TUF 13 Team Lesnar vs. Team Dos Santos

[Buffalo Dave]

Guy, if you can come up with a witty title like the last TUF feel free to pm JMT or IC to have it changed.

The Cast

Name: Nordin “Fist of Tangier” Asrih
Age: 32
Trains: Dusseldorf, Germany – Pride Gym
MMA record: 16-5-1

Name: Shamar Bailey
Age: 28
Trains: Indianapolis, IN – Integrated Fighting Systems
MMA record: 10-3

Name: Len “The Liger” Bentley
Age: 27
Trains: Olympia, WA – Victory Athletics
MMA record: 9-4-0

Name: Michael “Mick” Bowman
Age: 26
Trains: Liverpool, England – Wolfslair
MMA record: 7-2-0

Name: Keon “The Black Assassin” Caldwell
Age: 26
Trains: Moultrie, GA – Team Reality
MMA record: 8-1

Name: Chris “C-Murder” Cope
Age: 28
Trains: San Diego, CA – Arena MMA
MMA record: 4-1

Name: Zachary Davis
Age: 26
Trains: Rockville, MD – Evolve / Team Lloyd Irvin
MMA record: 4-1-0

Name: Anthony “El Cucuy” Ferguson
Age: 26
Trains: Ventura, CA – Knuckleheadz Boxing
MMA record: 10-2-0

Name: Clay Harvison
Age: 30
Trains: Marietta, GA – X3 Sports
MMA record: 6-1-0

Name: Myles “Fury” Jury
Age: 22
Trains: San Diego, CA – Victory
MMA record: 9-0

Name: Ryan McGillivray
Age: 24
Trains: Edmonton, Alberta Canada – Legends Training Centre
MMA record: 11-4-1

Name: Ramsey Nijem
Age: 22
Trains: Orem, UT – River Academy / The Pit
MMA record: 4-1-0

Name: Charlie “Superstar” Rader
Age: 29
Trains: New Orleans, LA – Power MMA
MMA record: 16-5

Name: Javier “Chunty Boy” Torres
Age: 25
Trains: Las Vegas, NV – Team Tompkins
MMA record: 3-0-0

So another season of TUF is about to start, this time it's back to the Welterweight division. Gonna be interesting to see how Brock and Junior are as coaches. I'm not sure I like the idea of having the 14 fighters already chosen for the show, without having the preliminary fights to get into the house. Those always made for some good fights, plus you get a feel for the fighters with their styles of fighting and such.

As always make sure to keep all recap/reviews on the show in this thread.

 

[Tha Wolfpac]

I seriously can't wait going to be an awesome season of Ultimate Fighter. I am interested to see how and what Lesnar brings to the table as a mentor. I do not understand why they don't make an Ultimate Fighter for the middleweight division as it is lacking a bit in depth lately in comparison to the other divisions. Have to wait till Sunday here is Australia to watch it so I'll post what i think about the fighters when I get a chance to analyse them a bit better. Hopefully a season to remember.

 

[Buffalo Dave]

I do not understand why they don't make an Ultimate Fighter for the middleweight division as it is lacking a bit in depth lately in comparison to the other divisions.

Remember they just did a Middleweight TUF last Spring, Liddell vs. Ortiz season 11. There was like 6 fighters competing for the UFC after the show ended, McGee, McCray, Noke, Attontio, Tavares, and Camozzi. Now only 5 because Camozzi was released. If anything I think we'll see another Heavyweight TUF before another Middleweight, that is division that lacks the most depth.

Wofpac, don't read past this unless you want to be spoiled on the show​

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The first episode was just alright, like I already mentioned, not having those preliminary fights to get into the house, made the first episode a little dull. I was surprised to see JDS' English being quite understandable, I did make the joke in the LD saying they had plenty of time to edit it since the show was shot. Kinda pissed Brock shaved the awesome Viking beard.

Dana flipped a coin to see who gets either the first pick or first fight. Brock won the flip and picked to have the first fighter. Little bit later we see Brock with one of his guys Myles Jury and a doctor telling him that Jury's knee is basically done, having torn his acl and some other things. The new guy, Chuck O'neil looks just like a Florian except he has a beard.

