Lions, Tiger Sharks and Red Bears Oh My!...IFL Battleground recap for 05/07/2007

*turns on the light* Man, it is dusty in this room....it doesn't look like anyone's been in here for ever. Yes, your eyes do not deceive you, I am back after a month or so of not recapping IFL Battleground. I've mainly been listening to the Braves play baseball during that time, and even though there is a game on-going I decided to return. The reason for my return...nobody but Ric complained about the recaps absence, so it is now coming back by unpopular demand.

I hear they've retooled the show, and hopefully many of the complaints I had about those early episodes are gone. I'd hope they were all gone, but years of watching WWE, TNA and WCW has hardened me to any chance of that ever coming true.

We'll be starting in a few moments.

Oh, and if you hate the title Ric@canvaschronicle.com and if you love the title, it was all my doing.



We start out with a look at Renzo Gracie. They quickly run down the family history and the fact that his New York Pitbulls went 0 for the 2006 season. His goal for the 2007 season is to dominate and that's exactly what they've done. In the biggest IFL match of the year it is Gracie's Pitbulls Vs. Matt Lindland's Portland Wolfpack.
Both teams came in to this match undefeated. They run down the return of Ryan Schultz and Matt Horwich looking for revenge against Jamal Patterson. Plus, Gracie and Frank Shamrock exchange words, the Mom's of the IFL, and Dear Don!

The girl is Tiffany, the guy is Bas Rutten and this is the IFL Battleground recap!

We talk about Matt Lindland not being at the Pitbulls Vs. Wolfpack meet because of a fight with the world's number 1 heavyweight in Russia. This man is not named by the way.

This matchup took place on 04/13/2007.

We get a preliminary bout between Portland's Zack George and New York's Deividas Taurosevicius. When it comes to names like Deividas Taurosevicius I thank God Jesus and Mr. McMahon for copy/paste.

I immediately noticed that they did not run down the rules of the IFL before the fight started. I guess they figure they're not getting new viewers and it is hard to disagree with them.

I want to register a complaint. Wade gets to recap shows with names like "Edge", "John Cena", and "Shawn Michaels". Euan gets shows with names like "Andy Wang", "Joe Lauzon", and "Matt Wiman". I get Deividas Taurosevicius.

Winner: Deividas Taurosevicius
- 3:12 R1 via Armbar submission.

I'm not sure why they showed this other than it was the first loss for Zach George and to make suckers like me deal with names like Deividas Taurosevicius. Yes, it is all about me thanks for asking.

This is the biggest battleground ever. Remember this next week.

The response to Dear Don was so overwhelming, they're making it a regular feature. Overwhelming shall now be defined as 2 or 3.

Commercial Break!!!

This is the first fight of the 2007 for Ryan Schultz in a story that is recounted but that I wasn't paying too much attention to because I'm cool enough to get away with that in a recap. None of the rest of you who read or write recaps are this cool so please do not try ignoring the show but recapping it anyway at home.

Match 1: Ryan Schultz (Portland) Vs. Joe Sampieri (New York)

This is a Lightweight bout.

Round 1.

The announcers now run down the rules of the IFL. The announcers then talk about the backgrounds of both fighters and then go silent so we can hear Gracie yelling instructions to Sampieri.

Sampieri has Schultz in trouble early in round 1 but Schultz is able to escape the armbar submission attempt without much trouble.

There is some noticeable booing for lack of action mere moments after Bas talks up the kind of action you see from Lightweight fighters. This is the kind of comedy you can't make up.

After the armbar attempt from Sampieri, Schultz controlled the remainder of the round and finished with a flurry of punches.

Round 1: Ryan Schultz, 10-9.

We're back with more after...the Commercial Break!!!

Bas and Tiffany tell us not to try this at home. I'd want to try something at home with 1 of the 2 and I'll bet you can't guess which one. Here's a hint, its not Bas.

Ok, I was hoping they wouldn't do this but they came back to remind us of what is coming up later, and then go to yet another...commercial Break!!!

This commercial break is very very very long. In other words, it is not the great feeling I had all-time all my life. In the time this commercial break has been running you could've watched 246 matches on TNA iMPACT. So yeah, its like 5 whole minutes.

After this break, we may need to see round 1 of this fight again just to remind ourselves of what happened.

Noooooooooo, we're back to the match and they're clipping round 2. Thumbs, d. o. w. n.

They interview Mike Dolce who has a match with Delson Heleno later on. They ask him what he's going to do and I think he said win.

Round 3.

Mario Yamasaki is refereeing this bout and I am full of rage that we only saw round 2 in clip form. IFL, you've got 2 hours and only plan to show 6 matches, clipping is unacceptable. I don't care what you cut just to show the second round, just do it. Please note, touch Dear Don and I'll give you a verbal lashing that would make those in TNA think they get off easy.

Schultz is able to get takedown's whenever he wants in this fight. This is what we're told by the announcers...as opposed to actually seeing this in the second round!

Round 3 belongs to Schultz, 10-9.

I give Schultz rounds 1 and 3 10-9 with round 2 being given a phu-cough to the IFL for clipping it.

