Hyden's Take
HYDEN BLOG: Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos Make For Very Interesting Picks as Coaches on TUF
Jan 19, 2011 - 11:15:47 AM HYDEN BLOG: Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos Make For Very Interesting Picks as Coaches on TUF

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By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor

I'm very hopeful for a good season on The Ultimate Fighter 13. I think it's a little odd that the two coaches are heavyweights while the fighters are welterweights, though. I suppose coaches Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos can still teach these guys good techniques, but I would have thought guys closer to that weight would have been a better choice.

However, I'm sure that the UFC would prefer to have good fights on this season, and there's not a lot of great heavyweights out there. I remember Season 10 of The Ultimate Fighter, and the fights weren't that great outside of a few standouts. Brendan Schaub's comes to mind right away, but there may have been more.

I'm certain that Dos Santos will be a great coach. I'm sure he plans on bringing in a lot of great coaches to help him and they'll probably stress technique. But I'm most interested in seeing what kind of coaching style Lesnar uses. How is he going to relate to his guys, and how will they react to him? Brock seems like a guy who won't put up with a lot of crap, and there's always a few guys in the house who seem to be there primarily for the drama, so it should be fun to see how Brock responds to them.

One thing I'm not looking forward to at all is the possibility of a manufactured rivalry between Lesnar and Dos Santos. I understand that they're fighting at UFC 131 and the winner gets to fight Cain Velasquez, I just hope that they're as real as possible. I know Dos Santos won't engage in trash talk, but Brock might. I'm fine with that as long as it's real. I just don't like manufactured garbage trash-talk.

I wasn't a fan of what Stefan Struve and Sean McCorkle did in the lead up to their UFC 124 fight. This is MMA, this is fighting, we don't need made-up rivalries. If you can't sell a fight based on your abilities, don't try to sell it with some fabricated trash-talk. I hate when two guys trash each other before the fight, then hug like old friends after the fight. I understand that you may respect each other, but don't insult our intelligence by pretending to hate each other pre-fight only to get all lovey-dovey post-fight. It's like the stupid jingle in those Wendy's commercials, "You know when it's real." I'm just not a fan of fake.

I don't know who any of the fighters are on this upcoming season, but with them being welterweights I expect some good fights. Yeah, there will be probably be a few stinkers, there always are, but I'm hoping the good outweighs the bad. We'll see when the new season begins. I know it's a ways off, but The Ultimate Fighter is by far my favorite reality show. There aren't a lot of true reality shows out there, and the Ultimate Fighter is about as real as you can get. Yeah, there's obvious moments where people aren't being truly real, but generally speaking, that's what the show provides.

I'm hoping Season 13 is among the better seasons in show history. There's been some really good seasons and some really bad ones, and I'm hopeful this season brings more good than bad.


Comments and suggestions can be e-mailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com