JDS picks the first fight, choosing his first overall pick Shamar Bailey against Lesnar's last pick Nordin Asrih. The fight itself is summed up in just a few words, Bailey wins by lay n praying for both rounds. Nordin worked off his back and had 2 Guillotines sunk in, but Bailey was able to fight out of them. Good way for Team JDS to protect their 1st pick.

As always the season clips were shown after the fight, and as usual there will be some confrontations in the house, even had a Matt Hughes sighting during one of the clips.

 

[jmt225]

Personally, I thought the season premiere was really underwhelming last night.

With there being zero tension between the two coaches, both just come off as generic and uninteresting. Honestly, while Brock has a larger than life aura about him, he's not the most interesting or charismatic person. He's most entertaining when he's pissed off, and JDS is simply to respectful of a person to ever piss someone like Lesnar off.

The fighters in the house... not a single one stood out to me, so that looks to be another potential flaw in this season.

And the fight last night was boring as fuck. Nothing but a lay and pray snoozefest, but it doesn't surprise me with the wrestlers over taking this sport. I'm sure there will be a few good fights this season, but fuck.. last night they got off to a horrible start.

The trailer for this season at the end of the broadcast didn't do anything for me, either. Usually those always give you specific moments in the season to look forward to, but nothing jumped out at me.

Overall, poor episode IMO, and my expectations could not be lower for the rest of this season.

 

[Uncle Chester]

Terrible start to the season. I went away felling as if nothing had fucking happened which is clearly due to there not being the tryout fights and us not getting a taste of the personalities of the contestents I'm sure we're gonna get some great fighters but are they going to be fighters like Ryan Bader? Or someone who more than just marginally better to watch then a perfectly shaped turd. Lesnar and JDS are awful coaches so far. There's nothing fucking there between those two, they're completely dispensable as coaches and nobody looks forward to their interactions since it's as dull as that awful first fight. Jesus Christ, I'm starting to believe the judging sytem should start favouting the guy on the bottom a tiny bit more. All in all, this was a terrible start- the coaches have no chemsitry, we didn't get to see any of the fighters' personalities and the fight was awful. Hopefully next week the fighters show a lot more flavour- to make up for this week and to compensate for the fact Lesnar and Dos Santos have NO REASON other than their fight to be coaches.

 

[Fizzy]

Bit of a disappointing first show. I can't say I didn't miss the awesome yet embarrassing fights to get into the house. They really made for some good KOs, and fun fights. The fight tonight was terrible. [I will be using the name "the wrestler" when referring to JDS's pick, and "un-athletic foreigner" when referring to Brock's pick because I am lost on their names] The wrestler took down the un-athletic foreigner, and the foreign guy couldn't get up to save his life. Even when he had good separation, and a five second time window to get up he couldn't make it to his feet. He showed no TDD or any explosion or speed what so ever. Was pretty embarrassing he made it on the show in the first place. As for the wrestler he didn't impress me in the slightest. I'm sure that was because the foreigner was so bad, but all he did was lay on him. Didn't throw many punches or try to improve his position. Maybe they should have chosen their picks for people on the show more carefully even if the foreigner was a sub for an injured guy he really wasn't impressive in the slightest.....

 

[Uncle Chester]

Huge imrovement from that piss poor opener I forced myself to sit through. Lesnar actually showed personality this time around but it wasn't enough to recapture my interest in him. That black guy who JDS brought in seems like an absolute cunt, but he's the first truely intriguing personality to emerge in the season- a much needed injection. JDS would be great as an assistant to the real coach, his got an affectionate attitude and his presence would be good in small doses but he's too plain to be the main focus. And it also doesn't help Lesnar has given him barely anything to work with.

The fight this week was, like the entire show, also better but to much less of an extent. It BARELY climbed over the very LOW standard of decent but I'd watch it anyday over that snoozefest last week. The fight itself was between a shitty Mexican guy and scared white guy, unfortunately they spent 3/4 of their 3 rounds alternating between the dominant position in clinches which resulted in my Ipod getting a bit of a workout. Whitey won in a close contest but I don't think ANYBODY gave a shit.