Winner: Ryan Schultz - Unanimous 30-27 decisions.

This is not Unleashed, I don't want clipped rounds and I don't want clipped fights.

They hype the remaining bouts and then the mom's of the IFL. Ok, so Tiffany and Bas are supposed to be the hosts but it is the narrator guy that does all of the hyping. If this makes sense to you, congratulations on being stupid.

Commercial Break!!

We're back with a brief profile of Portland's Mike Dolce who is one of the newest members of the Wolfpack. We are introduced to his sister who is quite the fan of her brother. Someone check the records to see if the family tree forks and get back to me.

The current standings see Portland up 1 to 0 with New York's Delson Heleno looking to even the score.

Match 2: Mike Dolce (Portland) Vs. Delson Heleno (New York)

This is a welterweight bout. We actually get ring introductions for this fight unlike the last one. I think they should be mandatory for all fights, but that's just me.

Round 1

Heleno is the man who lost his first IFL fight to Dennis Hallman when he kicked him while he was on the ground. I saw that fight a few weeks ago and wouldn't have remembered that had I not been told. Hallman is now an assistant coach for the Wolfpack.

Heleno works for a takedown, and continues to work for it and finally gets it. Heleno being a jiu-jitsu guy has the advantage with the fight on the ground. Just to hammer that point home, Heleno rains down a bunch of punches. Speaking of raining, flooding is not cool. It rained so much this weekend I thought about getting a second dog and looking for an ark.

Heleno connects with the hammerfist and if you look up saved by the bell in the dictionary you'll see "Bad 1990's sitcom" and the second definition will be Mike Dolce because he was most definitely saved by this bell.

Round 1: Heleno, 10-9 but it could easily be 10-8 as Dolce was close to being done.

We'll get more of this fight, though how much more is yet to be known, after the commercial break!!!

Don't Tell My Parents.org yes, this site actually advertised on IFL. This is the kind of site that parents would never know about unless hearing it from their children and given that...the word to describe it is ineffective.

Round 2: Dolce has a bit of luck to start the second round, but then Heleno takes him down and thus ends that brief moment of glory. So, they're showing round 2, I guess that means congress didn't pass a law saying all IFL fights must clip the second round as I feared they might have.

Heleno has the mount and is trying to do things to the arm of Dolce that can be charitably referred to as unkind.

The second round ends just like the first with Dolce being saved by the bell. He must be a Zack Morris fan. Obviously, he's not a Screech fan cause Screech would never need a bell to save him...or something.

Round 2: Heleno, 10-9.

We go immediately to round 3.

Round 3: Dolce is being tentative in the third which can happen when you've been worked over so bad for 2 prior rounds.

Steven Quadros is interviewing Renzo Gracie. Apparently, Dolce trained with Gracie who says if he's not the best teacher in the world, he's the best looking. I love this man.

Bas says that there is no way the judges can give this fight to Dolce. Who am I to disagree with the man?

The third round ends just like the previous 2 rounds with Heleno owning Dolce.

Round 3: Heleno, 10-9. Decision for Heleno (30-27)

Winner: Delson Heleno - Unanimous 30-27 decision.

So the score is Portland-1 and New York-1.

We go to a commercial break but before we do, we are promised that we'll get more of this series later. Then the IFL says that next week, an IFL first, the search for the next IFL Ring Girl. Cause, like the diva search isn't a horrible enough competition we must have one in the IFL.

I may have to reconsider recapping this show next week.

Commercial Break!!!

I see that Wade has started his raw coverage. So Wade, if you're reading this...Hi Wade, what the hell are you doing reading this when you're supposed to be recapping raw? That's not very "professunal" of you, Sheiky would not be proud.

We're back with a profile of Portland's Gerald Harris. He's a man who spent some time in the projects, and he is afraid of snakes. He and I have something in common and I've never lived in the projects.

Match 3: Gerald Harris (Portland) Vs. Fabio Leopoldo (New York)

This is a middleweight bout and we don't get introductions I guess because we've behaved badly and they were taken away.

This has been a pretty fun round so far, with Leopoldo having success at first but then Harris turns it around. Harris picks Leopoldo up and slams him hard down to the ground. Leopoldo looks for a guillotine but the round ends.

Round 1: Harris, 10-9.

Bas makes funny noises while a replay of the slam is shown.

Round 2: Harris shoots in for a takedown early and that plays to his strengths as a wrestler.
Leopoldo is trying to get a leglock but Harris is not so down with this.

We go to the corner of the Pitbulls and Eric Owings who is with Steven Quadros and is out with an injury. Owings is asked if he was frustrated by watching his replacement lose, and he says no. He uses more words, but essentially the answer is no.

Harris finds himself fighting on the defensive. Leopoldo's right eye does not look good.

Round 2: Leopoldo, 10-9.

We'll get the final round...after the Commercial Break!!!

Round 3: Leopoldo starts out strong once again despite the best efforts of Harris.

Leopoldo knocks Harris to the ground and immediately goes in on him. Harris is able to spin away from Leopoldo yet again, his escaping ability is strong.

