TUF 13: Team Lesnar vs Team JDS!!

[Window Licker 101]

After months of speculation and more than a dozen rumored names, UFC president Dana White today announced heavyweight contenders Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos will be coaches on the upcoming 13th season of "The Ultimate Fighter."

White made the announcement during a media call.

"The Ultimate Fighter 13" debuts March 30 on Spike TV, and a live finale is slated for June 4. The coaches meet in a season-ending fight in June, possibly at UFC 131 in Toronto.

Although initially announced as a middleweight and welterweight season of the UFC's long-running reality series, MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) reported earlier this week that producers instead opted to make "TUF 13" a welterweights-only show. Production begins this month in Las Vegas. In an elimination round of fights, 28 hopefuls will fight for 14 official cast spots. The show uses a 32-slot tournament, which includes two "wild card" picks who earn a second life in the quarterfinals.

Over the past couple months, many UFC veterans had been rumored for potential "TUF 13" coaching slots, including Frankie Edgar, Gray Maynard, Frank Mir, Shane Carwin, Wanderlei Silva, Chael Sonnen, Chris Leben, Brian Stann, Dominick Cruz, Urijah Faber, Anthony Pettis, Jose Aldo and others. Ultimately, though, officials went with the big men, Lesnar and Dos Santos.

White said Velasquez's recent shoulder surgery and long layoff opened the door for Lesnar and Dos Santos, which then "made all the sense in the world." However, no interim title will be on the line when the coaches fight, though the winner gets an immediate title shot with Velasquez.

Lesnar (5-2 MMA, 4-2 UFC) is a former titleholder who lost his belt to current champ Cain Velasquez in October. The former WWE star has emerged as the UFC's top pay-per-view draw, and his inclusion in "TUF" should translate to big ratings.

Dos Santos (12-1 MMA, 6-0 UFC), meanwhile, recently claimed top-contender status by posting a 6-0 record in the UFC. Recent wins have come over Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic, Gilbert Yvel, Gabriel Gonzaga and Roy Nelson.

"TUF" debuted in 2005 and proved a ratings hit. It also helped the UFC's and MMA's move into the mainstream. Since the debut season, the show has launched the career of more than 100 UFC fighters, and past cast members Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans and Matt Serra went on to win UFC titles.

To put it short, I like this. Fan of both men and I have a feeling things could get very entertaining. Hey! Maybe Brock might learn a thing or two.

 

[Super Hans]

Brock is fucked here, JDS striking is way too good and powerfel if JDS avoids the early takedown, then i feel he takes this one early. It will be entertaining seeing brock in a reality tv show format as we all know how reclusive he is and also with the rumours that he wants out the UFC, i just wonder if Dana is using the last fight to milk the cash cow and feed him to JDS, i hope Brock proves me wrong but i have a bad feeling about this fight for the big man.

 

[INDYjon22]

I don't know how I feel about all of this. Not that I don't like JDS, who I am a huge fan of, but I just don't think he is a great choice for a coach. He doesn't know English very well and that will definitely create a barrier while watching whenever he is on the screen. I also just don't see the payoff for JDS in the end. Maybe he and Lesnar will square off for an interim Heavyweight title in which case I do not believe Lesnar deserves a shot at, especially if the rumors about him wanting out of the UFC are true. And if it isn't for the title then JDS is just in a fight that he may lose and may lose his chance at fighting for the title. JDS may have superb striking, but lets not forget that Lesnar is a world class wrestler and could just grind out a decision which would leave JDS without a title and a title shot. I really just don't see why this makes sense for JDS, I would much rather see Lesnar square off against Mir, Carwin (If he was healthy), or even Roy Nelson. Those guys would be far more interesting seeing as they would talk shit with Lesnar and there wouldn't be a language barrier. Hopefully I am wrong and this season goes off without a hitch but I am not all that optimistic right now.

 

[IrishCanadian25]

I'm not NEARLY as excited for this as I was for St. Pierre / Koscheck.

I don't think Brock deserves a shot at coaching. I find him to be quite selfish. I hope he proved me wrong the way Tito did on TUF 3, but Lesnar, though impressive and awe-inspiring, will not have a great feel for me as a coach.

JDS has 6 UFC fights. 6. And he's coaching. I get it, he's good. But he's not nearly enough of a personality to coach.

 

[Final Form Snyper.]

