Ultimate Fighter Season 12 Episode 2

Wednesday, September 22, 2010.

This episode the fighters move into the enormous mansion. Both teams live in the same house, but without the coaches and trainers. Just your average home, big kitchen with an island, dining room table for 30, 86 bedrooms, huge lap pool, no big deal.

The biggest part of this episode is the team picks. Both coaches have Michael Johnson as their number 1 rank. Obviously somebody gets to pick first so who ever does will likely get Johnson. So the smart guy that he is, GSP decides to trick Koscheck into picking someone else if he happens to get the first choice. Marc Stevens was in the first fight of the premiere episode, he fought for Koscheck in New York and is a very talented wrestler. It’s pretty obvious that he should be on Koscheck's team, its kind of assumed because they have a bit of history, even if Koscheck doesn't completely remember. So GSP writes up a fake rank list with Marc Stevens name at the top is huge writing and he plans to "accidentally" let Koscheck see that. The point of this is to make Koscheck think that GSP is going to swipe one of "his" fighters right out from under him if he gets to pick first. GSP never wanted Stevens, he knows they have a history and he was already in the mindset of being in Koscheck’s team, it would have been stupid for him to go after Stevens. The first step of the plan works perfectly, Koscheck see's GSP's list and starts to worry that he is going to take Stevens, but then one of his trainers mentions he could ne bluffing, hmm shoot.

Time to pick, Dana flips the coin and Koscheck wins. This means he gets to pick the first fighter for his team or the first fight matchup. Throughout the season, who ever wins the fight, that team gets to pick the next matchup, so having control of the first fight is very valuable. However with GSP's little trick Koscheck’s gets nervous he is going to loose Stevens and takes the pick instead of the power. He and his team choose Stevens... he fell right into it. What an awesome move, No personality my foot thank you very much. Here are the teams and the order they were chosen;


Team GSP 
2 Michael Johnson - who mentioned he wanted GSP as his coach in the van on the way over.
4 Jonathan Brookins
6 Spencer Paige
8 Alex Caceres (Bruce Leroy)
10 Kyle Watson
12 Cody McKenzie
14 Dan Sayers
SICK TEAM!! He has 4 out of my 5 early picks. And in watching the first 20 minutes of the show my opinion of Lentz has changed. Yeah he had a good fight but I'm not a big fan. He smokes, drinks coffee, and doesn’t treat his body very well for being an athlete. Maybe GSP was quick to cross him off because he does have skill but dude is not cool. Not super happy Sayers is on team GSP but maybe he'll tone down the "look I'm a badass" attitude with his coaching.


Team Koscheck 
1 Marc Stevens
3 Sevak Magakian
5 Sako Chivitchian
7 Andy Main
9 Nam Phan
11 Aaron Wilkinson
13 Jeffery Lentz


GSP wants to do the opening speech from full metal jacket. 
"If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training... you will be a weapon, you will be a minister of death, praying for war. But until that day you are pukes! You're the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human f**king beings! You are nothing but unorganized grabasstic pieces of amphibian sh*t! Because I am hard, you will not like me. But the more you hate me, the more you will learn: I am hard, but I am fair!"
 He says he plans to let his coaches coach these guy, he's brought in some of the best guys to back him up. He will be more of a training partner. He chose his team not because they were the strongest or had best record. He picks who he knows he can train and help. That's similar to how I pick who I like too, since I don't have a background in mma training I don't always see amazing potential in fighters. So I have to base my decision on their attitudes and how they carry themselves. You can be an amazing fighter but if you have a crummy attitude, you will never improve. 4 out of the 7 fighters on GSP's team I picked as early favourites. McKenzie seems to be a bit of a goober. That’s not always a bad thing to me, he's a just a bit of an oddball, I can see him getting on some people's nerves. Brookins and Paige both won by unanimous decision and Sayers just pulled a punk move that I didn't like in the first round of his fight. They weren't my initial top picks but we'll see what they can do in training.


Koscheck was a fighter on season 1, he knows the routine and how it goes. That may give him a bit of an edge. He believes in "mindless training". His definition of that is you guys show up and train and I'll tell you what to do. Fantastic strategy... Koscheck is all about the win, and I will not loose attitude, GSP takes the approach of I want to make these fighters better. Of course he wants to win, he would be stupid if he wanted to loose but in a competition like this it's about coaching the fighters to be better all around, not only about winning one fight.

Team GSP announces the first fight. Bruce Leroy vs. Jeffrey Lentz. Interesting that it will be two "characters" of the show battling first, one will be out right away. Leroy wanted this fight so GSP gave it to him. Dana mentioned it was an interesting decision to let the fighters pick the fight. I agree but I think it may work. I don't see GSP and his team ever being pushovers, if they don't want a match up, I don't think they would give it to their fighter. However, if they are okay with the match up, even if it’s not their first choice, why not let their guys pick? In their mind I'm sure each fighter has already chosen a guy or two they want to take out and feel like they can. Letting them choose someone they already feel superior to I think will give them confidence in the cage. If a fighter has hand picked his opponent it gives him motivation to beat him.  GSP says a fighter motivated to do something is very dangerous. Interesting that this is exactly how I feel about GSP’s fights. When he has had something to prove, like fighting someone he has lost to in the past, he is ridiculous and so powerful.


Leroy got his inspiration to learn martial arts after watching his first Bruce Lee movie. He says he likes to be ready but not tense, calm, but not asleep. He smiles the whole fight because he enjoys it. These two young fighters are both 21, 5'10" tall with a 68" reach. They may look the same that way but on the way to the fight, Lentz is talking about wiping the stupid look off his face, he's angry and aggressive. Leroy looks at the hummingbird outside the window. You can totally see the difference in the fighters attitude towards the fight, I feel like Lentz is just about fighting and Leroy is about the athletic battle. (It makes sense in my head.)


Round 1

The fighters spend most of the time against the cage, not much going on. I definitely think they should have separated these two. They go to the ground and it looks like Leroy was close to a guillotine. Lentz got half takedowns, if that would even count, made Leroy stumble and drop to a knee once or twice. Finally Herb Dean separates them. With the exchange at the end and a takedown the first round goes to Lentz. (Apparently the takedown is called a Judo throw) After the first round it doesn’t look like Leroy is actually that good. I think his character is great but he throws a lot of kicks that don’t go anywhere or do any real damage, he's not super aggressive.

Round 2
Starts off the same, Leroy throwing some flashy kicks. But then he surprises me and gets the takedown... but then doesn't seem to do much with it. He end up on his back and gets his legs around Lentz's head in a triangle choke. Lentz is able to slam him. Leroy tightens the triangle and Lentz ends up tapping. After earlier in the night saying he would let his arm break and go to sleep before tapping. So much for that, big talker. 


Bruce Leroy wins by triangle choke. Fight 1 goes to team GSP and they maintain control. Then a fighter looses they don't leave the house, it just means they are out of the competition. They still live in the house, they still train and they do have a chance to be picked for the wildcard. I'm very interested to see how this will play out and who will fight next.


Next Episode
Mike Tyson does make his appearance, I was right about something!
Koscheck's team looses focus? What? I would never predict that.... not