The Ultimate Fighter: Team USA vs. Team UK – S9, E2 RecapThe Ultimate Fighter: Team USA vs. Team UK – Season Nine, Episode Two Results

The second episode of the Ultimate Fighter’s ninth season opened with an introduction to Team America’s coach, Dan Henderson. Dana explains that the selection process came down to Dan Henderson's fight at UFC 93 against Rich Franklin, where Dana told the two that the outcome of the match would determine the next season’s coach for The Ultimate Fighter.

As Dana introduced Coach Hendo to the team, hopeful contestant Jason Pierce passed out. Those beside him quickly secured him and eased him to the ground, where he was assisted back to consciousness. Upon coming to after the confusion cleared (Pierce initially thought he’d fallen asleep), Dana pries and Jason reveals his starting weight to have been 180 lbs., 11 lbs. beneath what he weighs now. Dana thinks he may have spent himself a bit in the process of cutting weight.

He wasn’t the only one. Christian Fulgium was seen having trouble time and time again making weight, stepping on the scale more than once to display the difficulty he was having. The cameras caught Coach Hendo adjusting the speed of Christian’s treadmill to 3mph and then walking away, only to have Fulgium eat it in YouTube-worthy style, losing his footing as his fatigue finally shut his legs down, sending him crashing face-first into the treadmill’s conveyor, then sliding off of it like something you’d see in a Looney Tunes’ ACME Factory.

To further the initial showing of promise for Team USA, contestant hopeful John-David Shackelford was found to have a herpes lesion on his head. Dana was quick to inform him that his contagious skin-sore, found right around the side of his front hairline would render him unable to compete in this competition. As Shackelford was sent home, Dana noted that Team USA was “off to a (expletive) start.”

Once gathered, Dana’s famous pep-talk included that in his opinion, Team USA's start the worst for a team in the history of the show. Dana called Christian Fulgium out about not being able to make weight, and in a direct exchange, Christian conceded that he quit trying. Dana tells him he'll regret it forever. Dana says that after the First day, when comparing the two teams, Team UK seems hungry and Team US does not. Dana is outward in his assertion that the Brits are going to kick the (expletive) out of Team USA.

Welterweight Mark Miller (10-4) opened up the evening’s action by fighting his training partner, Kevin Knabjian (10-3-1). Both fighters on paper were evenly matched, with ten wins in fourteen fights for each contestant. That they were training partners was something that Knabjian seemed excited and focused on. Miller didn’t seem to assess the fact anything more than tactically, citing that where they may have been used to sparring with one another, now their fight meant something. From the onset, I went with Forrest Griffin’s way of looking at it, and picked Miller to win on ugliness.

Knabjian knocked Miller back after some brief circling and pawing, and Miller came firing back with hands that knocked Knabjian around despite not landing cleanly, a testament to their power. As Knabjian shot for the first takedown attempt of their fight, Miller’s hands were so accurate that he was able to stave off the attempt with no sprawl, and only bombs. Miller made a point with his stand-up in this round, visibly beating Knabjian up worse than he himself had endured, and winning the round clearly. Between rounds, Knabjian’s corner reminded him that he wasn’t throwing his right hand, and was retreating too much.

To start the second round, Miller came out aggressively and Knabjian took his corner’s advice, launching a big right hand that set up two more shots from Knabjian as Miller fell to the ground. The two scrambled, and Knabjian went for a heel hook as he took a leg and rolled away from Miller way, falling back. Miller defended, and separated from his opponent enough to stand back up, with Knabjian still on his back for a bit. Miller, in the midst of the exchange and the focus required to survive the combo that had just sent him to the floor, realigned his equilibrium and went right back to unleashing plentiful hands. Looking flat as he retreated from Miller’s attack, Knabjian at one point ate a seven-punch combo from Miller, with the first punch of every combo Miller threw finding Knabjian’s face consistently.

