, Ga.; Igor Araujo, 31, Albuquerque, N.M., via Patos De Minas, Brazil; James Chaney, 25, Klamath Falls, Ore.; Jason South, 34, West Jordan, Utah; Jerel Clark, 23, Reno, Nev.; Jesse Barrett, 26, Tempe, Ariz.; Joey Rivera, 32, Tucson, Ariz.

Jon Manley, 26, Ludlow, Mass.; Julian Lane, 25, Mansfield, Ohio; Kevin Nowaczyk, 23, Chicago; Leo Kuntz, 28, Bismarck, N.D.; Lev Magen, 25, Las Vegas; Matt Secor, 25, South Glens Falls, N.Y.; Max Griffin, 26, Sacramento, Calif.; Michael Hill, 25, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada; Mike Ricci, 26, Montreal; Neil Magny, 24, Chicago; Nic Herron-Webb, 22, Anchorage, Alaska; Ricky Legere Jr., 26, Corona, Calif.; Saad Awad, 23, San Bernardino, Calif.; Sam Alvey, 26, Murrieta, Calif.; Tim Ruberg, 30, Harrison, Ohio; Zane Kamaka, 23, Klaianae, Hawaii.

The TUF 14 Finale takes place later tonight at the The Pearl at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event airs on Spike TV at 8pm ET. The prelims will stream live on Facebook at 5:15pm ET.

In the main event, Michael Bisping and Jason “Mayhem” Miller meet in the TUF 14 coaches battle.

Dennis Bermudez and Diego Brandao face off for the TUF 14 featherweight crown.

John Dodson and TJ Dillashaw meet in the TUF bantamweight final.

Yves Edwards takes on TUF 13 winner Tony Ferguson in a lightweight bout.

TUF 14 cast members Louis Gaudinot and Johnny Bedford meet in a bantamweight match-up.

Results, recap and bonuses after the jump.

Continue reading this post

The TUF 14 Finale weigh-ins will stream live in the video player above at 7pm ET.

The weigh-in results will follow on a separate post.

The Ultimate Fighter 14 Finale Main Event Breakdown: Michael Bisping vs. Jason Miller | MMA Fighting

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Bloodstained Fangs: MMAmania interview exclusive with Ultimate Fighter 14 finalist Dennis Bermudez | MMA Mania

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Anderson Silva: Chael Sonnen Means “Nothing” to Me | Bleacher Report

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With season 14 of The Ultimate Fighter coming to a close last night, the UFC has revealed the full fight card for the TUF 14 Finale this weekend. Considering only two fights were announced previously — Michael Bisping vs. Jason “Mayhem” Miller and Yves Edwards vs. Tony Ferguson — it’s no surprise that the card is chock full of TUF 14 cast members. Check it out:

• Michael Bisping vs. Jason “Mayhem” Miller
• FW Final: Dennis Bermudez vs. Diego Brandao
• BW Final: John Dodson vs. T.J. Dillashaw
• Yves Edwards vs. Tony Ferguson
• Louis Gaudinot vs. Johnny Bedford
• Stephen Bass vs. Marcus Brimage
• John Albert vs. Dustin Pague
• Josh Ferguson vs. Roland Delorme
• Josh Clopton vs. Steven Siler
• Dustin Neace vs. Bryan Caraway

The TUF 14 Finale will air Saturday night on Spike TV at 8pm ET. The prelims will stream live on Facebook before the broadcast.

Also, for the first time the UFC is giving out $25,000 bonuses for the best fight, knockout and submission from the season. The winners will be determined by fan voting. You can submit yours at Spike’s Facebook page.

And so it ends, the run of the Ultimate Fighter on SpikeTV, a run that gave rise to a culture of “dudes who train UFC” and a run that made the sport of mixed martial arts… well, if not a household name, at least something spoken of in violence-stricken alleyways and testosterone-heavy bars. From here on out, TUF is something we’ll have to tune in to the FX Network to watch, twisted into some semi-live incarnation that will likely lack the elements of pillow-urine and fruit platter-ejaculate marriage we’ve come to expect and associate with the reality television series. So let’s savor this last moment of purity, shall we? For this dance we’ve collectively shared, this romance of ill-advised product placement, canned drama and genuine combat, will never be the same again. It is truly the end.

Okay, savoring over.