I don't believe a fighter should lose one with a possibly of winning one and getting the Number One Contendership. I believe that fighters whould have to work their way back up a ladder rather than use the elevator because he can create big buys. I know the UFC is a business first and foremost but legitimacy must play an important role to how a Championship is treated.

With that said.

I do believe that Brock might come back a different animal, you only have to look at his first loss to see how hungry he was when he came back into the fold and much like Heath Herring Junior will have to face a prime and ready Brock. We all know that Junior Dos Santos has the hands and Brock Lesnar has the Wrestling so this does come across as a style vs style even with Junior having his BJJ Black Belt under the Nog brothers but how useful could it be when he is put on his back. the problem is that he is too big and muscular to be able to apply an effective submission off of his back outside of a Kimura or Guillotine.

 

[LegendEraWrestling]

I'm a Lesnar fan and will be for life. I'm proud to hear this decision because I honestly thought he was going to try to get out of his UFC contract and go back to WWE, and I thought that would make him look incredibly weak. The WWE fan in me would have been happy, but deep down, after a loss like he took from Valasquez, he needs this Ultimate Fighter show to gain more experience. I haven't seen much of Dos Santos, but I think he's the best opponent for Brock and this won't be much of a blow out as long as Lesnar keeps his cool and remembers his training, unlike the previous fight.

 

[jmt225]

Lame.

JDS can't even speak fucking English... how is he going to serve as a coach? Plus, he doesn't have any business coaching anybody since he's still a prospect in my mind. Same goes for Lesnar to be quite honest.

I would be much more excited at just the thought of a fight between Lesnar and JDS, but having them coach TUF... okay, first of all, that makes the fight, what, 6 months away now? Secondly, following the greatest TUF season in the last couple of years, you'd figure they'd book some entertaining coaches, but no... they do whatever they can to get Lesnar to coach just because he'll bring in the ratings. Well, I think that's a HUGE mistake. Lesnar is a very quiet and reclusive individual. Any kind of "confrontation" between he and JDS will be absolutely forced. The only way the show will be any good is if they get a tremendous cast of characters who go in and give us some bang out wars, or if Lesnar feuds with some of the fighters in the house throughout the entire season. Otherwise, this is going to be a yawn fest, and ratings will periodically drop throughout the season, and Lesnar might even drop in popularity.

 

[ArcherCC]

JMT225 -

JDS can speak english, it's not great bout about the level of Big Nog, and he coached TUF. Also at 12-1 I don't think JDS is any where near a 'prospect', he's beaten Stefan Struve (21-4), and Fabricio Werdum (14-4-1). Both of these are top tier fighters, not top 5, but top 10, Struve being the lower ranked of the two. Plus aside form his last fight, all of his wins have been finishes, and all of his UFC wins devestating finishes.

Aside from all of that, who else is there at this moment? Mir, coming off a really, and i mean really bad win over an aging Cro Cop? Carwin, coming off a loss to the at the time champion? Nelson, coming off a loss to JDS? Cain, out for atleast 9 months, probley closer to a year so he can't even be considered. Struve, while i think he has a big future ahead of him and is a top 10 heavy weight in the UFC, he's not quite ready yet. So that leaves JDS & brock.

 

[D-Man]

This season will be a total bust when pertaining to the meaning behind the show. After all, isn't it supposed to be about breeding new talent into the UFC?

In one corner, you have an inexperienced Lesnar who is widely known as being an unbelievable douche to others. How is he supposed to train new fighters?

In the other corner is Junion Dos Santos... a guy with 6 UFC fights under his belt and severely broken English (if any at all). Unless every fighter on his team is Spanish and they do a Team Mexico vs. Team USA thing, this will be a bad idea.

I get it... the UFC is looking for ratings. No one draws better than Lesnar. But these two men have ZERO history with each other and no bad blood so the interest in a fight between the two of them is out the window. And considering that neither of them have a resume for coaching, why would they be put in these positions??

In the end, everyone is going to lose out this season. The audience, the UFC, and most importantly, the new fighters.

 

[jmt225]

JDS can speak english, it's not great bout about the level of Big Nog, and he coached TUF.

The last time I saw JDS on UFC Countdown (which I think was for his fight against Roy Nelson, I don't remember him speaking English.

Also, you bring up Big Nog, I love Big Nog, but look at what the UFC had to do to try and make the season he was on memorable... they revolved it around Junie fucking Browning.

