If Season 13 of "The Ultimate Fighter" has been missing anything, it's a bit of that pizazz from Brock Lesnar's WWE days. The former WWE champ still hasn't gone back to his roots, but between Chris Cope's Ric Flair-like "wooos" and Junior dos Santos screaming "what" like he was watching "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Episode 9 felt like being at a wrestling event.
It also turned out to be about and looking past an opponent and weak excuses.
Cope is supposedly the weak link on the show, but he proved everyone wrong again by pulling the upset on Team dos Santos' No. 1 pick Shamar Bailey.
UFC president Dana White called it before the fight saying Bailey looked one-dimensional in his opening round win and was overlooking Cope. Cope wasn't exactly Mr. Aggressive, but he successfully defended against nine takedown attempts and gassed Bailey on his way to a surprising 20-18 win.
Dos Santos was shocked.
"That [decision] was terrible for me," dos Santos said. "I looked at Dana and said 'what?'"
Bailey was also in disbelief saying, "he fought well, but I don't know about that. You can't win backing up the whole time."
White seemed pleased that Cope got the decision and wasn't hearing Bailey's lame excuse during a one-on-one conversation shortly after the fight.
"I just want to let you know I took a risk," Bailey told White. "I wanted to show you I could bang and not just wrestle. I left it in the hands of the judges. I could've took the easy way out and just took him down."
White quickly pointed to Bailey that he did try to take Cope down throughout the fight and had zero success.
There was no controversy in quarterfinal fight No. 1. Knowing that Ramsey Nijem is a strong wrestler, Brock Lesnar worked with Clay Harvison on his takedown defense. Harvison was drilled hard on getting out of the clinch.
Practice didn't make perfect. He was taken down just 10 seconds into the fight. When he tried to get back up he left his back exposed. Nijem worked to get the hooks in, then flattened out Harvison before locking on a rear-naked choke. It was all over in 56 seconds.
Next week it looks like Tony Ferguson goes psycho in the TUF house. He also faces Ryan McGillivray while Zach Davis battles "Cold Steel" Chuck O'Neil.
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