I’m posting this weeks recap of The Contender a few days latter than usual as i was busy with live shows all weekend. Anyway lets get straight into it with episode 6.
The show starts off with Hino gloating about his victory last week. At training Tommy Brooks mocks him for crying during his celebration. It seemed to be done in jest, but I do get the feeling that there is some tension between the two resulting from Hino back talking Tommy in between rounds.
Troy is shown training. He was a two time former Olympian as an amateur, and has gone 17-1 as a pro. They are putting him over as the guy to beat on the show. He’s an unorthodox southpaw, and Tommy feels that he will be a difficult match up for any of the other contestants. Continue Reading »
Neither Deon nor Tommy Brooks are particularly satisfied with the fight last week. Despite winning, Deon has injured his hand, and the feeling in the gold team is that he made things hard for himself.
Darnell is caught sneaking into the kitchen by John Bray. He is still way over weight, and is eating everything in sight – fried foods, pizza etc. It’s almost reminiscent of Gabe Ruediger on the ultimate fighter. Continue Reading »
The Contender is back from the Christmas break with episode 4. After a brief recap of what has gone down so far in the series, Danza meets with AK to give him his winner’s necklace. He says that last week’s fight was one of the best fights ever on the Contender. AK feels that the gold team can make a clean sweep from this point on, now that they can control which fights will be made. Continue Reading »
The Contender is in the midst of its forth season now on the Versus network. This time 16 cruiserweights will battle it out for the honor of becoming Contender champion. The series was taped earlier this year out in Singapore . Tony Danza takes over hosting duties from Sugar Ray Leonard this season. The coaches are John Bray for the blue team and Tommy Brooks for the gold team.
We will join the show at episode 3 but first a quick recap of what has gone down so far. In the season premiere, 28 year old Felix Cora (18-2-2) of the blue team defeated Joell Godfrey to advance to the second round. Then last week, Alfredo Escalera jr. made it 2-0 for the blue team by defeating the brave but outmatched Jon Schneider. Escalera (15-1-1), who is the son of former super featherweight champion Alfredo Escalera sr, looked very good in his first outing on the show. 14 cruiserweights now remain. Continue Reading »
This latest season of The Contender was a really good one. Though I’m not sure they’ll be able to match the memorable first season ever, this was much better than last year. They have two really talented fighters in the finals, and there were a couple memorable characters including David Banks who mentioned in a house of all men that he worked so hard on his body, that he should be able to show it. So maybe they were memorable for the wrong reasons.
The final two men, Jaidon Codrington and Sakio Bika, seemed to be the best fighters from the start, and they deserve to be in the finals.
On the undercard, David Banks fought Donny McCrary and won a majority decision. Whichever judge scored the fight a draw must’ve been watching a different fight. This doesn’t bode well for later.
In the semi-finals fight, Sam Soliman took on Wayne Johnson. Johnson was knocked out in the first round by Codrington, while Soliman went the distance in losing to Bika. Soliman, with his herky jerky style, pretty much kept Johnson off balanced and won an easy fight.
Between Codrington and Bika, it’s probably better for the actual show for Codrington to win. He’s young, confident, and is talented. As for Bika, he doesn’t speak great English, but, he was once a legitimate contender, and he brings a legitimacy to the show if he wins. But if you’re promoting The Contender brand, it’s probably better for the younger guy to win as he’s much more marketable.
They’ve mentioned that Codrington’s one loss was a a first round knockout, but yikes, he really got knocked unconscious. I found it on YouTube.
Let’s hope that doesn’t happen this time.
Codrington comes out and looks very emotional. During the season, he received a phone call with the message being that his father died. He decided to stay on the show, but you could tell how tough it was for him. The announcers just said that his father committed suicide. Yikes. Bika looks confident and standing next to Codrington, just looks bigger. Codrington wouldn’t look him in the eye during the face off.
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