After rising to almost-stardom from the Tampa mixed martial arts scene James Hammortree and Jamie Yager crashed and burned at The Ultimate Fighter Finale 11 on June 19 at the Pearl inside the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, Nev.
Both MMA fighters made their UFC debut on this card in spite of being eliminated on the reality show, The Ultimate Fighter season eleven, thanks to the generosity of UFC President Dana White. Nevertheless, neither man was able to use this opportunity as key to the open the golden UFC gate behind which incredible advancement opportunities awaited.
Hammortree was not able to live up to his reputation of being a knockout artist (five consecutive wins via (T)KO)—all in round one— previously to TUF 11!) on the show and much less during the TUF 11 Finale where he faced fellow TUF 11 contestant, Chris Camozzi.
Maybe it was the higher level of competition on the show or possibly the psychological aftermath of his first loss at Ultimate Event Promotions: Vendetta in July 2009. But the old Hammortree Tampa MMA fans had fallen in love with was gone.
In his place was a young fighter who still talked the talk but failed to walk the walk inside the octagon. In other words, Hammortree still said he wanted to be the best, but once he was actually fighting the will to win seemed to have vanished as evident in his two losses on the show and a third one during the finale on Saturday.
Although Camozzi defeated Hammortree via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27) rather than scoring a knockout or submission it cannot be attributed to Hammortree's fighting spirit or skills, but only to Camozzi's dislocated shoulder.
The only thing left to do for Hammortree now is to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to get his old knockout-mind-set back. Hopefully, he will be able to rebound at an MMA event in Tampa soon.
This article appears in Jun 17-23, 2010.