The Ultimate Fighter: Episode 6 Recap

After taking a week off, I'm back to recap tonight's episode of what is shaping up to be one of my favorite seasons of TUF to date.

Last week, Team Koscheck won their first fight when Nam Phan defeated Spencer Paige in a decent fight, although most likely a unanimous victory. Koscheck celebrated by pounding on the walls and gloating, which continued right into this weeks episode. First he starts in with Michael Johnson, calling him fat and out of shape and then he visits the house where he encourages his team to basically act like assholes. As we've seen before, teams usually take on their personality of their coaches, and this year proves that true again.

With Team Koscheck in control, they choose to pit their number one pick Marc Stevens against GSP's 6th pick, Cody Mackenzie. Mackenzie, who has enjoyed going back and forth with Kosch all season, flicks Josh's chin as he walks away from the weigh in. That as you imagine, gets under his skin and puts an even bigger bullseye on Mackenzie's Alaskan back.

Now, this looks like the most lopsided matchup of the season save one important detail. Mackenzie has won all 11 of his fights by guillotine, and Stevens is a wrestler. And although Stevens is clearly the better fighter, his biggest asset is neutralized because he wont want to go to the ground and risk being choked out.

Round 1: As expected, Cody comes out swinging wildly and throws Stevens off his game. Stevens instinctively shoots, and what do you know, ends up in Cody's guillotine. And just like that, he is asleep and less than a minute in, Koscheck is speechless.

For the next fight, GSP picks Jonathan Brookins to fight Sevak Magakian. St Pierre says that Brookins is his secret weapon and we'll have to take his word for it, because we haven't heard or seen much from him all season. Sevak on the other hand, appears to be your run of the mill angry Armenian who would scare the daylights out of me.

Round 1: After a brief getting to know you period, Brookins judo tosses Sevak onto his back where he tries to lock in an arm bar. When that doesn't work, he allows Sevak to get on his feet where he takes his back, lands a few shots, sinks in a standing rear naked choke, and then flattens him out on the mat where he finishes him.

Wow. Two very quick victories for Team GSP in fights where they were absolutely not favored heavily if at all. And just like that, the cocky jock is down 5 fights to 1.