THE CANADIAN PRESS
Brock Lesnar’s squad evens the score at 1-1 in the episode of Season 13 of "The Ultimate Fighter" that aired Wednesday as welterweight Chris Cope wins a three-round decision over Javier Torres from Junior Dos Santos’ team.
Veterans of the reality TV show genre will have found Episode 2 easy to interpret. Everyone talks up Torres while Cope is portrayed as the underdog.
"They’re picking their cream of their crop against our weaker guys," Lesnar says matter-of-factly when Dos Santos announced the matchup.
Cope "doesn’t wow us. I haven’t seen that out of Chris yet," Lesnar adds.
And the former heavyweight champion is blunt about his team’s weaknesses, especially when it comes to wrestling.
"You can’t polish turds and make them look pretty but we’re doing what we can."
Cope is portrayed as a part-time fighter — he works in a law office — while Torres is shown as a Mexican-born hard man whose goal has always been to be a fighter.
Dos Santos assistant coach Lew Polley, who worked with Cope at Team Quest, declares that Torres had all the tools to win the fight — if he sticks to the game plan, takes him down and beats him up.
Lesnar, meanwhile, delivers a Knute Rockne speech on the theme of "any given Sunday."
"When that door gets shut, if you want to improve your life, you need to win and you’ll do anything in your power to do so. Take it, seize the moment and understand anything can happen. This is fighting."
Torres fails to live up to the hype or follow the game plan. He takes Cope down once and cuts him open with a knee, but otherwise comes across as a limited fighter neutralized in a clinch game that sees Cope busier and more creative.
The fight goes to a third round, which Cope clearly wins.
"We made do with what we’ve got," says Lesnar. "Any given Sunday, any given Sunday, anybody can win."
"He just showed perseverance and heart and I was wowed by that," he adds of Cope.
Earlier, Team Dos Santos fighter Keon Caldwell is essentially thrown under the bus for showing lack of commitment in training and then quitting to be with his family.
UFC president Dana White says the good news is Caldwell quit early, so the show can replace him with "somebody real."
Even feel-good coach Dos Santos shakes his head.
"Not good choice, Keon," the Brazilian says.
In the show’s teaser to the next episode, the producers hint that Caldwell’s replacement is going to be a problem while Dos Santos has to dress down Polley, his assistant coach, for overstepping his bounds.
Lesnar and Dos Santos are set to fight June 11 at UFC 131 in Vancouver, with the winner getting a shot at heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez.
