TUF 13, Episode 2, April 6th, 2011

Okay, this one is a long time coming.

Please accept my apologies.  My daytime paying job and tax time capitalized on all my extra time, and delayed new content.  Now that the excuses are out, here comes the post that has been delayed for three weeks.

The Drama
Episode Two's drama was dominated by Keon Caldwell.  Keon is visibly distracted during training, ostensibly due to missing his family, specifically his six year old daughter.  Coach dos Santos is pushing his team to train as hard as possible, but Keon lags behind the rest.  Talking to his coaches Keon admits that he misses his daughter and doesn't know if he can stay.  He wants to go home.  Now watching this I had to ask myself the question.  Is this really about missing his daughter, or is this an easy out, because now, in The Ultimate Fighter, Keon's own self doubts sabotage his training?

Really, I understand that he would miss his daughter.  I have a six year old son, and being separated from him would be difficult.  Life is difficult.  GET OVER IT!  If this is what you want to do, then what example do you set for your daughter by quitting while at the beginning of the greatest opportunity a professional mixed martial artist can get?

Queue Dana White.  Dana comes to the gym to talk to Keon.  Dana takes him aside and gets right to the point.
"Do you want to be a professional fighter?"
 "Oh yeah", Keon answers.
"Do you want to do this?"
"Yes sir."
"Do you want to win this f-bleep-ing thing"
"Yes sir."
"Do you want to be in the UFC?"
"Yes sir."
"Do you want to be a world champion some day"
"Yes sir."
"Focus on why you came here..."
Basically suck it up.  Then the very next day at practice.  Coincidentally enough after a hard training session with one of the assistant coaches. Keon approaches Junior dos Santos and tells him he has made his decision and wants to go back to his family.  As I have mentioned, I have a six year old, as well, but this is six weeks out of your life.  Six weeks to make a name for yourself.  At the very least to show Dana you won't back down.  Keon has an MMA record of 8-1, but now all that Dana will remember is he didn't have the conviction to see it through.  Chance of a lifetime blown.  Mark my words.  We won't be seeing Keon Caldwell in the UFC.

What do you think?  Do you think Keon took the easy way out?

The Fight
Javier Torres (Team dos Santos) vs Chris Cope (Team Lesnar)

Team dos Santos has control, so this pick is theirs.  They are very confident.  Even commenting that during the fight announcement, when the fighters faced off for photographs, that Chris was visibly shaking.  He was.

During interviews with the fighters and coaches Shamar Bailey comments, "I'm excited to see Javier fight.  I think he is going to run through Chris."

From Junior dos Santos, "In my mind he is going to beat the guy easy."

Brock Lesnar doesn't like Chris' chances either.  He even gives Chris and team the Any Given Sunday speech.

To be fair Chris is not a full time fighter.  He has a full time job in mainstream America.  A nice bit of encouragement comes in the form of a letter Chris' girlfriend sent with him.  In the letter she tells him that this is his destiny.

Javier is very confident.  He has a lot riding on this.  He immigrated from Mexico to be a fighter.  To top it all off his wife is pregnant, as well - you don't see him running home.

While in the first fight the safe pick from Team dos Santos pays off.  This time it backfires.

Round 1 - Javier pushes Chris up against the cage - this is an area that a team member of Javier's, who knows Chris, said Chris was uncomfortable, but Chris gets in some good strikes.  Javier then takes Chris to the ground with a Judo throw, but Chris gets right back up.  Javier goes for several foot stomps.  No real damage.  They go back and forth for most of the round.  Then in the last thirty seconds Javier lands a good knee strike to Chris' cheek and opens up a cut below the eye.  No danger, as it will not affect Chris' ability to see.

Remember, Javier is supposed to run right through Chris.

Round 2 - Chris starts with a good high kick.  We see a lot of clinch fighting for the majority of this round.  Both fighters throw some knees to the body.  No real damage from either fighter.

Round 3 - In the preliminary fights of The Ultimate Fighter, they will only go two five minute rounds, and if there is no definitive winner at the end of round two, then they go to a third round.

In the third round Javier is tired.  He is breathing heavy.  Looking for excuses to rest.

Chris simply has better conditioning.  He is fired up and he survived the first two rounds.  He has better kicks, as well, throwing really hard kicks to the inside of Javier's thigh.  Throwing some more high kicks.  Controlling the clinch, muscling Javier, throwing knees upper-cuts and elbows.

At the end Chris wins by decision.

What bothers me is at the end of the episode, when Team Lesnar is back in their locker room, Brock makes a point to say "Chicken salad out of chicken shit.  That's what we are we chicken shit.  We make do with what we got.  Any given Sunday.  Any given Sunday, anybody can win"  A quick camera shot to Chris Cope, and I could see in his eyes, why do I have to be chicken shit.  At this point why wouldn't Brock make a point of giving Chris some credit.  Admit Chris surprised them all.  Congratulate him and bring him up.