There are two semifinal matchups left to get through, with Johnny Grunge and John Dodson rounding out the bantamweight selection and Bryan Caraway Seed and Diego Marlon Brando finishing out the featherweights. First up: Grunge and Dodson!

Having shared the same team for the season, the two young warriors have put their sensei – Jason “More often than not, referred to as just Mayhem” Miller – in the awkward position of not being able to coach either one of them for this semifinal bout. So Mayhem doesn’t, he just sits back and watches while Grunge spars with his greasy hair barely kept in place by a ragged bandana, and while Dodson hops around, leaping over flaming barrels rolled at him by some of his teammates and dodging high-velocity beanbag rounds shot from shotguns held by others.

Lame, shallow predictions and statements are made. “I’m going to punch him, and then when I don’t want to punch him anymore, I’m going to take him down and finish him,” says Grunge. “I’m going to fight him and then win,” says Dodson. “I have to calm myself down,” says Johnny Grunge whilst taking a late-night swim in the placid waters of the TUF House pool, a gesture that indicates his fighting isn’t necessarily fueled by emotion. “I’m awesome and you’re not,” Dodson says to the camera, pretending to convey the message to his opponent.

And then they’re fighting. Like Green-Haired Gaudinot versus the good Reverend Dustin Pague, there’s a heck of a size difference between the two, and the smaller Dodson’s ratatatat punching doesn’t seem to faze the longer, lankier Grunge. As such, the first round of their bout is pretty much contested solely on the feet, and it’s even. But then comes Round 2, where Dodson finds Grunge’s chin with a well-timed left hand and sends him falling to the canvas. The little sparkplug follows him down with a rapid-fire stream of hammerfists that leave Grunge snoozing, and convinced he’s in Ohio when he regains consciousness. Seriously. Ohio.

Dodson is understandably elated, as his ticket is now punched for facing TJ Dillawhack at Saturday’s live finale.

Conversely, Johnny Grunge is sad. “I didn’t think he had the power to knock me out, and I was wrong,” he says amidst sobs. “Also, why are all you guys here in Ohio? I thought TUF was filmed in Las Vegas…”

Onward! Bryan Caraway Seed is pretty darned scared about having to face the Brazilian 145-pound human killer Diego Marlon Brando, and we’re clear on this emotional baggage after watching the American tremble his way through a conversation in the TUF House hot tub. Is his fear unfounded? Well, Diego Marlon Brando did eat the souls of his two prior opponents earlier in the season, and while Caraway Seed is languishing in the hot tub, the camera pans over to Brando, who at that very moment is sharpening a cleaver on a patio stone as a prelude to chopping up raw steak to cook for dinner.

“I’d be scared of the guy but he’s only the size of my leg,” says Bisping of his diminutive ward back at the TUF training center, and we’re led to believe this is some sort of compliment.

Bryan Caraway Seed trains but his sheer and utter terror is noticeable by all. Coach Mayhem gives him a pep talk of sorts, describing how three weeks before his fights he wishes he worked at McDonalds or Starbucks in lieu of getting in a cage for a living. Caraway Seed is somehow not heartened by this.

At the weigh-ins the coaches trade back and forth banter, with Bisping asking Mayhem who will win and Mayhem not committing to a real answer. The charming Brit offers up a one-hundred dollar wager. That, Mayhem accepts.

It’s the last night in the TUF House, so of course it’s time to party. To kick off the festivities, Mayhem rides through the house on a BMX bike in just his underwear. He follows that up with bike jumps in the pool (the younglings follow suit with said bike). Then there’s beer pong. Meanwhile, in IHaveToFightTomorrowVille, Diego is telling Siler about God letting him know he’s going to help families in Brazil for Christmas and his brain is strong and some other garbled nonsense – his English so bad even the subtitles make no sense. Caraway Seed just shivers in a corner, overtaken by anxiety.

And then they’re fighting, and Caraway Seed’s wrestling strength is met with brick wall after brick wall of sprawled hips and knees and short punches off the tie-up. Also, just about every kick the Brazilian throws to the American’s lead leg lands with such force, Caraway Seed is spun completely around. It’s almost like watching a trained Muay Thai fighter take on a karate point-fighter, Diego Marlon Brando playing the role of the guy who knows how to fight for real and Caraway Seed playing the role of the man doomed.