Best moment of the show was definitely Lesnar's reactions to someone so shit from his squad getting a win . 'Making chicken salad out of chicken shit'. It was so incredibly funny when he blatantly screams his opinion of how shit his team is. I felt so sorry for them.

 

[Buffalo Dave]

Second show was a bit better, still a bit boring though. A lot has to do with no tension between the coaches (at least so far).

Nothing really was happening during the episode, JDS worked his team through a very tough workout, causing one of his guy's to puke. Keon goes to puke, and admits he might leave because he doesn't want to be away from his family. A little bit later Dana comes to talk to Keon, after JDS already tried to encourage him to stay, basically Dana did what he normally does, with his usual speech on why people are here and so on.

The fight is picked we have Javier Torres vs. Chris Cope, another one of JDS' top guys versus one of Brock's bottom guys.

For the training session before the fight, everyone on JDS' team seems to think it will be an easy win for Torres. Keon says he made up his mind to leave the show, what a moron, if he doesn't realize the importance of staying for the duration win or lose, he's better of leaving then, nobody will be ringing his phone trying to book the guy that couldn't hack it on the show. Brock gave his team a "Any Given Sunday" speech, which they seem to respond to.

For the fight it was another pretty dull one. Just clinching for 2 rounds with both guys winning a round a piece for it. By the time the third round started Torres looked to be gassing fast. After Cope starts out strong, Torres catches a knee to the nuts, which stops the fight for a few seconds, Cope stays the aggressor, while Javier keeps looking to clinch again. A close crappy fight that Cope won. Neither guy was impressive at all.

Brock then touted his line, "Chicken salad, out of chicken shit" in the locker room.

With the clip for next weeks episode, it finally looks to be like a good one.

 

[Buffalo Dave]

Well this show did get a little better then the previous two. Still underwhelming for the most part. You just get a custom to the usual fighters getting drunk, stirring up drama in the house, and or the coaches at least bickering at some point. None of this has happened at all.

I found it funny that Brock's team are whining about the chicken salad out of chicken shit comment he made. When Brock's other coaches told him that it confuses him, Brock went and tried his best what he meant by the comment, not sure they understood what he was trying to say, because I don't think Brock himself knew what he was saying. So he just reiterated his seize the day line.

Time for the fight announcement, it's Len Bentley vs. Ryan McGillivary.

Finally it looks like we will get some house drama, as Chris Cope is been hanging out with JDS' team a lot more then with his own. His teammates start to question whether he is acting as a spy for Team JDS. Len says he will bring it to their coaches attention tomorrow. So nope, no drama, instead of Len manning up and confronting Chris, he chooses to wait and basically go tattle on him.

Next day comes and Len tells Brock about where, Brock just tells him don't worry about it, worry about the fight you have coming up and not to get caught up in the bullshit.

This leads us to the confrontation between Lew Polley and JDS. It seemed from last week's preview clip of this week;s show that something might happen between the two coaches, but all it was, was JDS telling Lew he is over stepping his coaching boundaries, that they need to all talk before deciding what to do with the fighters, something along those lines. Polley just agrees with JDS and thats it.

The fight is about to start, Len gets a call from Brock to wish him luck once more because he had to leave for a personal reason.

Fight starts and Len rushes in right away and lands a few nice punches, Ryan lands a nice one of his own. Len then scores a nice 1-2 to Ryan's face that put him down. Ryan is able to recover, after Len stands up he goes back into Ryan's guard lands a few elbows, then backs away. They stand back up, Ryan now is pouring on the pressure connecting with some nice head shots, one was a nice left hook that put Len down. Now Ryan drops some elbows of his own, Len scrambles over to the cage and works an armbar pretty much sunken in, Ryan shows some very nice sub defense to get out of it, he ends the round by having Len in a half Guillotine half Neck Crank choke.

