Bader, Magalhaes have big shoes to fill
Ryan Bader and Vinny Magalhaes attempt to follow in some large footsteps when they face off in Saturday night's light heavyweight eighth season finals of "The Ultimate Fighter 8" reality show.
The show from The Palms Hotel in Las Vegas will air live on Spike TV, and also include the show's lightweight tournament final, Phillipe Nover vs. Efraim Escudero.
There have been two prior TUF light heavyweight champions, Forrest Griffin (season one) and Michael Bisping (season three), who are now two of the biggest names in the sport, with Griffin as the current light heavyweight champion.
Not only that, but Rashad Evans, who won season two as a heavyweight, is now the top contender for Griffin's title in a match taking place on Dec. 27.
Based on records, Bader, who is 8-0, seems to have an edge on Magalhaes, who is 3-2. But based on each man's usual style and strength, the edge would go to Magalhaes.
Bader's forte is wrestling, as a two-time All-American at Arizona State. But Magalhaes was the 2007 world champion in the black belt division at the No Gi jiu-jitsu championships, and earlier in his career, won world championships in the blue- and brown-belt divisions.
On the show, which finished taping in early July, Magalhaes had little striking and little wrestling, but once his fights went to the ground, it only took seconds before he was able to finish via submission.
Because of that, Magalhaes doesn't think Bader is going to do his usual style, which is to take people down and maul them on the ground.
"On the ground in my wins, it took 19-25 seconds before I got the submission," said Magalhaes, who left Team Quest, disappointed with his lack of coaching in wrestling and stand-up, after the show's filming ended and has been training at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas with people like Shawn Tompkins, Stephan Bonnar, Griffin and Randy Couture. "I don't think Bader can just hold me down for 15 minutes."
"The last fight I had was six months ago," he said. "I'm not just jiu-jitsu. I think he sees it that he's the better striker and he'll try and keep it on his feet. That may have been the case during the show. But I'm not the same fighter. I've been training my boxing a lot and I think I'll win by knockout. Bader thinks he can outstrike me, but he can't."
Magalhaes mentally believes the fight will start standing, and if he can establish the better striking, Bader will try, and succeed, in taking him to the ground. He feels he'll get the submission from there.
"He's a very dangerous opponent and he can finish you instantly if he catches you," said Bader. "His jiu-jitsu is off the charts. I've got a game plan. I don't want to be on the ground with him."
The two had a bad scene early in the show, but ended up being friends by the later weeks of the filming.
"He got drunk after he won his first fight and said to me, 'I'm going to take you down and smash you fast,'" said Magalhaes, 24. "He didn't know me well enough to talk like that. He's usually quiet and so an I. But after a while, we got to know each other, and we got along well. He, I and (Tom) Lawlor become friends."
Magalhaes, 24, noted that his less-than-impressive record doesn't reflect the level of fighter he is today.
"I made a bad transition from jiu-jitsu," he said. "I didn't train much stand-up or wrestling. My first four fights, I was just a grappler and I didn't have any takedowns to get the match to the ground. Plus, I fought as a heavyweight and I was too small. I was about 217 pounds. Now my regular weight is 227 to 230. I'm at 225 now, and ready for a hard cut (to 205). It's been six months since we both fought. I'm not the same fighter, but neither is he."
Bader was a teammate of current UFC fighters Cain Velasquez and C.B.
Dollaway while wrestling at Arizona State, where he placed fourth in the 2004 NCAA tournament and seventh in 2006 in the 197-pound weight class. The college's wrestling program also produced two of UFC's early standouts, Dan Severn and Don Frye.
He came into the show with perhaps a mental edge as far as knowing what to expect. He and Dollaway, who lost in last season's middleweight finals to Amir Sadollah, have not only been training partners for years, but also they started training for MMA on the same day. They are now roommates and best friends. His first fight on the show was against another ASU alumnus, Kyle Kingsbury.
"He played football at Arizona State and I knew him a little from school, and we later became friends," he said. "It was kind of weird fighting him. I asked why we fought first because I wanted us to both get in the house (Kingsbury lost but was brought back due to an injury to one of the winners), but they didn't know we knew each other."
For Bader, at the end of May, when he went into the house, he thought the Arizona State wrestling program, which he still helped out with, was done after the college announced they were dropping wrestling at the end of the 2008 season. The program ended up being reinstated while he was in the house, but because no outside world information got in, Bader had no idea of it until filming ended.
"I was a big supporter of the program," he said. "We (he and Dollaway) would do camps. We were involved with the ASU program. It was a big deal to me."
Magalhaes loved being on the show, saying that he got to improve his weak points, train with good people like Frank Mir and Robert Drysdale (Mir's jiu-jitsu assistant coach on the show), and didn't have to pay for gas or food. Bader, on the other hand, was, particularly toward the end, counting the days until he was going to get out.
His semifinal win over Eliot Marshall was criticized by both Dana White and rival coach Mir on the air as being a boring fight. The three-round decision consisted of takedowns and very little ground and pound.
"It's different being on the show," he said. "The fight was at the end of the filming. I was just looking to find a way to get a win. I wanted the win and looking back at it on tape, it was not the most exciting fight. It was one fight I don't think I was at my best in."
As for his coach on the show, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, who he predicted would beat Frank Mir on Dec. 27, he said that as nice as Nogueira came across on the show, he was even more genuine in real life.
"He's everything he came across on the show as and more," said Bader, 25, who started freestyle wrestling at the age of eight, and who Nogueira portrayed through most of the season as the stud of his team. "He really took an interest in us. He invited us to his gym in Florida and I still keep in contact with him."
Magalhaes and Nogueira had a run-in on the show, which Magalhaes blames on the infamous cast member Junie Browning, who fights Dave Kaplan on Saturday's show.
He said it was Browning, who told members of Nogueira's team, that he
(Magalhaes) has "better jiu-jitsu than your coach," which caused Nogueira to tell off Magalhaes and want nothing to do with him.
"He was my idol," said Magalhaes. "I came from jiu-jitsu and he came from jiu-jitsu. I was 2-2 and he was one of the best fighters in history."
He said the outburst was all a misunderstanding and he even tried to call Nogueira a few weeks ago to talk it out and apologize, but was told Nogueira was in Brazil training for the fight with Mir.
