This was the last week of the prelim’s before the quarter finals and there was no mystery about who was fighting: Jorge Rivera vs. Patrick Cote.
In the meantime, there was plenty of drama to be had in the house and it pretty much came from one source, Shonie Carter. Shonie decided that it’s every man for himself and went to train with team No Love instead of his own team. Needless to say, neither team was happy. On top of that, he was dropping eff bombs all over the place about his team, about everybody else, and about life in general. Shonie sure knows how to conduct a class in “How to Make Everybody Hate You”. He wrote the whole curriculum it seems.
Serra, who cornered for him and I feel was the real reason Shonie did so good, finally just threw down the gauntlet and said no more excuses, Shonie was a punk. So the drama was high all around. You can tell that being in the same house with so many disparate personalities is really starting to wear on everybody. I thought it would have been different with professional fighters but seems that they are only Human.
They then went over each of Jorge’s and Patrick’s backgrounds.
I found it extremely interesting to go down memory lane with each of Patrick’s fights. He has three losses in the UFC but each one was always entertaining. His first was to Tito and he went the full distance and even rocked the man. He eventually lost to a decision. He then fought Joe Doerkson and was winning soundly when he fell into an armbar. He then fought Chris Leben and lost to a split decision. Each were competitive in their own right.
Jorge divulged that he had a rough childhood and fighting is his way of venting those angry emotions that he had. He had three losses and two wins in the UFC with his losses coming to Lee Murray, Rich Franklin, and Chris Leben. His two wins were against David Loiseau and Dennis Hallman. Although he doesn’t have many wins in the UFC, he is extremely experienced outside the organization.
After all that build-up, the fight was lack-luster to say the least. The first round was entertaining enough with Patrick trying to throw to the fences and Jorge immediately shooting in for the take down. This surprised me because Jorge is a banger himself. Jorge spent a lot of time holding down Patrick without much offense. Patrick did get one good upkick in that sent Jorge to the canvas which Patrick immediately took advantage of and got on top. The rest of the round Jorge spent trying to recover from the upkick. Patrick definitely won round 1.
The second round Jorge came out very flat. I don’t know if he was winded but he showed no fight really. Patrick took it to him up top then took him to the ground where Jorge just laid on his back defending. His hips weren’t moving, he wasn’t trying to get back up, and he wasn’t even striking much off his back. Needless to say, Patrick took the round and then the whole match.
Next week the quarter finals begin and with all the scrubs gone, it should get really interesting.