TUF Talks: "The Ultimate Fighter" Season 13 Episode 8

Hello again fans and friends and welcome back to “TUF Talks”! “TUF Talks” is my weekly recap of the long-running and popular UFC reality TV show “The Ultimate Fighter”, with a heaping helping of commentary thrown in. Last week on TUF, we saw the end of the opening round as Team Lesnar’s Chuck O’Neil won the “Wild Card” fight and brought Team Lesnar to an even 4-4 with Team Junior dos Santos. With not one but two quarterfinals set for tonight’s episode, which team will pull ahead, and which fighters will begin to pull away from the pack and establish themselves as early favorites? Let’s find out as we dive into the latest edition of “TUF Talks”.

The episode begins with Shamar Bailey complaining about some back problems, which could play a significant factor in his upcoming grudge match against Chris Cope. Meanwhile, Ramsey Nijem talks about his Palestinian heritage. We then get a special guest visit from Brian Stann, the former WEC Middleweight Champion, current UFC Middleweight contender, and highly-decorated former Marine. Stann speaks at length about both the fight game and the Marines, and it’s one of the best special appearances of the season. Shortly afterward, we get our first fight of the night with Ramsey Nijem taking on Clay Harvison.

The fight is over almost before it has the chance to get started. Harvison comes in headhunting but gets taken down for it, and Nijem gets his back with one hook in. After some intense moments of struggle, including a point where it looked like Harvison would be able to roll to safety, Nijem locks in both hooks and flattens Harvison out. Seconds later, Nijem locks in a Rear Naked Choke and gets the tapout.

As expected, Coach Junior dos Santos is elated with Nijem’s finish while Clay Harvison is upset that he fought through a major injury scare only to end up getting choked out in round one. UFC President Dana White compliments Harvison on coming back from a badly dislocated finger (so bad that the bone poked through the skin) and Harvison remarks that that’s the only thing that doesn’t make him feel like a complete loser.

After a final bit of pre-fight hype we then get our second match of the episode, the somewhat-anticipated grudge match between Shamar Bailey and Chris Cope.

The best thing I could say about this fight is that it led me to form a new phrase that I’ll likely be applying to all other TUF fights like it for as long as I keep doing “TUF Talks”.

That phrase is “chipmunk’d”, as in “I chipmunk’d this fight”.

What that means is simple: this fight was so boring that I played it on fast forward. I didn’t skip this fight, I suffered through every minute of it, but I did increase the speed at which the video played. The end result is that whenever someone spoke, as in when the coaches were shouting what their fighter should do next while the other fighters shouted encouragement, they all sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks.

To make a long story short, most of Round 1 is spent up against the cage with Bailey trying and failing to get a takedown. Both men let their hands go in Round 2, but their technique is so bad that most of the time they’re just swinging at thin air. In the end it goes to a decision, and the judges somewhat-controversially give both rounds to Chris Cope. In a rare moment, Junior dos Santos seems very upset that Cope won the fight, while Bailey remarks that “you can’t win a fight moving backward”. Bailey attempts to redeem himself by taking Dana White aside for a little one-on-one chat, but White seems very unimpressed.

The episode wraps up with the traditional preview of next week’s outing, and it looks like a good one: a very heated argument is shown, someone goes careening over a sofa into a glass table, and once again the episode will feature two fights instead of the usual one.

I really don’t know what else to say about “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 13 that I haven’t said before, and honestly? That’s part of the problem. Like so many of the other episodes of this season, everything was decent, a few things were good, and nothing was particularly great. I loved the fast finish to the first fight, but once again I had to suffer through another boring fight. The lack of consistency in regards to this season’s fight quality is really beginning to take its toll on the ratings of this season. All told I think it was a passable episode. Unfortunately, the ongoing trend of this season appears to be flashes of brilliance mired by less-than-spectacular drama and fights that are a chore to sit through.

And what about you, fans and friends? What did you think of this episode?