To end the fight, Knabjian got brave and entered close-quarters with Miller, who found Knabjian in counter-attack with a right hand that stunned Knabjian long enough to set Miller up for the kill. Miller pressed the attack, sending Knabjian’s back into the cage as he defended punches, which Miller was throwing in rapid-fire succession by now as he sensed the kill was in sight. Another right sent Knabjian down, with Miller unleashing repetitious and powerful punches from his standing position to a floored and deliriously scrambling Knabjian. Mazagatti finally stepped in to stop the fight with Knabjian clinging to Miller's leg, eating bombs from all angles.

Miller was visibly upset by his defeat, pushing Miller off as Miller attempted to comfort his just-defeated opponent. In the locker room, Knabjian socked a hole in the Chuck poster. During his exit interview, as he told whimsically wishful stories of the Bro-mance him and his friend Mark could have had throughout the season, he cried. You feel bad for the guy, but of all the opponents who left that night, he’s the only one who I saw cry. I’m just sayin’.

Temecula's Richie Whitson (4-0), looking as red-headed stepchild as any contestant ever on The Ultimate Fighter, was matched up evenly with Des Moines, IA’s Paul Bird (4-1). Heavy Metal artist ensemble Slipknot once said that the sickest people in the world come from Iowa, and as Paul Bird depicted his idea of “the best feeling in the world” as what it’s like to hear a cage door slam and be able to do anything you want to another human being legally, you get the impression that they might be onto something.

The two opened up circling, with Bird getting the better of the brief stand-up exchange with a leg kick and a good straight punch, then landing the takedown on Whitson. The two scrambled on the ground, with Whitson in defensive grappling retreat, and Bird hanging onto Whitson’s back and working to stay there. As soon as Whitson was able to separate from Bird, the bows began to fly. Bird started delivering ranged, precise hands to Bird’s face, finding him with big shots while defending the takedown.

After his second failed takedown attempt, Bird weakly secured Whitson’s leg, and Whitson advanced on him enough to roll Bird onto his back. As Bird began eating huge shots from Whitson while trying to hold guard, his scramble to escape Whitson’s bombardment lent to Whitson moving to Bird’s back, where he began throwing shots to the head from multiple angles. After battering Bird, Whitson moved in to end the fight, establishing close position then sinking in the rear-naked choke to end the fight at 1:50 of the first round. Dana commented at fight’s end that Whitson beat the (expletive) out of Bird, and I can’t disagree.

Santino Defranco (13-4) out of Tempe, AZ, tried out for season two and actually made the cut. We should’ve seen him seven seasons ago, however, he was found to have had a brain aneurysm soon after earning a spot on the shot. He’s since had surgery, had the aneurysm removed, and has returned to compete in this year’s ninth season. He was matched up with Waylon Lowe (5-2) out of Jefferson City, TN, whose belly-button tattoo (think Godsmack’s sun logo) drew laughs from Dana, and drew comparisons to a girl from Hendo.

Santino came out bouncing, full of energy and visibly happy to be there. However, once the action started, the energy turned straight to counter-grappling and defensive survival mode. Lowe came out punching, and after stalking with a couple of feeler punches landed a takedown. With Defranco on the bottom, Lowe did his best to deliver shots. However, Defranco worked his position beautifully from the bottom to setup a triangle attempt, keeping Lowe close by pulling the head down and wrapping with full guard and negating his punching range despite a storm of punches raining down on him. It took Waylon some time, but his strength made it easy to posture up and break the submission attempt. Having Defranco against the fence in a side-control position made it easy for Lowe to throw more punches than I could count on the fingers and toes of both opponents combined, lefts to the body and rights to the head without relent.

Defranco turtled up completely, didn’t offer any kind of attack, and mostly just absorbed shots from a fetal position with his back to the cage. While so many fights have ended just this way, perhaps Defranco’s awareness as he defended kept him doing so intelligently enough in the eyes of the ref to allow it to continue. The round ended with Lowe pounding, and where he got right up and walked back to his corner, Santino had trouble getting up, and was slow to get to his feet. Lowe commented while in his corner talking that he felt Santino was quitting.
To open the second in a complete 180 turn of the first round’s events, a huge right knee Santino countered a shoot by Lowe almost too perfectly and went crashing into his mouth, sending him to the canvas in a confused and discombobulated heap. The fighter Waylon had been saying was quitting just moments before as he sat in his corner followed a stumbling Lowe, secured a takedown, then transitioned from side-control to Lowe’s back, where it took him a moment to see the opportunity to choke his opponent out, but indeed, that’s what he did. Lowe taps at 4:15 of the second round to a rear naked choke. Dana appreciates the effort from a kid who fought back against odds greater than those in a competitive fight, made it to the show and won again. Coach Hendo is not impressed.

