After three victories, including his latest knockout finish over Marcus Jones, Brendan Schaub has fought his way into The Ultimate Fighter Season 10 finale on Saturday night live from The Pearl at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. He is set to square off against Roy “Big Country” Nelson for the honor of being crowned this seasons The Ultimate Fighter Champion.
Past champions of the show have typically gone on and found major success within the UFC organization including former UFC champions of their respective weight classes Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans and Matt Serra. Another TUF winner is currently the number one contender in his weight class, that being Diego “The Nightmare” Sanchez who will battle B.J. Penn for the Lightweight title on December 12. Now Schaub has a chance to join the likes of these fighters and etch his name in UFC history.
Schaub may have surprised many viewers with his ability to withstand the explosiveness of Marcus Jones but his ability to rely on his teaching of the ground game and his purple belt jiu-jitsu skills allowed him to stay relax until he could fins his opening to explode to his feet where he had a superior ability to stand and trade with The Darkness. Schaub hit Jones with a big right hand that sent the gentle giant to the ground. Schaub’s killer instincts sent him pouncing on top of Jones where he was able to reign down punches and claim the win at the 2:11 mark of the first round.
This was Schaub’s second consecutive knockout, the first coming over Jon Madsen with the same solid right hand. Schaub has continuously shown his ability to fight and survive with his back on the mat and his knowlege of the sport and ability to stick to his game-plan now has him in the finals. Nelson, Schaub’s adversary this Saturday, is well known for his ground game as a jiu-jitsu practitioner and is the former International Fight League Heavyweight champion. No doubt he will not be looking to stand with Schaub who is a Golden Gloves boxing champion. Nelson has never been knocked out but he surely wont be looking to put that to the test against a person of Schaub’s caliber on his feet. Nelson has earned his victories during his stint on TUF by securing take downs and using his big belly to lay on top of his opponent until he can secure a dominant position. He has been able to get his opponents like Kimbo Slice and James McSweeny into the crucifix where he traps one arm so the downed adversary cannot defend himself against strikes to the head. Jones tried to employ a similar maneuver on Schaub and the Colorado native proved that he could fight it off and work his way back to his feet. Jones at one point even had the full mount position but Schaub was able to reverse his momentum to scramble out of danger. Schaub also demonstrated that he can finish the fight on the ground when he secured his first victory in TUF house with a slick anaconda choke over Demico Rogers.
The fight could potentially go very deep and ultimately as far as the third round but when it is all said and done look for Schaub’s athleticism, wits and dynamite loaded fists to finish this season of TUF. When the fight is over Schaub and his fans will have a lot to be proud of and a lot to look forward to, win or lose, but as of right now Schaub has to be thinking about nothing else but getting his hand raised at the end of the night.
As always, make sure to check out Brendan’s blog about tonight’s episode on MMAJunkie.com.
