Episodes eleven and twelve of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 8 are in the books and with most of the yellow and white army behind us we can finally concentrate on the semifinal matches.

Set to do battle are:

Ryan Bader vs. Eliot Marshall (LHW)

Phillipe Nover vs. George Roop (LW)

Krzysztof Soszynski vs. Vinny Magalhaes (LHW)

Junie Browning vs. Efrain Escudero (LW)

We go right to the weigh-ins for Bader vs. Marshall and both guys hit their marks. UFC President Dana White and Coach Frank Mir both agree that Marshall has a fair chance of submitting the seemingly one-dimensional Bader in their semifinal bout.

Bader on the other hand thinks Marshall is regretting his decision to call him out after his submission victory over Shane Primm. Coach Nogueira gives Bader some one-on-one training and in true Nog fashion allows Bader to pound on his face during some very hard sparring.

Bader has the luxury of headgear while Nog just takes it like a man. I guess putting headgear on Nogueira would be like putting scuba gear on Aquaman.

Marshall hits the gym and for some reason we get one of those bizarre piano solos that makes me wonder if he’s going to grab a brown backpack and start hitchhiking down a suburban highway. Sure enough Marshall starts conceding his skill set and talks about being the underdog.

Eliot Marshall: Black belt in jiu-jitsu, yellow belt in self-confidence.

Light heavyweight semifinal fight #1: Eliot Marshall (5-1) vs. Ryan Bader (7-0)

Round 1: Marshall jabs. Bader with a nice low kick followed by a strong right. Bader low kicks. High kick by Marshall grazes the head. A Marshall low kick finds a testicular target. Action resumes and Marshall lands two clean low kicks. Bader returns one of his own. Marshall backs him up with a combo. Bader tags him with a right. Low kick by Bader. They tie-up in the center of the cage and Bader forces him to the mat. Marshall in guard eats a sporadic elbow. Referee Josh Rosenthal warns them for inactivity. Bader takes ten second breaks between strikes. Mir yells for the stand-up and the ref ignores him. Round one ends with Bader laying and both men praying.

Round 2: Bader opens with a combo. Marshall returns the favor and lands a nice front kick. Bader with a right. Bader catches a Marshall high kick and dumps him on the mat. Bader drags him to the cage. A minute goes by with no change in position. Bader clings to him like one of the face-suckers from Aliens. The ref throws in the obligatory warning. And again. Right now Rosenthal is busier than Bader and Marshall. He finally stands them up and a winded Bader thanks him by scoring another easy takedown. Bader lands an elbow. A Nevada tumbleweed roars past. Rosenthal with a rear naked warning. No change. The horn sounds with Bader on top.

Round 3: Bader with a right. Marshall tries to slug him and Bader takes him down and drags him back to the cage. Bader postures up and Marshall tries to work the leg. Bader grabs the fence and slinks his way back down. Rosenthal stands them up. Bader with a low kick and then another takedown. Marshall looks for the Kimura but gets dragged to the cage. Millions of viewers check the signal to make sure the broadcast isn’t skipping or stuck in a loop. Mir screams for the stand-up. Rosenthal waits about a minute and complies. Bader ducks a high kick and takes Marshall to the ground. Perhaps to spite Mir, Rosenthal warns them for inactivity with 16 seconds left. Bader smothers until time expires.

Ryan Bader defeats Eliot Marshall via unanimous decision (30-27)

Afterward, Coach Mir congratulates Bader for being a terrible fighter who knows how to exploit the outcome of the fight with wrestling and takedowns. Dana White chastises Marshall for not taking any risks and just staying in guard for three rounds.

Bader calls it the biggest win of his career and Marshall goes out with some dignity and admits to getting beaten fair and square.

Any viewers game enough to hang in there for all three rounds were sure to get excited at the sight of Phillipe Nover heading for the scales. With George Roop as his opponent, a first-round stoppage seems almost like a foregone conclusion.

Nover goes through the motions in the gym and looks as ready as he can be. Roop cautions that his bruised face is not a factor and that he won’t allow his injured hand to stand in the way of winning.

Lightweight semifinal fight #1: George Roop (8-3) vs. Phillipe Nover (4-0-1)

Round 1: Nover comes out guns ‘a blazing with hard and accurate fists flying right into Roop’s face. Roop backpedals and gets taken down. Roop uses the cage to sweep and in the transition Nover secures Roop’s left arm. They struggle for position but Nover refuses to let go of the arm. He eventually wears Roop down and muscles the arm out into the open. He rolls and cranks it and Roop is forced to tap.

Phillipe Nover defeats George Roop via submission (Kimura)

Team Nogueira celebrates their back-to-back victories and Phillipe gets praise from anyone not wearing a blue shirt. A classy George Roop looks forward to going home and refining his skill set.

Moving on to episode twelve, Krzysztof Soszynski talks about the challenge of fighting Vinny Magalhaes who is not only his teammate on Team Mir but also back at Team Quest.

Soszynski thinks his semifinal bout is a standard striker vs. grappler match-up and whether or not he can get taken down will be the deciding factor in the outcome of the fight.

He also thinks that if you hit a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt in the face they become a brown belt and if you continue to hit them they will drop all the way down to a white belt.

Apparently he never saw any footage of “Minotauro” Nogueira.

