Last night's "Contender" featured a great match-up, a more technically attractive bout than any before, and a hot-damn-holy-SHIT-he's-DOWN knock-out.
Here's the deal: With three fights left in Round 1, the gold team was ahead, 3-2, going into this episode. Our town's Ryan Coyne, of the blue team, was looking hungry, with his head shaved and chops yammering.
We finally saw some of Singapore, when they brought in a foot reflexologist to help the guys unwind. Grown men getting tickled by an Eastern massage therapist, laughing their hineys off. Awesome.
I was also loving Lawrence Tauasa - his Samoan/Australian accent, his gap-tooth, his bust-a-move to the iPod in front of the big gym mirrors. Dude can shimmy.
When it comes time to set-up the match, gold lets Canadian Troy Ross, a pretty intense fighter, take his pick. He goes for Tauasa, the most experienced cruiserweight on the show and ranked in the world's top ten.
Everyone seemed surprised that Coyne, still recovering from the injury, didn't get the fight. Talk about kid gloves!
Anyway, Ross and Tauasa had apparently become good friends (too bad none of the episodes have done a decent job showing these guys doing much more than boasting, "I've got heart," in silly confessionals), so everybody was looking forward to a professional match-up.
Trainers John Bray and Tommy Brooks seemed genuinely pumped for the thumping.
Round one: tepid. Tauasa landed a couple nice punches, but both guys were mostly showing off their footwork. Round two: Ross returned with a vengeance.
I say you watch the clip here to see for yourself who got hot-damn-holy-SHIT-he's-DOWN clobbered. (The clip should be number-one, and should be labeled "Round 2, Lawrence v. Troy." The site won't let me link directly to it.)
Here's hoping we see Coyne suit up next week. Finally!
