The Ultimate Fighter Season 12: Episode 9 Recap

It’s hard to believe, but we’re on the ninth episode of yet another season of “The Ultimate Fighter”. Last time, Josh Koscheck decided to keep needling Georges St. Pierre’s medic, and got verbally owned as a result, forcing him to make things physical. Oh, and Marc Stevens defeated Aaron Wilkinson, too. That also happened. What will happen this week? I have the answers! Read on to share in the glorious flow of information.

Fighters eating! Fighters laying around! Fighters talking! Jonathan Brookins is gonna face Sako Chivitchian, and Sako is going to try to get some revenge for Brookins’ win over his friend, Sevak Magakian.

At practice, St. Pierre tells his fighters that he is going to dial back training so that the fighters will be prepared. He says in addition to avoiding the possibility of overtraining, this will also help them to stay hungry when it comes time to step in the cage.

Brookins works out with St. Pierre in the cage while he talks about the implications of fighting a guy who’s trying to avenge a friend’s loss. St. Pierre works on visualization with Brookins, as he has done throughout the show so far.

Sako works with Koscheck and his teammates on not giving up his back when he goes to stand up from the guard. “Brookins has two hands and two feet. I have two hands and two feet.” You can’t deny those kinds of facts!

At the house, the guys are horsing around near the pool table, and Brookins is outside talking to Nam Phan about how there are “way bigger questions in the universe” to think about. Brookins does point out accurately that none of the participants are UFC fighters yet. He says that they’re all just trying out “to be on the team”. “There’s no shortage of cockiness in this house.” He has a point.

Before the fight, Brookins talks about working the jab, and GSP is pleased. Koscheck tells Sako to have heart, because it might be the difference. Brookins says that winning this fight would just allow him to begin his journey up the mountain. Sako walks out to the cage looking focused, as usual. We’re already to fight time, fifteen minutes into the show!

Referee Herb “The Arsonist” Dean gets us started, and Brookins is the picture of relative tranquility as we start. His patient approach yields to a clinch twenty seconds in, though Sako circles and puts Brookins’ back to the cage. Still, Brookins takes Sako down and Sako immediately moves to stand up. Guess what happens? Brookins takes Sako’s back!

Sako falls to the mat and defends as Brookins works on getting both hooks in. He finally does, and now we’re hand fighting. Brookins is winning that battle, too, and Sako is relying on keeping his chin tucked to do the job. That doesn’t work for long, either, and Sako is forced to tap after the rear naked choke is sunk in. Well, you can’t fault Koscheck for not training the right things. Koscheck: “Oh, shit, did that just happen again?”

After the fight, Sako is disappointed that he chose to continue clinching with Brookins instead of backing up and working his stand-up. Koscheck tries to reassure Sako and tells him that he just made one mistake. Unfortunately, he made one mistake in a one-minute fight.

Now, the focus turns to Cody McKenzie, who faces Nam Phan in our next fight. GSP’s guys talk about how McKenzie has won all of his pro fights by guillotine, save for one. GSP talks about McKenzie’s confidence, saying that when he says he’s going to run through an opponent, he says it as if he’s saying that the sun is going to rise tomorrow.

Despite that, GSP says this will be a tough fight, as he believes Phan is better on the mat and standing up. GSP wants McKenzie to put Phan against the cage and eventually take him down to neutralize his strengths.

McKenzie walks by Koscheck and they engage in some verbal sparring, as usual. Koscheck essentially pleads with Phan to beat McKenzie, as he really wants to see him lose. He’s apparently been found guilty of the serious crime of “daring to respond to Josh Koscheck’s verbal taunts.” That’s not how this works, McKenzie! You’re supposed to give him your lunch money, then cower in fear and allow yourself to be given multiple wedgies.

To practice for the fight, Koscheck has all of Phan’s training partners go for guillotine chokes. We’ll see if that particular strategy works any better than Sako’s strategy worked for him. Apparently knowing what your opponent wants to do is just one small part of winning the fight.

