The Ultimate Fighter 13: Episode 2 Recap

Last week, Junior dos Santos got the newest season of The Ultimate Fighter off on a positive note, as his top pick easily defeated Brock Lesnar’s last pick to win the all-important first bout. This week, dos Santos will again have control of the matchup. Who will he pick to fight? Will Lesnar literally explode if his team doesn’t get on the board soon? Read on to find out.

We start off with Team dos Santos doing cardio while wearing snorkels, doing sledgehammer drills and otherwise working way harder than I am right now. Assistant coach Lew Polley says that Keon Caldwell is struggling right now and can’t push through the cardio exercises like his teammates are.

After the exercises, Caldwell has to throw up and Junior dos Santos wants him to hurry up and get back with his teammates. In an interview, Caldwell talks about how it’s hard being away from his family and that he’s struggling because his mind isn’t there at the gym.

At Team Lesnar’s practice, we see everyone doing a lot of jiu-jitsu as he helps his team work on escapes from side control and top control. Lesnar says that they’re working on wrestling, but “you can’t polish turds and make ‘em look pretty.” Lesnar tells his fighters that when they’re doing jiu-jitsu to remember that in the fights there are punches involved, too.

We see more footage of Caldwell, who is talking about missing his 6-year old daughter. He confesses to dos Santos that he wants to go home to be with his daughter. dos Santos is shocked that Caldwell would want to go home when he has such an opportunity. He’s got a point. If you want to be an MMA fighter, you can’t wash out of The Ultimate Fighter.

As we hit the first commercial, Dana White is walking into the training facility, saying he needs to talk to Keon. I sense a “do you want to be a fucking fighter?” speech coming on!

“I knew it was going to be some serious talking,” Caldwell says he was thinking when White arrived in the facility. Caldwell says that he does want to be a champion and a UFC fighter when White asks him. White tells him he needs to get through this experience and do the best he can to make it all happen. I liked White’s approach there. Simple, to the point and without the expected dramatics.

Just like that, we’re getting the fight matchup. Dos Santos announces that it will be Javier Torres vs. Chris Cope. Lesnar says, “They’re doing the right thing. They’re picking the cream of their crop against our weaker guys.” Polley says that he’s trained with Cope at Team Quest and that he’s “not fully committed,” labelling him as a “part-time fighter”. Polley makes a nice analogy, saying that if Torres stays with the script (game plan), he’ll look like a great actor and have a great performance. If he strays from the script, he’ll look like a soft-porn actor.

Torres hits the mits as we hear his background. He found the UFC by seeing a DVD at a Mexican market, and away he went. He defines his career as having been forged through hard work. Junior dos Santos says he “will beat the guy easy”.

Polley is shown working with Caldwell and dos Santos says Polley was working hard with him. Afterward, Caldwell talks to dos Santos and says he’s still thinking about leaving. This time, dos Santos doesn’t bother trying to convince him to stay and says it was not a good choice, but he doesn’t seem to want to play games anymore with him.

“The only upside to this thing is that it happened early enough to get his ass out of here and get somebody real in that can take this opportunity and make something out of it,” White says. I never understand when this happens. I’m sure it sucks to be away from your family, but at the highest level of MMA, that’s kind of part of the job description. Whether you’re fighting on The Ultimate Fighter or leaving your family for 8 weeks to go train somewhere before a fight, it’s a sacrifice that you’d think you’d be prepared for, especially when you sign up to be on the show.

I can’t help but think that it was about more than him missing his family. A lot of fighters get on the show after building nice records at the regional level and realize that they’re in the deep end of the swimming pool. Maybe that’s what happened here? Who knows. What I do know is that the track record for The Ultimate Fighter washouts is not good. They don’t get back, they don’t redeem themselves, they aren’t heard from again.

Cope is shown training and he’s getting instruction on his wrestling, especially in the clinch. Lesnar says he’d like to see something that he hasn’t seen so far out of Cope and that he “hasn’t wowed us”. “I’m hoping that Chris will show up for fight day and really wow us”.

Lesnar brings together his fighters and talks about how any fighter can win on any given day. “The reason I’m thinking about this is that all the great champions of all time have suffered a loss in their careers.” He tells Cope that if he wants to improve his life and seize the moment, he’ll do anything he has to in order to win. It’s a good speech, but good lord does he pack the cliches in. “Any given Sunday”, “game of inches”, “seize the moment”, and so on.

Cope’s teammates aren’t so confident in his chances, but as Chris Berman would say in an unnecessarily annoying voice, “That’s why they play the games!” Less than a half hour into the show and we’re already seeing Cope get his hands wrapped…we must have a decision on our hands, boys and girls!

Cope says he brought a stuffed bunny from home to remind him of his family, while Torres says he just found out his wife is having a baby before he left for the show. Cope is the first fighter out and both he and Torres are amped and ready to go.