Also at 12-1 I don't think JDS is any where near a 'prospect', he's beaten Stefan Struve (21-4), and Fabricio Werdum (14-4-1).

Stefan Struve is vastly overrated at this point. And early in his career he truly fucking sucked.

And the Werdum fight was a fluke. Werdum had no idea what to prepare for with this guy, and he showed up in the worst shape of his career. If this fight happened again today, I guarantee we'd see a different result.

Don't get me wrong here, I actually do like JDS, and I think he's an absolutely incredible fighter and has the potential to be the Anderson Silva of the Heavyweight Division, but I still see nothing but potential with him.

Aside from all of that, who else is there at this moment? Mir, coming off a really, and i mean really bad win over an aging Cro Cop? Carwin, coming off a loss to the at the time champion? Nelson, coming off a loss to JDS? Cain, out for atleast 9 months, probley closer to a year so he can't even be considered. Struve, while i think he has a big future ahead of him and is a top 10 heavy weight in the UFC, he's not quite ready yet. So that leaves JDS & brock.

First of all, I wouldn't have had Heavyweight coaches coaching the show in the first place. Brock vs. JDS doesn't need the hype of TUF to make their fight draw.... Lesnar will draw no matter what.

Secondly, if for some reason I felt absolutely compelled to have Lesnar as a coach for this season, then yes... Mir would have been my choice to oppose him. I know Mir's last few fights are questionable at best, but still... that would have been great television. You think Koscheck was really deserving to fight GSP? I said from the get-go he wasn't, but I didn't bash their decision since I knew Kos and GSP coaching would give us some great, very entertaining television.

 

[ArcherCC]

Koscheck didn't deserve that fight, that I fully agree with ya on, but there was no clear contender for the WW belt either so he was the best choice at the time, and yes it did make good TV.

Mir VS Brock would have made a great show, but since he is on the docket to fight Ray 'Fat ass' Nelson soon, he might not have been cleared by medical to fight Brock in June. one main reason i like JDS VS brock is for the fact that JDS earned a championship fight, and is willing to risk it to test himself against Brock, so i don't mind the fight, and from a marketing stand point having him (JDS) on TUF as a coach will help get his name out there, because even with his record he is not a well known fighter, so i understand why he was chosen form that aspect as well.

 

[Mekanik Kommandoh]

JDS spoke English on the UFC Countdown show for his fight with Nelson. Granted, I'm not sure how large his vocabulary is and there's no way he could go toe to toe with Lesnar in regards to trash talking in English, but he was pretty easy to understand. I also remember him speaking English in the post-fight interview, even telling Ed Soares "I got it" after Rogan asked his first question. His English isn't amazing, but I think they can make it work. He should be able to communicate with his fighters.

In any case, eh, I'm not as down on this idea as some of you are, but I would have preferred Lesnar/Mir. Not necessarily for the fight - JDS vs. Lesnar is going to be awesome - but, as jmt stated, for the show. Mir and Lesnar as coaches would have made for some epic television. I think the season could go either way in regards to quality and it could definitely surprise us, but I'm leaning towards disappointment right now. I am curious by how good of a coach Lesnar will be given how anti-social he is at times.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

JDS' English is improving. He did an interview with Ariel Helwani before he fought Big Country and stated that he "wanted to punch him in his big belly"... and after the Cain/Lesnar fight, he said that Brock was "fighting like a truck with no driver" on MMA Live. I'm sure Ed Soares will want to get his mug on TV as much as possible anyway, and he'll be there to translate if JDS can't get something across to his team.

In one corner, you have an inexperienced Lesnar who is widely known as being an unbelievable douche to others. How is he supposed to train new fighters?

In the end, everyone is going to lose out this season. The audience, the UFC, and most importantly, the new fighters.

Well, everyone thought Tito was a douche too, and he was a fine coach for TUF Season 3. Matt Hughes is a douche too, and he's coached twice. Let's wait until the show starts. Lesnar could very well be a fine coach.

The audience and the UFC will win out here unless things really are boring. Lesnar will draw, period.

It's too early to say if the new fighters will "lose out" here. Sure, Brock trains with a bunch of overweight heavyweights who aren't allowed to punch him in the face, but he also trains with guys like Jacob Volkmann and Sean Sherk, who I'm sure would make fine assistant coaches. Junior Dos Santos trains with Team Black House, and the Nogueira Brothers, Anderson Silva, and Lyoto Machida train out of that camp. I'm sure he'll enlist Big Nog to be an assistant coach. I am already hoping that Machida's batshit crazy father is brought in as a guest trainer.

