TUF 10: Episode 2 Recap and Analysis

The biggest story of last nights episode of the Ultimate Fighter will inevitably be the upcoming fight between “Big Country” Roy Nelson (13-4 MMA) and the youtube warrior Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson (3-1 MMA). Still, that’s not all that went down and, since it hasn’t happened yet, I’m going to gloss over it and leave speculation (and there will be plenty) for another time.

One of the big stories, over the course of the episode, was the dispute between Big Country and the Team Rashad coaching staff. As a veteran, it may be frustrating for a guy like Nelson to work with many fighters who only have one or two fights. That aside, it’s hard to run a team when one guy is being uncooperative. It’ll be interesting to see whether Roy continues to cause problems for the coaching staff, or if they’re past it at this point.

The fight for the episode was another ten minute long bout, though this one was a little more exciting.

Rashad’s top pick, James McSweeney (3-4 MMA) took on Wes Shivers (2-1 MMA). It was kind of a weird pick, as coaches generally don’t throw in a bigger, less technical guy against a top pick, especially when that top pick is a technical guy like McSweeney. Rampage’s justification was that he wants to get Rashad’s top pick out of the way, and that makes some sense. He already knew that he was going to lose control of the matchups after that fight, so refusing to let one of Rashad’s better guys to fight on his own terms and pick a matchup that would be an easy advance to the next round makes sense.

That said, the fight was a great study in a little guy working hard and quick against a lumbering ogre of a man. Shivers didn’t actually look that bad, but his technical ability and cardio were lacking, and when McSweeney started to bring the leg kicks at the end of round one, and started to take time to pick his shots, Shivers wasn’t able to push the pace and force a brawl or push the clinch.

Big guys want to force that brawl against technical opposition. That’s got to be the game plan, because there’s more power in 285 pound guy’s punch. Making him trade punch-for-punch is a legitimate gameplan, but there has to be both aggression and cardio to make that happen and Shivers didn’t seem to have enough of either.

At the beginning of the second round, Shivers was trading kicks with McSweeney, which is a terrible idea given that McSweeney is a much better kickboxer and was doing a great job of checking or evading the kicks. Shivers wasn’t chasing, he wasn’t throwing combos and he wasn’t letting the hands go. Still, Shivers did some good work on the mat in round two, mounting McSweeney at around the 2:00 mark and dropping some solid punches. Shivers definitely has to work on his weight, though, because there’s no way he should get reversed by a guy who weighs 235 pounds.

McSweeney also seemed to have a great psychological edge in the fight after the barrage of leg kicks. It’s weird to see a 285 pound guy with a 4-5 inch height advantage back off the way Shivers did. Obviously, he was tired and hurting pretty bad, but he wasn’t doing a good job coming forward and pushing through the pain, which is what needs to happen in that situation.

There was a lot of yelling at the end of the fight over a pointless, impossible guillotine that Shivers wasn’t fighting that hard.

Still, for Shivers to win that fight, he needed to do more than attack like Bob Sapp for the first 90 seconds. But Shivers is a big guy and if he works on his game, he may earn a spot on the undercard of the finale. If he shows up, he’ll make for a good long term prospect, if he can develop his skills.

It’s hard to say if McSweeney is going to be a long term force on the show, but he definitely has the leg kicks and the standup skills to beat a lot of the guys in the house. He’ll definitely be a threat if his takedown defense is substantial, but there are a lot of guys with better ground control than Wes Shivers, so that’s a legit concern. The second winner for Rashad is a good one, though, and with both McSweeney and Jon Madsen (1-0 MMA) through the second round, Rashad can keep looking to clean up the tournament.