Harris goes for a late flurry in order to impress the judges.

Round 3: Leopoldo, 10-9.

I give this bout to Leopoldo, 29-28.

Winner: Fabio Leopoldo, 27-30, 29-28, 30-27

That was a very close fight and it could've gone either way really. I just thought that Harris was more defensive and didn't have control of the Octagon.

The Pitbulls go up 2 to 1.

We get more of the Frank Shamrock war of words with Renzo Gracie before we head to a commercial Break!!!

The commercial I just saw described IFL Battleground as a phenomenon. Nice to see our standards of excellence in the world just keep falling and falling.

We get a recap of the first Matt Horwich Vs. Jamal Patterson fight to build up to the rematch.

Match 4: Jamal Patterson (New York) Vs. Matt Horwich (Portland)

Round 1: Patterson gets a guillotine very early and he chokes Horwich out in less time than it takes for me to write about it.

Pitbulls win the series 3-1.

Winner: Jamal Patterson, 0:37 R1 via guillotine

They show Horwich giving comments on the fight, and he's not happy about being submitted.

Yay, it is now time for Dear Don.

Question 1 asks Don about cars. Don bets this dude's car is a babe mobile and he instructs him to compare the costs of repairing the car to the value of the car. He also advises a year-round bus ticket. Seriously, 2 hours of Dear Don would be awesome.

Renzo Gracie and Frank Shamrock exchange words and we get highlights of their bout in Elite XC, so I guess some sort of partnership exists here. Either that or lawsuits are coming.

Shamrock was surprised that he was disqualified. He says if Renzo is a real man he will rematch him and if he's not, he won't.

Renzo says he's not afraid of a coward that runs his mouth. Have I mentioned I want to see a rematch badly?

They plug a Marco Ruas Vs. Maurice Smith Super-fight on May 19 in Chicago. Also, up coming we get a match between Portland's Devin Cole and New York's Bryan Vetell.

However, first we have by popular demand...a commercial Break!!!

Back from the break, we've got Maurice Smith and Devin Cole having marital problems, so Devin Cole leaves the Tiger Sharks for the Portland Wolfpack. Cole hasn't won since joining the Wolfpack and that's a point for Smith.

Match 5: Devin Cole (Portland) Vs. Bryan Vetell (New York)

This is a heavyweight bout. Cole's nose was broken in his last fight and so he's looking to bounce back. His last fight was not with Anderson Silva therefor it couldn't have been broken too badly.

We get ring intros again so I guess we've been rewarded for good behavior and then we go to a commercial break!!!

Last week's poll question, is Don Frye a better fighter or a coach? 86% say he's a better fighter. I say he's awesome either way.

This week's question, who is the best KO artist in IFL?

Rory Markham, Ben Rothwell, Chris Horodecki, Bart Palaszewski, and Mike Dolce are the choices.

Round 1: The round has been a stand-up battle to this point. Vetell and Cole have 1 common opponent as they've both lost to Ben Rothwell. Vetell is really landing some nice punches. Vetell was a philosophy major in college, AKA most useless major possible when it comes to getting a job in the real world.

The round ends and Devin Cole should be happy that it did.

Round 1: Vetell, 10-9.

Round 2: The announcer explains why this fight is important to New York even though they have already won the match. A win by Vetell and they move in to a first place tie with the Anacondas.

In a complete reversal from the first round, Devin Cole starts to reign down punches from the mount and he gets the KO on Vetell. He pulled that one out of nowhere.

Winner: Devin Cole - R2 Knock out

Next week on IFL, the greatest Knockouts in IFL history. That and the IFL ring whore search.

Now we move to the Mom's of the IFL. IFL fighters love their mom's more than they love fighting and they had better.

IFL says happy mother's day and we're out.

My thoughts: This is a vast improvement on earlier shows I recapped. I'll give them credit for fixing a lot of the things I thought were wrong with the show.

1. Less fights, but more meaningful fights. I like that we got replays of action that took place in the fights and the fact we got 6 as opposed to 10 allowed them to be more easily remembered.
   
2. We started to get to know the fighters a little better with the profile pieces and having the clips of them talking about strategy during the fight was a nice touch.
   
3. We knew what the score was at all times. I still think the IFL needs to do a better job of explaining how these team matchups affect the overall standings. Running down all the teams and their records at some point in the show couldn't hurt.

Things that still need work...

1. No clipped fights, you've got 2 hours so you've got the time.
   
2. If Bas and Tiffany Fallin are the hosts of this show they should introduce each fight and segment not the narrator. I think they were on for maybe 5 minutes tonight.
   
3. We need more Don Frye. Of course, if they gave us 2 hours of Don I'd still say they needed more Don Frye.

Overall, I enjoyed the show and it is a lot closer to my vision of what the IFL needs to be in order for someone like me to enjoy it. That's the key, the things I wanted changed were things that fit my vision of how this show should go. Someone else might see it differently and I can't stop them from being wrong. However, seriously no more clipped fights I can't repeat that one enough.