Light heavyweight semifinal fight #2: Krzysztof Soszynski (16-8-1) vs. Vinny Magalhaes (2-2)

Round 1: Soszynski with an open stance fires off an inside leg kick. Magalhaes answers with a combo that backs him up. Lazy high kick by Magalhaes doesn’t come close. Soszynski gets in his face and they trade sloppy punches. Magalhaes jumps into guard and pulls Soszynski to the floor. Magalhaes subdues him in guard and lands a few elbows to the head. Soszynski drops his shoulders and powers out. He thinks about engaging until his corner screams at him to back away. Magalhaes gets to his feet and lands a nice body kick. Soszynski lands six straight unanswered inside leg kicks. The corner screams for Magalhaes to shoot. Three more inside leg kicks by Soszynski and a charging Magalhaes gets dropped by a grazing body shot. Magalhaes jumps to his feet and tries to strike but is punching like Forrest Gump on roller skates. They engage at close range and Magalhaes flops to the ground and manages to drag down Soszynski with him. From there it’s merely academic as Magalhaes locks in the armbar and Soszynski is forced to tap.

Vinny Magalhaes defeats Krzysztof Soszynski via submission (armbar)

Ryan Bader will now meet Vinny Magalhaes in the light heavyweight finals. Krzysztof takes the loss like a man and admits to needing work in the jiu-jitsu department.

Now the last remaining bout between Efrain Escudero and Junie Browning is set to go down assuming Junie can keep it together long enough to make it to the fight.

He’s already starting with his excuses about his timing being off and not getting enough time in the gym and so on and so forth. He also thinks the TUF experience has been detrimental to his abilities and tells his team he doesn’t want to fight in the finals anymore.

Coach Mir is more than happy to replace him with Shane Nelson.

Back at the house Junie and Shane Primm get into an argument about whether or not Vinny Magalhaes can submit Ryan Bader at the finals and like most arguments between men, this one escalates into unnecessary violence.

Junie goes off the deep end, throws a drinking glass at Primm then proceeds to swing at him while Primm is sitting down. He’s quickly restrained and Primm tells Junie to take his medication.

Enter Dana White.

Dana pulls Junie into a private meeting to tell him what a fuck-up he is. Junie talks about the pressure of being on the show but Dana isn’t buying it.

Dana rallies the troops and asks them what the right move is. The gang agrees that it’s better to let him stay and get his ass kicked then to let him go home and run his mouth about what he could have accomplished if he hadn’t been expelled.

Junie gets pardoned (again) and now has to prove that he’s as tough as he thinks. He starts up with the trash talk about retiring if he loses to Efrain and how he is already in the finals and blah, blah, blah.

Lightweight semifinal fight #2: Junie Browning (2-0) vs. Efrain Escudero (10-0)

Round 1: After touching gloves, Browning does some stretching in the middle of the cage. He throws a phantom combo and then both fighters exchange inside leg kicks. They stick and move for a while and Escudero lands two more leg kicks. Browning answers with a nice body shot. Browning swings high and Escudero ducks and drops him with a takedown. Escudero warned for unintentionally striking the back of the head. Browning scrambles to his feet and Escudero lands a stiff jab. Browning with a lazy shoot against the cage and gets a few elbows and knees for his efforts. Escudero takes it back to the center of the Octagon and Browning grazes with a high kick. Escudero fires off three straight inside leg kicks. Browning answers with a kick of his own but eats a crisp uppercut on the fade away. Browning works the leg but is sucking wind and cannot avoid a right hand to the face. Mir is screaming instructions and Browning is ignoring them. Escudero finds his range and peppers him with jabs. Junie lands a leg kick and they trade punches as time expires.

Round 2: Escudero with a jab that lands. Browning tries a spinning back fist that misses by a mile. They trade punches but nothing lands. Browning shoots and pushes him to the cage but can’t get the takedown. Escudero with knees as they break. Back in the center Browning lands a big right but fails to follow up or capitalize. Browning eats a jab then lands a straight right. Mir is screaming at him to go for combos but gets ignored. Escudero fires off a leg kick then shoots and takes him down. Escudero patiently works for position and Browning throws up his hands ala Herring/O’Brien. Escudero busy with elbows and hops into side control where he easily secures a D’arce choke and makes him tap.

Efrain Escudero defeats Junie Browning via submission (D’arce choke)

Phillipe Nover will now meet Efrain Escudero in the lightweight finals.

Mir distances himself from Junie after the fight for his failure to listen and admits to enjoying watching him tap. Dana feels vindicated for keeping Junie on the show and says “Justice was served”.

I have to agree since Team Blue was talking all kinds of smack in episode ten about Team Red, in particular Krzysztof Soszynski, who was making fun of the methods of Coach Nogueira - who only sent three fighters into the semifinals while Coach Mir sent five.

Now that the dust has cleared I believe what was once 5-3 is now 1-3.

And Krzysztof is going home.

Junie finds time for one last speech and he still believes that Efrain isn’t any good. Unfortunately he admits that he isn’t any good either and that’s why he lost. He also whines about not having cardio and being in the wrong sport.

Finally, something we can agree on.

As punishment for losing three of the four semifinal bouts, Coach Mir has to let Coach Nogueira shave his head. And to think we almost ended on a high note when Junie sticks his mug into the camera one last time and vows to fight again.

And unless something drastic changes, lose again.

That’s a wrap.

Be sure to tune in on December 13 at 9pm ET for The Ultimate Fighter Finale live on Spike TV from the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Competing for the ‘six-figure’ contract are:

Light heavyweight: Ryan Bader vs. Vinny Magalhaes
Lightweight: Phillipe Nover vs. Efrain Escudero

And we’ll see you again in early 2009 as we get to do it all over again for The Ultimate Fighter Season 9 featuring the return of Michael ”The Count” Bisping.

Woo-hoo!