And remember too... NOBODY can be a worse coach than Rampage or Koscheck.

I think this season of TUF is going to be interesting. All it would take for some "heat" between the coaches is for Ed Soares to rub Brock the wrong way. Soares is an antagonistic douchebag.

The season ending fight I think should be real interesting too. JDS' ground game still hasn't been tested. He's going to have a huge test against what should hopefully be a very motivated Brock Lesnar. Adding to Brock's motivation would be the fact that the Vegas odds have him as the Underdog right now. If JDS takes the Carwin/Cain route and comes at Brock with punches, he'll be in very good shape, but Brock should be smart enough at this point to know that's going to be the game plan. If Brock times his takedowns and sets them up, he should be in very good shape and be able to ground and pound JDS out.

Make no mistake though, this is a huge coup for the UFC. Brock is the biggest draw in the company, and this is a star-making career turn for JDS.

 

[Final Form Snyper.]

The thing with being a TUF coach is that you don't have to be the main coach. GSP last season was more of a sparring partner than a coach he had Greg Jackson and co to go over game plans and be the main voices in the corners. What is stopping Brock from doing the same thing. He could train them with Grappling while he can have his offset trainers come do the Striking and Submission side of things.

 

[ArcherCC]

The thing with being a TUF coach is that you don't have to be the main coach. GSP last season was more of a sparring partner than a coach he had Greg Jackson and co to go over game plans and be the main voices in the corners. What is stopping Brock from doing the same thing. He could train them with Grappling while he can have his offset trainers come do the Striking and Submission side of things.

This is how Brock should, and I would bet money, will do it. He has extreamly good coaches up at DeathClutch, and honestly he would be stupid not to bring them down.

and please god let him bring in Pat Berry to help the fighters with their striking, Pat needs all the TV time they will shell out.

 

[Dave]

This ought to be frankly amazing! I simply cannot wait to see what happens.

Really, I know that some of my excitement for this season is due to Lesnar being the main man but we all know what a charismatic son of a bitch he can be at times. It ought to be car-crash TV and that is what I will be tuning in to see. Sure, there may have been better picks out there but Lesnar and JDS will do well in their roles. These guys are basically some of the best that the UFC Heavyweight Division have to offer, so I would go as far to say that they have gone far beyond being prospects. In fact, Lesnar was the Heavyweight Champion for a while. For me, that is not the place of a prospect. That is the place of a Champion that knows what he is doing inside the octagon.

That being said, perhaps it is the entertainment fan in me that is excited about this upcoming season. We all know that Lesnar can pull it off. Just look at his run in the WWE to see that he is a natural in front of the camera and plays his role to perfection. In this season of TUF, he will be playing the arrogant douche and I cannot wait to see him nail that too.

As for the fight at the end, it should be pretty good too. Lesnar must have learned his mistakes from the fight with Cain Velasquez and one would hope that he is going to come out with a different game plan for JDS. Both of these guys will want to show everyone that they can do and perhaps have something to prove, with Lesnar having to prove a little bit more despite being an ex-heavyweight champion. I personally cannot wait for this season.

 

[Via Armbar]

Man some stupid shit is being said up in here.

Dos Santos speaks decent English, as good if not better than Big Nog.

Lesnar more than likely isn't as big of a selfish douche as he's appeared to be

Brock's a former champion in both MMA and wrestling. I'm sure he can teach.

Dos Santos has very interesting training partners to bring in.

I'm not quite sure where all this hate is coming from. Is every one off the Lesnar bandwagon already? Or is Dos Santos not an interesting enough character? Both are very intriguing individuals for opposite reasons. Will Lesnar be a douche who doesn't care about his team? Or will he surprise everyone and come prepared like he's done with pretty much every other endeavor of his. Will Dos Santos be able to sing us a Justin Bieber tune in English? Who gives a fuck, it's mma. Brazilians are a major part of the sport, get used to it. There are very many aspects of this season that intrigue me a lot. Should be fun.

Oh and who the fuck else would you guys have picked? Maynard and Edgar would be the only options really who fit in with the timing. Really though, how would that have been more exciting? Maynard is as exciting as...well...Gray Maynard and Edgar is The Situations shy younger brother. They made the right call.