That doom comes eventually, later in the first round, as Diego Marlon Brando stuns him with a punch, blasts him with a kick, knees him, punches the bejeezus out of him, and sends him alternately stumbling, falling to his back, and wobbling all over the place. Caraway Seed absorbs it all while on autopilot, and in return his body goes through the zombie-like motions of trying to get his assailant to the ground. But then comes a big punch while Caraway Seed is on the mat attempting to get some sort of guard, and the American is flattened. Diego Marlon Brando will face Dennis Bermudez at the finale.

With that, the fourteenth season of TUF comes to a close. What did you think?

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On this week’s edition of Pro MMA Radio, TUF 14 cast member TJ Dillashaw joined host Larry Pepe to preview this weekend’s TUF 14 Finale and talk about his time on the show.

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On this week’s episode of “The Ultimate Anything But Fighting”, we’re promised conflict, as the Reverend Dustin Pague is slated to take on TJ Dillabean in a bantamweight semifinal pairing. But before the clash in the cage, we get stuff. Like, uh, non-fighting stuff.

In case you’ve forgotten, the Reverend Pague is a man of God who, despite the brutality of his profession, still finds time to spread a message of love and kindness to the world. Case in point: the homeless man the young TUFers pass by every day on the drive to the gym. Whereas some – like Green-Haired Gaudinot and Roland – prefer to hurl rocks and glass bottles at the street denizen’s head, Pague has only compassion. To prove it, on one such trip he halts the TUF van to hand said homeless man a Ziploc bag full of food.

What a nice guy.

Fast-forward to the Reverend in training, and coach “Sometimes Jason, But Usually” Mayhem Miller admits he may be the underdog. “We know how good he is,” says Mayhem. Hey, the guy depletes the TUF House larder to give food to homeless dudes. Good? He’s practically saintly.

But the Reverend Pague knows how to party, too, which is proven when Mayhem drops in on the TUF House to partake in some barbecue action. As we all know, being sequestered in the TUF House is akin to an extended stay at Arkham Asylum, and insanity inevitably develops – which, for Pague, means forgoing the Lord’s prohibition against eating bugs (it’s in the Bible, I swear). After much “oooh” and “aaah” fanfare, the bantamweight is soon chowing down on a cockroach and a beetle for 60 dollars. A measly 60 bucks. That, my friends, is the epitome of both “insanity” and “party”.

It’s time for that wonderful, magical time of the TUF season, where the opposing coachs square off in a contest that invariably involves a lot of money as a prize but an endeavor that has zero relevance to anything the coaches may have done in their lives. Remember back when Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock had to go bass fishing? Remember when Matt Serra and Matt Hughes were forced to play hours of Dungeons & Dragons? Well, this time around the challenge is air hockey, with the table set up atop the Palms Casino.

Cue dramatic Quentin Tarantino-esque camerawork, which lends the showdown an air of tension it wouldn’t normally have (and doesn’t have when the scene unfolds at normal film speed). Somehow, someway, coach Michael Bisping is familiar with air hockey, and he takes the lead in the best-three-out-of-five series, kicking the American’s butt simply because he sucks at the game only slightly less. One game goes to Bisping, then another. When all seems lost for Mayhem, he surges forward with the classic air hockey strategy known as “letting your opponent score repeatedly on himself”. However, the stratagem is eventually thwarted, and Bisping wins his third game and all the dough.

Curiously, to celebrate his victory, Bisping climbs onto the air hockey table hooting and hollering, then unceremoniously falls off the table and onto his butt. Okay.

It’s time for TJ Dillabean’s training session, and assistant coach Tiki-Tiki Head narrates, extolling his ward’s virtues as one of the best wrestlers on Team Bisping. Hmm, do you think wrestling will be a factor in the upcoming fight?

And then the Reverend Pague and TJ Dillabean are fighting. Round 1 is about 87% TJ Dillabean on top pounding on the Reverend with authority, and 13% the Reverend trying for submissions and landing a knee square to his opponent’s jaw, which establishes to the viewer that if there were no grappling in MMA, Pague would totally be winning this fight. Unfortunately, while he did manage to nail Dillabean pretty hard in the first, no such heavenly joy comes to the Reverend in the second round; once Dillabean gets him down he’s stuck there, absorbing punishment like a sponge that, er, absorbs spilled punishment. Round 3 is just as ugly, with Pague bloodied, beaten and coughing up cockroach and beetle parts. To his credit, Pague didn’t give up. But alas, that isn’t enough to win fights, and Dillabean takes the unanimous decision.

“Dustin Pague has a bright future,” says Mayhem to the camera postfight.