Second round the pace is a little slower as they both gave it hell in the first round, but Ryan seems to be landing the better punches by countering Len's. For half the round it was just one punch thrown at a time, until Ryan finally threw a combo. Ryan then attempts a takedown, that he never really secured, but did get Len down for a brief second. For the remainder of the fight it stays standing with both guys landing shots, Ryan definitely landing the better of them.

It goes to the cards and Ryan is the winner with a majority decision. I agree with it, the first round was a 10-10 draw, and Ryan won the second round 10-9, he landed the better strikes. It definitely wasn't 20-18 as some judges had it. If anything we definitely could've seen another round.

Dana then praises Len telling him and the other fighters that's how you fight. Even though that was only the third fight, Len Bentley is the front runner for the wild card, especially since Dana liked what he saw from him.

 

[Buffalo Dave]

Seems like nobody is enjoying this season that much, no talk is generating really with this season, as he have had with other seasons.

Another episode down, another boring fight. That's now 3 out of the 4 fights this season that have been very boring.

Nothing exciting happened during the show, just Ramsey acting like Chris Pontius' character Part Boy, making himself look like a goof ball, but it was all part of his strategy to get everyone thinking that he's not taking this seriously. Other than that it was a Bromance showing of Chuck and Charlie for the remainder of the house clips. Matt Hughes made an appearance for Brock's team, and had a training session with them.


The fight was picked, Ramsey Nijem vs. Charlie Rader.

I was rolling my ass off throughout the fight listening to JDS call out Ramsey's name, when he was he sounded like Jack Black in Nacho Libre when he would say Ramsey. The fight itself was just another grapple fest against the cage for the most of the 1st round. Ramsey won it by landing the better punches and had control of the round. The 2nd round started out like it was going to be a war, but Ramsey was able to get a takedown,grabs the back of Charlie, a few punches thrown while to get his hooks in, once he does, he slaps on a RNC that has Charlie tapping before it was even locked in tightly.

Brock is pissed, throwing the stool into the cage, Dana backs him up by saying that he would be that pissed too, as Charlie didn't even try and fight out of the sub, basically just gave up without trying to fight it off. Charlie's boy, Chuck is also a little pissed that his friend lost.

Best part of the show happens right at the end when Brock is blasting his team for their performances so far, this causes Len to get up and leave bitching saying he gave it his all out there when he fought, Of course that's where the show ends so we have to wait until next week to see the fallout from that. To me it was a bitch move by Len, yeah he was the only Team Lesnar fighter to actually look decent out there, but fact is he still lost, so he should've been sitting there listening to Brock, he also should've just kept his mouth shut and listened because not only did he lose, he still part of the team.

 

[INDYjon22]

My main issue with this season is the lack of personality. None of the fighters have any personality what so ever and it is effecting the show. Why should I care about these guys on my TV when they all just seem like college wrestlers, jocks and meat heads. Not one of them stands out in any sort of way. The coaches, while I like both guys, haven't really done anything for me. Both guys have been so level headed, though Lesnar is getting more and more upset about his team losing which is somewhat entertaining. And the fights haven't been that great. All but one of them so far have gone to decision and they have just bored me. I really hope this season picks up with the rest of the fights, but I will remain skeptical until I see a change.

 

[JWGunslinger]

It really is sad how lame this season has been, I will say that the last episode showed a spark of entertainment and I hope that it keeps up til the end. But INDY said it perfectly, there isnt enough personality and I swear it feels like they are trying to be as bland as possible. Out of 13 seasons this is the first one to be so damn boring, the best way to explain it is how high the expectations of the viewers have gotten. I mean there have been so many exciting fights, ridiculously funny pranks and jokes in the house that it's hard to be origional anymore. It seems like last season Bruce Leroy took it to one end of this and was the biggest most annoying poser in TUF history, but then this season it's as if they're staying away from being like that but in turn not showing ANY personality. It's good to see guys who are focused and taking it seriously but when they approach it the way this season's cast has it makes for damn boring television. Just for kicks I would like to throw out my vote to win the show, I would like to see Clay win. Although he is one of the guys who really hasnt shown alot personality wise he put on a good fight, he showed that he's here to fight and that he isnt going to let an injury stop him or effect his focus.