We get a rather pointless weigh-in, although we get some more trash talk from Koscheck (“Flex for me, Cody”), at least. The two face off, and whoa, holy height difference. At least Phan doesn’t have to lower his gaze to stare at McKenzie’s chest, as he prefers to do in these situations. Afterwards, the two chat it up a bit at the house, as Phan looks to get some inside info.

McKenzie says he’ll always be doubted, mostly due to his hair and his build. He mentions that he drinks more than the others because he’s from Alaska. I had no idea that being from Alaska made it a given that you drink more than most people, but I suppose it makes sense.

Overseeing the fight will be Josh “The Paterfamilias” Rosenthal. Phan drives me crazy by motioning to McKenzie in the cage to touch gloves, to which McKenzie shakes his head “no”. Why, oh why, in the last moments before you fight another man, would you want to be wasting your time making agreements from across the cage over something so stupid as whether to touch gloves?

Can we just put this crap in the bout agreements and get it over with? “I, Nam Phan, hereby indicate my intention to briefly touch gloves with my competitor, Cody McKenzie, at the beginning of round(s) _____. I may also wish to touch gloves at the conclusion of rounds, after the referee’s instructions, after a particularly thrilling exchange, immediately after a foul, and whenever I pass by him on the street for the rest of our lives.”

We’re underway, and McKenzie closes the distance with punches and a kick, then pushes Phan against the cage as Phan hits the whizzer to avoid the takedown. A minute in, McKenzie briefly brings Phan to the mat, but as he hits his knees he is able to stand back up. McKenzie drops again and hits a double leg takedown that works, landing in Phan’s full guard. Koscheck is calling for Phan to use the cage to stand up. Finally, he gets space from McKenzie and does stand.

Phan circles away and they face off, with both landing punches before McKenzie goes back to the Couture Special. McKenzie may be getting tired, as he’s dropping to his knees when working for takedowns against the cage. He keeps the pressure on and lands some punches while in the clinch, though nothing particularly troubling.

Phan separates again with a minute left and blocks a head kick from McKenzie before landing a right hand, then another. McKenzie is really eating that right straight. McKenzie shoots for a lazy takedown and Phan hits him with some hammer fists before allowing him to stand. McKenzie comes forward with a kick and some punches, but nothing lands, and goes for a takedown as the round ends. Close one! McKenzie controlled most of the round and got takedowns, but did nothing in the way of damage, while Phan landed some good shots near the end of the round.

Between rounds, McKenzie is noticeably tired, though St. Pierre makes him stand instead of sitting. Phan comes out for round two aggressively, throwing head kicks that are blocked and flicking his jab, though Cody lands one of his own. McKenzie blocks a head kick and lands a leg kick of his own. Phan lands a body shot but eats a counter right hook for his trouble. McKenzie presses Phan against the cage, but Phan escapes and throws another head kick that’s blocked. Phan lands a nice 1-2 to the body.

McKenzie lands a body kick and closes the distance, though Phan again easily circles out of the clinch. Phan is going to the body effectively with his punches, and he lands a left hook and a jab as McKenzie tries a kick. Right straight, then another lands for Phan and McKenzie doesn’t look so good. McKenzie is swinging much more sloppily, and a right hand from Phan drops him to his knees. McKenzie covers up and Phan gets the stoppage in round two. Koscheck celebrates not as if he’s “been there before”, but instead as if he’s adrift in a sea of losses and spots a lonely win out on the horizon. I guess that’s appropriate, though, given the circumstances.

Replays show that it was a left hook to the body that really put McKenzie down for the count. Koscheck is very pleased with seeing his “rival” lose, and St. Pierre is not happy with Koscheck’s reaction. “That was personal,” says Koscheck.

Next week, we get two more quarterfinals, as Wilkinson will fight Kyle Watson and we’ll get the “grudge match” between Michael Johnson and Alex “Bruce Leroy” Caceres. We’ll also find out the semifinal matchups.

E-Mail Jon Hartley

Tags: Cody McKenzie, Georges St. Pierre, Jonathan Brookins, Josh Koscheck, Nam Phan, Sako Chivitchian, The Ultimate Fighter, The Ultimate Fighter 12, The Ultimate Fighter St. Pierre vs. Koscheck