TUF Talks: The Ultimate Fighter Season 12 Episode 9

(Author’s Note: I apologize for getting this one up a day late, fans and friends. Several issues popped up preventing this article from being posted on its usual day.)

Hello once more fans and friends and welcome to another edition of “TUF Talks”, the weekly rundown of the latest episode of the popular UFC reality TV show “The Ultimate Fighter”. Last week’s Episode 8 saw the final preliminary fight, a “wild card” bout that pitted two of coach Josh Koscheck’s losing fighters in a fight against each other to give one man one last shot at TUF gold. In the end, Aaron Wilkinson beat teammate Marc Stevens via guillotine choke (the second time Stevens tapped to a choke during the season) to keep his TUF dreams alive. What does Episode 9 hold? Let’s find out as we dive into the latest edition of “TUF Talks”.

The episode begins with Sevak Magakian giving Sako Chivitchian a pep talk concerning his upcoming fight with Jonathan Brookins. Sevak lost to Brookins via Rear Naked Choke earlier this season, and both Sako and Sevak are in agreement that they will do everything in their power to ensure that the two Armenian fighters of TUF 12 do not get their dreams ended by the same man.

The first training segment of the episode sees coach Georges St. Pierre switch tactics for his team, focusing on “tactical training” that involves only light sparring in order to better focus his fighters and get them eager to step into the Octagon. Coach Koscheck also switches gears and focuses almost exclusively on Sako not giving up his back. Later on, after some frat boy hijinks erupt in the TUF house, Jonathan Brookins reflects on how he wants to stay the same man he was before the TUF house and how he never wants to let the fame and fortune negatively alter who he is and how he views the world.

Then the fight gets underway, and much to the chagrin of Josh Koscheck, it’s virtually a mirror image of Brookins’ earlier fights. Brookins ends up quickly taking Sako’s back and after only a modest struggle he’s able to lock in a Rear Naked Choke for the tap. Post-fight Sako calls himself an idiot for not sticking to the gameplan (which was to keep the fight standing at all costs) while Josh Koscheck can only shrug and agree.

The episode then centers on the next fight, Cody McKenzie taking on Nam Phan. McKenzie is supremely confident, almost to a fault, heading into this key showdown. Phan is confident as well, since he spends an entire practice session solely defending the guillotine choke, which is by far the biggest weapon in McKenzie’s arsenal. Coach Koscheck swears that he’ll hit Phan over the head if he gets guillotined, mostly because McKenzie and Koscheck have developed quite the rivalry throughout the season.

The fight quickly gets underway, and the recurring theme for the season seems to be Team Koscheck fighters landing themselves in a world of trouble the first few seconds into the round. McKenzie quickly scores a takedown and Phan spends almost all of Round 1 defending and trying to get back to his feet. Towards the end it seems as if McKenzie has gassed, and this is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in Round 2 when Phan begins landing strikes on a far more consistent basis while being able to easily fend off any takedown attempts. Phan lights up McKenzie with an array of strikes and finally lands a power shot to the body, dropping McKenzie. One final flurry later and Josh Koscheck officially has one of his fighters going to the semi-finals.

The episode ends with Koscheck bragging and boasting, much to the chagrin of GSP. Next week’s episode sees the pivotal showdown between teammates and rivals Michael Johnson and Alex “Bruce Leroy” Caceres. Also, the semi-final match-ups are officially announced.

All in all, this was another great episode. We had a very in-depth look into the heart and mind of Jonathan Brookins, to the point where he’s now become my favorite fighter still in the hunt for TUF gold. Brookins seems to be all class, all heart, all determination, and all skill, and he might just win it all. Plus, any episode that has two fights instead of the usual one always turns out to be well worth watching. TUF 12 hit its stride a few weeks ago, right now it’s simply perfecting the formula. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

And what about you, fans and friends? As we head towards the semi-finals, what do you think of TUF 12 so far?