Transition to montage interview with Brock, "There wasn't nothing pretty or cool about Chris' win.  He just showed perseverance and heart and I was wowed by that".  Okay, so you were wowed, but again Brock just dogged the guy, maybe unintentionally or subconsciously, but I have not been impressed by Brock as a coach, yet.  We'll see what future episodes reveal.

What do you think?  Does Brock have what it takes to be a great coach?

Stay tuned.  Daily posts will be coming as I get caught up with this season of TUF 13.

TUF 13, Episode 1, March 30th, 2011

The first episode of The Ultimate Fighter is under the belt, so to speak.  Not a bad start.  The first episode is usually subdued anyways.  The fighters meet at the UFC gym.  Dana White gives a speech to remind them of the opportunity they have.  Teams get split up between the coaches and they start training.  How all this happens always gets tweaked a little bit from season to season.

In past seasons potential competitors fought to see if they would make it in the house.  In season 13 the fighters were evaluated before the start of the season.  The evaluations were mini training segments.  No fights.  At the start of this season the final competitors were brought in, got their speech from Dana and then were told that they would not have to fight to get in the house, but would now be evaluated by the coaches.  The original evaluations did not have the final coaches for the season.  Only Dana White, trainers picked to evaluate and the producers of the show were there to decide.  I watched a video of the early evaluations and while interesting in itself I have always loved the fights to get in the house.  I found this season's process a little lacking in excitement.

The coaches evaluation was interesting, as you got a sense of the coaches styles.  Brock Lesnar focused on testing their cardio/conditioning, while Junior dos Santos put them in sparring scenarios to see what their skills were.  What were their strengths?  Also, Brock met and interviewed everyone, while Junior, although able to speak English (He is from Brazil) didn't feel he had the fluency with English to make that strategy meaningful.

After evaluations Dana met with the coaches and had them choose the teams.  Dana did the traditional coin toss to give one of the coaches their choice of either first pick for the fighter, or to pick the first fight.  Brock won the toss and picked the first fighter.  Here is a breakdown of the top pick for each team and the final.

Team Lesnar

1st - Len Bentley

7th - Nordin Asrih

Team dos Santos

1st - Shamar Bailey

7th - Keon Caldwell

As usually happens the first picks get the confidence boost, but high expectations from the coaches.  While the last picks now have something to prove.

Okay, teams have been chosen, now on to the Vegas mansion that the fighters will call home for the next several weeks.  Team Lesnar is stationed on the 2nd floor.  Team dos Santos is on the 1st.  Everyone is now trying to get comfortable.  The best comment during this acclimation was from the resident Brit, Mick Bowman.  In wonderful british accent.  "Our team will be in one room, the green team (Team Lesnar) will be upstairs in their bedroom.  We're not here to make friends, really?  Are we?  We're here to beat each other up."

Training begins, and early on we find out that TUF has already claimed its first victim.  In the coaches evaluation Myles "The Fury" Jury (Team Lesnar) injured his knee.  The doctor thought it was fine at the time, but decided to be safe and had X-Rays done.  Unfortunately, Myles completely tore his ACL and the back part of the lateral meniscus.  Medical opinion-Myles can't fight.  Out of the competition, and out of the house before its even begun.  Last minute replacement, Chuck O'Neil steps in to fill his shoes.

As Lesnar got to pick the first fighter, dos Santos got to pick the first fight.  I personally think its better to pick the first fight, because if you can take control early, and maintain the control you can ride it through a good part of the show.  Past coaches have shown that - George St. Pierre, Chuck Liddell & Rashad Evans to name a few.  For the first fight dos Santos picks Shamar Bailey (dos Santos first round pick) against Nordin Asrih (Lesnar's last pick).  Playing it safe?  Most definitely.  Shamar is a strong wrestler, and Nordin's only strength is striking.

This was a very one sided fight.  Shamar took it to the ground early in the first round and there it stayed.  Nordin had zero take down defense and once on the ground a sloppy guard.  Shamar was able to pass guard pretty much at will.  Nordin was only able to get a couple strikes in from his back and did no damage.  In the second round Nordin put himself on his back within the first ten seconds with a wild high kick.  Nordin did get a good reversal and almost had Shamar in a guillotine, but after that Shamar was in control, yet again.  Shamar got full mount twice, took Nordin's back and had excellent ground and pound in the last 40 seconds.  However, Shamar did not take any advantage to finish the fight.  He had several openings to attempt submissions, but never took them.  Dana White even commented that Shamar basically laid on top of Nordin for five minutes of the first round and then 5 minutes of the second round.  "Not the most exciting fight you will ever see, in Ultimate Fighter history."

In his defense, Shamar had this statement.  "Our game plan worked in my favor 'cause I didn't show the other team everything that I have in my arsenal.  So I do whatever my coaches tell me at this point.  Um, I trust them and really happy to be on Team dos Santos."

What did you think of the first fight?  Does Shamar have what it takes?

Don't leave it to the judges.  Will Shamar show that he can finish a fight, or will all his fights go to decision?