Previously on the Ultimate Fighter: Keon Caldwell quits and goes home to be with his daughter, thereby ensuring that he’ll never be able to support her through fighting. Chris Cope wins a hard-fought decision over Javier Torres, and Brock Lesnar talks about making salads out of chicken turds.
It’s time for a Team Lesnar training session, and the team apparently has an issue with Brock calling them chicken shit. I guess it’s possible that none of these fighters grew up on a farm or in the south, because if they had, they’d know that the expression isn’t meant as a literal insult. Brock says he sees Len’s attitude getting worse every day, and Erik Paulson tells Brock it’s because of the chicken shit comment.
Brock decides to hold a team meeting to clarify his point with the team. He says that before the season started, they were just chicken shit, but now they’re chicken salads. Okay, now I’m confused as well. Brock then goes on to give a motivational speech consisting entirely of cliches. He smiles for the camera and says “chicken salad, baby.” I love this guy so much sometimes and he should totally have his own line of salads.
Team Dos Santos hits the gym. They’re worried about the replacement for Keon because they have a good team dynamic. The new guy arrives and it’s a much younger version of Randy Couture. No, seriously. This guy looks like Randy Couture in his 20’s. He tells the team that he gets stopped in casinos all the time by autograph seekers looking to get Randy’s signature.
Coach Lew is frustrated that the coaches aren’t putting guys in the right position to win. He’s decided that he wants to start training the guys the way he wants to train them because Junior is being way too nice. He proceeds to run them through training and sounds like a high school coach while doing it. Shamar suffers a nasty cut while going through training, and the guys aren’t happy about overtraining. Junior doesn’t like saying bad things to fighters and says he brought in Lew because he’s very good at wrestling.
Fight announcement: Brock chooses Len to take on Ryan. This sucks because I actually picked these guys to go to the finals before the season started. I suppose they could still make it there with the wild card, but for now, one of these guys is being eliminated.
Back at the house, Chris is hanging out…with the opposing team. His team is sick and tired of Chris and they don’t feel like they can trust him. Len says every time Chris talks, he annoys him. Chuck says that Chris is the investigator. I’m pretty sure he meant instigator. Regardless, Chris is shown carefully observing Len’s practice to give off the impression that he’s spying for the other team, so perhaps they Chuck did, in fact, mean instigator.
Len pulls Brock aside and tells him that Chris has been spending a lot of time with the other team. He asks Brock to tell him to keep his mouth shut. Brock tells Len to just worry about fighting. He says they picked this fight because, no matter what, they feel he can beat him. He tells Len not to get caught up in the other stuff. I gotta say, Brock is coming off very likable this season.
Team Dos Santos arrives at the gym for a late-night session. One of the coaches complains to Junior that Lew is making the guys go too hard, so Junior decides enough is enough. He pulls Lew into the office and tells him that he’s pushing too hard. He says Lew is here because he’s a wrestling coach, but that he is the coach of the team. He basically puts Lew in his place. They fistbump, which means everything is okay.
Ryan is struggling with his weight. He’s weighing 180 the night before the fight, but Lew says that’s no problem. They go through the salt bath process (Albolene, epsom salt and green rubbing alcohol) the next morning and Ryan starts sweating like crazy. I’ve seen several UFC fighters that use this method and it almost always works. He gives the picture of his daughter to Junior so that they can have it in his corner.
It’s time for weigh-ins, made all the more dramatic by the difficulties that Ryan endured in cutting weight. Len weighs in at 170. Ryan gingerly steps on the scale, but everything is fine since he comes in at 170.
Brock tells Len he won’t be there to witness his fight. He’s had some personal issues come up that he has to take care of. They REALLY wanted Brock to coach this season, because I can’t imagine them giving any other coach permission to just leave like this. I mean, he comes back, but still. And then we get a glimpse of the old Brock Lesnar we know and love when he tells the camera that everybody knows his personal life comes first before smiling smugly and walking away.
It’s fight day. Brock tells Len via the iPhone that he’ll be thinking about him every second. Here we go.
LEN BENTLEY vs. RYAN MCGILLIVRAY
Round 1: Shogun Rua is shown cageside. They come out swinging. Both guys are landing. Oh, this is gonna be a good one. Len misses a high kick, but then drops Ryan to the mat with a nasty left. Len works to full mount, but Ryan recovers quickly and gets Len back into half guard. Junior is thrilled with this turn of events. Ryan is really working his way through this. He was nearly finished. He gets Len back into full guard, but Len lands a nasty elbow. Len stands up and allows Ryan to get back to his feet. They start trading again. Dana’s gonna love this fight. Ryan with a huge left hook. Ryan lands a giant right hook, then drops Len to the mat with a left. Ryan goes into full guard, but Len recovers quickly. This is awesome. Ryan moves Len to the cage, which Len uses to try for an armbar. Ryan somehow survives the attempt, however, despite it being locked completely in. They roll around and Ryan gets Len in a crucifix, but Len rolls to his knees. Ryan gets a D’Arce choke, but Len is able to survive until the end of the round. One hell of a round, one of the best in Ultimate Fighter history. I score it 10-9 for Ryan, but it’s incredibly close.
Round 2: Len opens with a light leg kick. Both guys make each other miss quite a bit in the early going. Ryan lands a solid left. He’s landing that quite a bit and Len doesn’t seem to have an answer for it. Len lands a left of his own, but then goes back to attempting leg kicks. Ryan lands two big lefts again. Ryan presses forward and lands about six straight punches in a row, then presses Len against the cage before attempting a takedown. Len stuffs it and reverses, then lands some shots from the clinch before finally forcing a separation. Len is very tired now. I mean, Ryan is tried, but not nearly as much as Len. Len tries a spinning backfist, and that’s the last energetic thing he’ll try. His punches are really slow now and Ryan is still going at a pretty good rate. Len gives a takedown a final try, but Ryan easily stuffs it and lands 4 big shots to close the round. I’m scoring this one for Ryan and it wasn’t as close as the first.
Josh Rosenthal tells the guys that they had a hell of a fight. Dana White says the same thing. Yes, I agree. This was an awesome fight, one of the best in show history. There may be some controversy about the decision, but after watching the fight twice, I have to agree with the decision.
WINNER: Ryan McGillivray by decision (19-19, 18-20, 18-20)
Len says the fight should’ve gone to a third round, but says it’s his fault for leaving it in the hands of the judges. Len’s pretty upset, but Dana shows up and tells him he’s got nothing to be embarrassed about. Dana tells the rest of his team that “that’s how you fight” before hugging Len. You know what you learned from this segment? That Len Bentley is gonna get one or two fights in the UFC, no matter what happens on show this. When Dana White shows up to tell you how awesome your fight was, you’re golden.
Great episode with a fantastic fight.
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