Jason Pierce, the kid who passed out due to fatigue from making weight, won his fight in unimpressive fashion over the course of three rounds, taking a unanimous decision in the process.

The battle between lightweights Cameron Dollar (4-1) and Tom Hayden (4-0) started with Hayden scoring a takedown, moving to top position, and pounding Dollar relentlessly. This is how the entire fight went up to the point that Dollar slipped out the backdoor from underneath his opponent, slid to his back, and secured a rear-naked choke to end the fight by submission, after taking a merciless beating for the two rounds prior to his come-from-behind victory.

Welterweight Demarques Johnson (13-6), fighting out of Salt Lake City, UT had the pleasure of fighting "Magical" Ray Elbe (20-11), proclaimed to be fighting out of Phuket, Thailand. Ray, a longtime internet favorite on forums abound as well as social networking sites, is a recognizable face to the internet-demographic fan. Ray stated in his opening interview that he didn't fly from Thailand to Vegas for the $4.99 steak & eggs buffet, and that he (expletive) came to get into the UFC.

Ray came out looking very Thai in his stance with a stationary approach that offered his head up as a fine target for the taking. Johnson obliged with big shots to open up, all of which seemed to slide off of or graze Ray’s face enough to move him around the cage, straights and crosses that were felt, but didn’t visually bludgeon. Demarques got the best of a clinch between the two as Ray tired of eating bombs from outside of his range despite his best efforts to counter them, and they went to the ground with Demarques on top. Once there, Johnson quickly moved to mount and started raining down shots.

Elbe’s attempts to buck out of Johnson’s advantageous positions were thwarted by Johnson’s strong base and position. Big punches up top soon became devastating elbows from up top, and as they began to rain down, a left elbow clipped Elbe beneath the right eye, slicing it wide open. Demarques continued teeing off with a mix of big punches, racking forearms and concussive elbows, and as Elbe’s efforts to escape the massacre waned in the moments before the end, the shots only landed more cleanly.

After another big left elbow crashed into the already-gushing right eye of Elbe, the ref stepped in at 3:10 of the first round to declare Johnson the winner by TKO. Surely, a disappointment for Elbe, who is just now finding an opportunity to fight in the UFC after 31 professional fights, a recent reinvention of his career through a move to Thailand, and an obvious vestment in the effort he put forth to make it through the Ultimate Fighter tryouts to get to this point.

Coach Hendo closes out the evening’s fights by complimenting those fighters who competed successfully, voicing that he feels their team is competitive, and will do well against the UK fighters. As Dana hands these new Team USA inductees their team jerseys, he promises that these athletes will be changed at the end of these six weeks, and that they will be different fighters, different people and different men. He promises their stay will be the best and worst experience of their life, guaranteed.

Kiel Reid and Jason Dent still aren't in the house yet, but Dana has called in two alternates to replace the two who will not be able to compete – Frankie Lesnar and Rob Browning, the younger brother of former TUF contestant Junie Browning. Dan immediately showed a bit of concern with the relationship between the two, and next to nothing is known about Junie’s younger brother. Jason Dent is matched up with Rob Browning for next week, as is Kiel Reid against Frankie Lesnar. The two qualifier fights will take place on next week’s Episode 3.
Ultimate Fighter Team USA

Mark Miller
Richie Whitson
Santino Defranco
Jason Pierce
Cameron Dollar
Demarques Johnson
Winner of Jason Dent vs. Rob Browning
Winner of Kiel Reid vs. Frankie Lesnar