He sure does. Whether he wins or loses in the cage, the dude is clearly going to Heaven.

The end.

Last week, some dude grumbled, some dude cracked wise, a duo posed down and flexed, then hugged, then fought. Then someone won and someone lost. You know how it goes. On tap for this week’s episode is more of the same!

Cliques have formed in the TUF House, and the breakdown of the groups are as follows: the Incoherent Trash Talkers, which includes Brazilian mushmouth Diego Marlon Brando and the Swede; the Bible Fellowship, which includes the Reverend Dustin Pague; and, finally, the Gamblers, who spend all their time playing cards, placing bets on a makeshift roulette wheel and wagering on races between captured cockroaches. And, as with any set of cliques trapped in the confines of a house under constant surveillance, all is not peachy.

Case in point, the Swede, who bears some sort of ill will towards a slumbering Bryan Caraway Seed, and uses the American’s moment of vulnerability to run into his room and buzz a swath through his hair (a “shave-by”, if you will). A chase ensues, with the Swede retreating back to the safety of his clique-mates and Bryan Caraway Seed starting to look like a Flock of Seagulls band member.

But the pranks aren’t confined to the little TUFers. In episode seven, coach Mayhem “Actual first name: Jason” Miller had cranes surround Team Bisping assistant coach Tiki-Tiki Head’s truck with cement barricades. Now it’s time for payback – or, as Michael Bisping and Tiki-Tiki Head like to call it, “Rendering the TUF Training Center completely uninhabitable for human life” (because, you know, why not? It’s not like anyone has to train there.) Anyway, the prank involves trapping Team Mayhem in their locker room and discharging fire extinguishers until the entire building is a noxious gas chamber. Also, there’s a mariachi band. Oh the hilarity of watching grown men gag and cough and wonder where they’re supposed to work out!

Of course, as we’re in the semifinal stage of the competition, there’s no mystery to the match-ups, and we know next up at bat is Dennis Bermudez and the Swede. The Swede believes his foe isn’t too bright, and accentuates his feelings with drawings taped to the refrigerator, abstract drawings that depict owls speaking phrases that are supposed to mean something. (I’m not going to count that as a prank; too lame.)

Back at the TUF Training Center and it seems SpikeTV has shelled out the dough to have someone clean up Bisping and Tiki-Tiki Head’s mess. We’re reminded that Bermudez can wrestle, first with shots of him nailing takedowns, then with verbal testaments like Mayhem saying, “He can wrestle,” and Dana White saying, “Yeah, he definitely can wrestle.”

Meanwhile, the Swede still sucks on the ground, so Bisping drills him there. But lest things get too serious on this reality TV show, the Prank Monster again rears its ugly head. This time around Bisping is ambushed by his own disciples, with the Swede playing the role of the distraction as Marcus Brimage jumps on the Brit’s back and stuffs his sweaty jock strap into his mouth. (And in San Francisco, a bar in the Castro District erupts into cheers.) Brimage flees, so Bisping laughingly gets a modicum of retribution by assaulting the Swede with said jock strap.

Is that enough prankage for you? No? Good, because there’s more. Not content with making the Swede suffer, a visit is paid to the TUF House, where Bisping and Tiki-Tiki Head ambush everyone and spray them with silly string.

Unlike his opposite number, Mayhem still has designs of being an effective coach. To that end, he arranges for Bermudez to work with stud kickboxer Siyar Bahadurzada, who himself trained the Swede back in the ghettos of Stockholm. Or something. Anyway, it’s a sound method.

And then they’re fighting!

The Swede, we’re told, is going to have the edge in boxing, and we see in short order that that’s no lie. He begins putting knuckles to face almost immediately, repeatedly dinging Bermudez up and forcing the American to take shots from neighboring states like California and Utah. But just when the Swede hits Bermudez hard enough to spin him around, the wrestler lunges for a takedown, hoists him up and slams him. A short time later, sitting with his back against the fence, the Swede is caught in a guillotine. He taps out.

It takes a bit for the Swede to recover from the effects of the choke, and when he jumps back to his feet he has no idea what happened. Hey buddy, you know what happened? Too many pranks, not enough training.

The end.

