For those of you who didn't catch last night's episode of The Ultimate Fighter season 5, you're fortunate.  You didn't miss much in terms of MMA action.

Corey Hill (Team Pulver) called out Gabe Ruediger (Team Penn) for the elimination match. Ruediger's weight had been an issue since day one of the show and he made a half-hearted attempt (according to coach BJ Penn and his teammates) at cutting weight and gave up with under an hour left before weigh-ins and about 4 pounds left to cut.  In fact, Ruediger was taken to the hospital by ambulance to be re-hydrated.

UFC President Dana White was so upset about Ruediger's lack of discipline and inability to cut weight that he summarily booted Ruediger from the competition and kicked him out of the house.  White brought Rob Emerson (a loser to Nate Diaz in episode 3) back into the competition to replace Ruediger on Team Penn.

And Corey Hill didn't get a free pass from White either.  White stated that Hill will still have to earn his way into the second round of the tournament.

Because there was no fight this week, there will be two fights next week and both matchups were set at the end of last night's episode, with Team Pulver choosing both.  The two fights in episode six will be:

Brian Geraghty (Team Pulver) vs. Joe Lauzon (Team Penn)
Corey Hill (Pulver) vs. Rob Emerson (Penn)

While there was no fight to watch last night, viewers were given yet another glimpse into what it's like to be an MMA fighter.  While episode 4 underlined the importance of strategy and following your corner's instruction (which Andy Wang did not do in his fight), episode 5 showed us what it's like to cut weight before a fight. 

Shedding pounds is clearly an important part of pre-fight preparation and even in the best of conditions, it's not an easy thing to do.  A lot of fighters fight far below their walking weight so that they can gain as much of an advantage as possible against the other opponents in their weight class.  So, unless these fighters are monitoring their weight during training, they may be left with a lot of weight to lose in the last few precious hours before the weigh-ins.  In Ruediger's case, he had about 20 pounds to lose to get to 155 pounds.  He tried to lose that weight over an 18 hour period by riding a stationary bike and hitting the sauna.  Though he came close, in the end Ruediger's lack of preparation cost him an opportunity to perform in the Octagon.

I'll be interested to see what Ruediger says in the press over the next few days.  He had a golden opportunity to make a name for himself in this sport and he blew it.