THE CANADIAN PRESS
A vicious upkick, a triangle choke and a fired coach highlight Episode 6 of "The Ultimate Fighter."
When the dust settles on the two fights in the episode that aired Wednesday from Season 13 of the reality TV show, Junior Dos Santos’ team holds a 4-3 edge over rival coach Brock Lesnar.
And Chuck O’Neil of Team Lesnar is picked to meet Javier Torres from the Dos Santos squad in the wild-card bout, a decision that does not go down well with Lesnar first pick Len Bentley.
The growing rift between Dos Santos and assistant coach Lew Polley comes to a head when Polley tries to visit the fighters in the house without Dos Santos. The Brazilian heavyweight contender promptly fires Polley.
Clay Harvison, who won for Team Lesnar last week, learns his finger injury is a dislocation rather than a more serious fracture. As he is getting repair work done in the hospital, Bentley arrives in a wheelchair after injuring his knee in training.
Bentley also gets better news than expected.
"Dislocated my patella. Not that serious," Bentley tells Lesnar upon his return.
Having regained control of the fight selection, Lesnar picks Tony Ferguson to take on Justin Edwards of Team Dos Santos. Edwards, a late addition to the cast when another fighter withdrew, describes himself as an alternate to the alternate."
That leaves Lesnar’s O’Neil against Zac Davis as the final matchup.
Lesnar picks Ferguson as a possible winner of the show, saying "He’s got a little mean streak."
"Fireworks, baby," says Lesnar ahead of the episode’s first fight.
The two fighters were listening, it seems.
Edwards comes out like a freight train against Ferguson, driving him backwards with strikes. But eventually the onslaught slows. And when Edwards takes him down, Ferguson backs him up with elbows from the bottom and then topples him with an upkick to the chin.
"Great fight, great fight," enthuses UFC president Dana White.
Davis takes O’Neil down three times in the first two and a half minutes. O’Neil, also a replacement cast member, reverses position on the third but gets careless and is caught in a triangle choke — one of his own moves.
Afterwards, O’Neil tells his team he never get’s caught in triangles.
"Never’s not a word in fighting," offers Lesnar in response. "Anything can happen."
The focus switches to the wild-card fighter selection, with Edwards being the unanimous choice of White and the coaches, only to be ruled out by a 90-day medical suspension.
After a cozy sitdown to decide which two losing fighters get a second chance — with the rival coaches agreeing so much that White calls it "weird" — the matchup of O’Neil versus Torres is made.
White doesn’t think much of any of the losing fighters’ enthusiasm to get in the cage again.
But a teaser for next week’s episode showing that Bentley is not about to take his omission sitting down. The coaches also take part in a football challenge.
Lesnar and Dos Santos face off in the cage June 11 at UFC 131 in Vancouver, with the winner earning a shot at heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez.
GSP loses votes to Silva in Yahoo MMA poll
Georges St-Pierre keeps winning but his success has not been reflected in the polls lately.
The UFC welterweight champion from Montreal took over top spot in the Yahoo Sports top 10 pound-for-pound MMA rankings in April 2010 and finished the year at No. 1 with 11 of 19 first-place votes after his Dec. 11 win over Josh Koscheck.
The other eight first-place votes went to runner-up Anderson Silva, who holds the middleweight title and was Yahoo’s No. 1 until St-Pierre bumped him down the ladder.
Fast forward to February and Silva, coming off a highlight-reel knockout of Vitor Belfort, regains top spot with 13 first-place votes, compared to seven for runner-up St-Pierre.
In the latest rankings released Thursday, in the wake of St-Pierre’s decision win over Jake Shields, the Canadian is still No. 2 but down to two first-place votes compared to 19 for top dog Silva.
The Yahoo poll is voted on by a media panel that includes The Canadian Press.