In “Inside the Octagon” during the commercials, Gray Maynard says some amusing things when Amir Sadollah asks him about the Frankie Edgar fight. “Well, that first round was close…NOT!” Oh…the “not!” jokes! He says that if he didn’t win the first round 10-7, then 10-7 rounds don’t exist, and he thought he won a couple of other rounds, too. When asked about his preparation for the rematch, he says he’s slimming his waist down so the belt will fit nicely. He also says Edgar is “not allowed to get up” in the upcoming fight. I didn’t expect him to be so candid, honestly.

Okay, we’re back and it’s fight time. Herb “The Leaping Leprechaun” Dean is officiating the action, and he starts us off. Torres clinches early and works for underhooks as Cope fights him off and tries to control him. Cope is throwing some punches and knees here and there, as is Torres, but nothing of consequence. Torres foot stomps Cope, and somewhere Matt Serra smiles wistfully.

They split, and Cope lands a nice combination that makes Torres smile. Torres clinches but gives Cope double underhooks. It doesn’t matter as Torres trips him to the mat, though Cope stands up almost immediately. They’re clinched up again and Cope isn’t doing much, even with double underhooks. They split again and Cope is landing some pretty good punches when he actually throws. He seems to be the better striker, and Torres is only interested in clinching up again.

Cope momentarily throws an elbow from the clinch, then another. Both land nicely. I’m not sure what in the world Torres is trying to do. He does land a nice knee that cuts Cope under his eye, however. Cope lands a kick to the balls at the horn just for good measure. Close round, but if pressed I’d go with Cope for more activity and landing the better strikes throughout. Most of the time, Torres just wanted to clinch without actually working for a takedown or really doing anything.

Lesnar doesn’t agree with me and tells Cope he needs to win the second round. He comes out swinging but is immediately clinched again by Torres. Torres breaks with a couple of nice elbows to Cope’s dome. Torres lands a body kick and Cope responds but has his blocked. Guess what? Another clinch! Knees to the midsection come from Torres. Torres has again yielded double underhooks to Cope, but he again doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. For someone who wants to clinch so much, Torres doesn’t seem particularly strong there. He’s letting Cope get underhooks, turn him into the cage, and land shots from time to time.

They split and both try combinations, neither of which accomplish a lot. Body kick lands for Cope and leg kick lands for Torres, then another. Torres ducks an overhand right aaaaannnnnd…clinches. Why would a person clinch, not strike or do anything, then twenty seconds later, initiate the break away from the clinch? Does he think the act of clinching alone scores points? I’m confused.

With a minute left, Torres takes Cope’s leg out from under him with a nice leg kick. In the clinch, they exchange knees to the body. Cope needs to do something to steal this round. Rabbit punches from the clinch aren’t going to do it. 10-9 Torres, and I have it even. The judges agree, and we get a sudden death round and at least 11 more clinches.

Round three begins and Cope eats a leg kick but gives Torres one of his own. Cope misses a head kick. Both are throwing combinations but the other man always backs out of range. Torres grazes a Superman punch and lands a right, but ends up in the clinch of Cope. Cope finally makes his double underhooks matter and tosses Torres to the mat, but Torres is up in a flash and we’re back where we started.

There’s a moment of confusion where both fighters stop competing and Torres appears to have been hit in the nuts, but Dean never halted the action. Dean tells them to fight as they stare at him, gape-mouthed. They do, but a few seconds later, it’s happening again and Dean gives Torres a minute to recover from an apparent nut shot. While he does that, Cope gives a Ric Flair “Woooooo!” This is weird.

They clinch again and after they break, Cope peppers Torres with leg kicks. Torres initiates yet another clinch, even though Cope always looks better at this point when they do. His back is to the cage and he’s trying to back out of a clinch that he initiated. Was this the “script” that Torres was supposed to stick to? He’s doing a good acting job, if the part is that of a fighter who has a woefully stupid game plan.

Cope is beating him up a bit in the clinch now, landing an uppercut and some elbows, to boot. With ten seconds left, Torres clinches up one last time for good measure. Hey buddy, maybe that last clinch won you the fight! Wait a minute, you mean you don’t get points just for clinching? Er, unless you’re name is Randy Couture or Clay Guida, that is.

Man, the editing always make even the biggest turd of a fight look like it was epic. I’m here to tell you, man: I lived it and it wasn’t so good. Lesnar prances around the locker room and says, “Chicken salad out of chicken shit!” It’s become his team’s mantra, which probably isn’t very complimentary.

In the dos Santos locker room, things are a bit more somber. Polley hears the applause from the other room and says the team should be pissed off. “This should eat you up until you’re ready to fight again.”

Next week, a new fighter comes in and dos Santos is forced to put Polley in his place after a workout gets out of hand. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua is in attendance for next week’s fight, as well.

Polley is really becoming a focal point of this season. It seems like since dos Santos’ English isn’t so good, Polley just jumps right in and takes the reins from time to time. Could be an interesting storyline as we move forward. At any rate, each team has won one, and next week Team Lesnar picks the fight.

E-Mail Jon Hartley

Tags: Brock Lesnar, Chris Cope, clinch fever, Dana White, Javier Torres, Junior Dos Santos, Keon Caldwell, The Ultimate Fighter, The Ultimate Fighter 13, UFC