 

[jmt225]

Armbar, everyone and their momma wanted Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva to coach the show. ANYTHING else would have been a major disappointment. And yes... that includes Mr. Biggest Draw in MMA himself, Brock Lesnar.

Everyone realizes the show has potential to be great with Lesnar/JDS, yet it also has potential to suck like Tito/Liddell did. Chael Sonnen as a coach would have been GUARANTEED to be great television, much like GSP/Kos and Rampage/Rashad were guaranteed to be great television. With Brock Lesnar and JDS, we're not guaranteed anything, so it's harder to get excited about it.

And my bad about the JDS/English thing. Last I heard the man speak it seemed like he only knew a little bit of it. Maybe he was just having a bad day, or maybe it's just been too long since I heard him speak, but I could have sworn he didn't know much English.

 

[Via Armbar]

Armbar, everyone and their momma wanted Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva to coach the show. ANYTHING else would have been a major disappointment. And yes... that includes Mr. Biggest Draw in MMA himself, Brock Lesnar.

You definitely got me there. My number one choices to coach would be Chael and Wanderlei. There isn't a single bad thing about that idea really. Wandy has pretty good English and hell his broken English is hilarious (for those that remember "I want to fuck...Chuck''). Chael's always entertaining and would absolutely put on a show. The actual TUF season with them as coaches would actually interest me more than the actual fight would though as I'd expect Chael to take Wandy down at will and grind out a decision.

This season does have the chance to be both good and bad. It could be that Lesnar and Dos Santos have little to no interaction with each other and therefor no real beef which I could easily see. I don't see many instances where they would get heated towards each other, and that could be boring to some. I'm more interested in getting to know both fighters a little better. Really it was one of only a few choices they had and it made the most sense at the time. Either Lesnar gets a win back under his belt and regains some footing and continues to draw shit loads for Zuffa or a new star and popular fighter comes out of the season in Dos Santos. It's a win/win really.

 

[IrishCanadian25]

I am already gonna get my vote in for the following season. Seeing as this one is done and the only thing left to do is watch and HOPE it's interesting.

Pit the winner of Jon Jones vs Ryan Bader against the winner of Forrest Griffin vs Rich Franklin. A young up and comer vs the winner of another big fight, the winner of that ensuing fight to get the title fight against the winner of Rua / Evans.

Bang.

 

[Via Armbar]

I am already gonna get my vote in for the following season. Seeing as this one is done and the only thing left to do is watch and HOPE it's interesting.

Pit the winner of Jon Jones vs Ryan Bader against the winner of Forrest Griffin vs Rich Franklin. A young up and comer vs the winner of another big fight, the winner of that ensuing fight to get the title fight against the winner of Rua / Evans.

Bang.

You'd really want to keep them out for that long for the show? Why? You have Rampage likely to fight for the title next if he beats Silva. If they could have it their way I'm sure they would love to have Rua defending his belt at the big Rio event in late August. That would be cutting t close for Rampage though with maybe only 3 months in between fights. So honestly it's more like to happen in the fall. Same if Rashad beats Rua, if a second fight with Jackson is booked then it's not going to happen until probably October.

The second season of TUF for each year starts usually in September and ends in Decemeber. So wouldn't have Franklin/Griffin fighting Jones/Bader until the very end of the year. Give it another couple months and your talking about a title fight for the winner of the TUF match in Spring of next year. Now I have little doubts that they are setting up a mini tourney here, bu there's no reason to keep them out for that long like they did with GSP last year. It would make the most sense to me to have the winner of Bader/Jones fight the winner of Machida/Couture (most likely Lyoto) at the Rio event for a number one contenders fight while Rampage gets his shot. That way we get either Bader or Jones gets to fight again this year and should be ready for Rua/Evans/Rampage early next year without any big lay offs.

There is the question of what to do there with the winner of Franklin/Griffin. I think that the winner, either men, need to string together a few more to get a title shot. Franklin beat Liddell and Griffin beat Tito...not exactly contenders. I'd like to see either against Thiago Silva if he loses to Rampage or hell even Rampage take one of them on if he loses. One could also bank on Lil Nog beating Ortiz and putting his name back in the hat.

It's really a clusterfuck at 205 right now and the last thing they need is a TUF season making it worse.

 

[The_Gizzame]

This will be awesome, Brock already has t.v. personality training from being in wwe already so we should see more of the next big thing we know.