No fluke punches, ‘The luck of the Irish’ has no bearing on the final four fighters left standing in Season 7 of the “The Ultimate Fighter”- at least according to Dana White.

Episode 11 opens with Dana’s assertion that the four Semi-Finalists are truly the BEST four fighters from the show. Then again, as the promoter, what else is he going to say?

The first Semi-Final match would be the focus of this episode and it pitted JUCO All-American wrestler Jesse Taylor vs Jiu-Jitsu ace Tim Credeur.

Since both fighters are part of Team Forrest, they have to divvy up their coaches to train both fighters. Forrest Griffin decides that he’ll coach Jesse Taylor with the help of Taylor’s teammate “Madman” Matt Brown. Assistant coaches Cameron Diffley (Jiu-Jitsu coach) and Mark Beacher (Muay Thai/Striking coach) will handle Tim Credeur’s training.

This is important, because at least in this writer’s opinion Coach Cameron has a lot to do with the outcome of the fight--- But more on that later.

COACHES’ CHALLENGE

The first item on Mr. White’s agenda for this episode is to show his appreciation to the fighters and the coaches. So, in what has become a tradition for TUF, Dana issues a Coaches’ Challenge between Rampage Jackson and Forrest Griffin. The challenge is a game of HORSE.

For all of you who are not hoop-aholics, HORSE is a basketball shootout where the two players have to match each other’s shots. If you don’t make a shot that your opponent has made you get a Letter (e.g. ‘H’). The first one to spell out HORSE loses.

The winning coach gets $10,000 in cold hard cash. The winning coach’s team receives $1,000 each… make that $2,000 if Rampage can hit a three pointer to start things off… SWISH, it’s $2,000!

Before we get to the results of this legendary hoops match-up, as I predicted last week, Matt Riddle did indeed sport another new hairstyle. This week’s Doo, a red and gold Mohawk. Next week I’m going out on a limb and predicting he shaves it all off.

So, the game of HORSE begins, but not before Rampage confesses that he has absolutely no basketball skills whatsoever. Evidently, the ‘Three’ he swished was just dumb luck.

Forrest on the other hand does his best imitation of Larry Bird, or Ray Allen for today’s fans. He ends the lop-sided challenge with a thunderous dunk, proving “white men can jump”. Rampage wants no part of it and concedes.

TUF HOUSE

As Jesse Taylor and Tim Credeur sit side-by-side getting a shave and a haircut, a new nickname is born--- JT Money! That is the name Jesse Taylor is having razor-sculpted into his head. With such a good name you’d think the Spike producers could hire a good barber, but Jesse’s happy with the distorted dollar sign stenciled into his head nonetheless.