While last week’s episode ended up being somewhat of a public relations disaster for coach Michael Bisping, this week we get less of his witticisms (“Mr. Wacky-Zany Character Guy”) and more stuff non-British and non-image damning. Take, for instance, Roland’s foot, which is swollen, pulsating and looking like something out of a Stephen King novel. Will Roland be medically cleared to fight for his upcoming bout against TJ Hooker? Only a nearby doctor who specializes in infectious diseases and exorcisms knows, so Roland exits stage left.

Hey, it’s guest coach time! If you recall, having guest coaches make appearances on the show is a grand tradition, and over the years TUF aspirants have been visited by the likes of Chuck Liddell, Mike Tyson, a drunken French kickboxer, and a dancing bear. This time around, however, it’s someone with actual experience training fighters: Rafael Cordeiro. Cordeiro was one of the masterminds behind the famed Chute Boxe team, and he’s now best buds with Mayhem “That’s just a stage name” Miller, so it’s Team Mayhem he ends up aiding. Not to be outdone, Team Bisping has Tito Ortiz drop in, with the subject matter involving elbow smashes and gigantic heads (Have you seen Ortiz’s head? It’s massive.).

But all is not peachy on Team Bisping, for below the surface of their friendly façade is resentment. You see, team member TJ Hooker asked to face Roland instead of John Dodson last week, and as Roland is considered the path of least resistance to the finals, it’s somehow dishonorable or cowardly or, I don’t know, something bad to want to make it to the finals of a reality show that discards its runners-up like yesterday’s trash. So what does Team Bisping do? They order a Code Red on TJ Hooker during training, which in this instance involves Diego Marlon Brando tying TJ Hooker in knots, the Swede mushing him with takedowns, and Marcus Brimage swinging maybe a little too hard in stand-up sparring. There is a freak out (isn’t there always?), and we see that Bisping is oblivious to the Code Red; his sudden knowledge of it prompts a group jam session that has so much beeped out profanity we have no idea what it is they’re saying exactly. But then they hug it out, so we know it must all be cool now.

Meanwhile, back at Team Infected Foot, Roland returns from the doctor with clearance to fight. No one seems too confident in his chances, sick flipper not withstanding, but whatever. He’s in the TUF House, and someone has to be the easy fight.

Remember a few weeks back when Team Bisping had Mayhem’s pristine white chariot towed from the handicapped parking space outside the TUF Training Center? Well, Mayhem remembers, and while Team Bisping assistant coach Tiki-Tiki Head is inside getting TJ Hooker ready for battle, Mayhem has a bunch of cranes drive up and drop concrete barricades around Tiki-Tiki Head’s parked vehicle. A spray-painted “M” on one of the barricades seals the deal, and when Tiki-Tiki Head sees his entrapped ride, he can only laugh.

We get a little training montage and backstory, and learn that Roland owned a restaurant before he committed to fighting (um, okay). On the flipside, TJ Hooker trains with Urijah Faber and the kids at Team Alpha Male when he’s not sequestered in a mansion in Las Vegas for six weeks at a time.

And then they’re fighting, or, more accurately, TJ Hooker is playing “smashy face” with his overmatched foe. Throughout Round 1 Roland takes a beating, escaping from things like a D’Arce Choke and other bad positions, but never really making TJ Hooker feel pain. Round 2 is even worse, with the Team Bisping-er coming out and dropping Roland with a right hand directly to the kisser. The ensuing ground-and-pound brutality ends only when Roland is caught in a rear naked choke and taps out. TJ Hooker skates into the semifinals.

So, with all the quarterfinals out of the way, it’s time for Dana White to call everyone into his office one by one, and with the coaches looking on, hear who all wants to fight whom (which, usually, is counsel he discards in favor of his own evil machinations). TJ Hooker wants the Reverend Pague, perhaps sensing he’ll be easy prey; John Dodson wants TJ Hooker or Johnny Grunge; Johnny Grunge wants John Dodson because Dodson was a traitor; Dustin Nice wants Dodson; Dennis “You are not the daddy” Bermudez and the Swede both want each other; and, lastly, Bryan Caraway Seed doesn’t want Diego Marlon Brando.

Dana White listens intently, nodding in agreement or asking pointed questions, and when everyone exits the room he makes a show of crumpling up the paper he took notes on and tossing it into a wastepaper basket. Instead, he chooses the following match-ups for the semis: TJ Hooker versus the Reverend Pague, Dodson versus Johnny Grunge, Bermudez versus the Swede, and Bryan Caraway Seed versus Diego Marlon Brando.

As Cosmo Kramer used to say on “Seinfeld”, “Giddyup.”