The second episode of The Ultimate Fighter Nations kicked off at with Team Canada celebrating Kajan Johnson’s victory over Australia’s Brendan O’Reilly.
Team Australia eventually arrived at the house, and surprisingly, the Aussies were friendly with their “rivals.”
This led to a scene where Nordine Taleb observed his fellow Canadian, Elias Theodorou (who’s fight with Zein Saliba took place later in this episode) discussing his own game with a pair of Australian fighters. Taleb proceeded to call everyone from Team Canada into a room, and instruct them not to divulge any information to the opposing team.
The first training scene shown in the episode was a session from Team Canada. Patrick Cote brought in Vitor Ribeiro, an MMA veteran and a multiple-time BJJ national champion, to advise his team for the day. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was the aspect of the fight game that was emphasized through-out the session.
Another log in the fire of Team Canada’s rivalry with Team Australia was thrown in as Taleb, along with the rest of his team, complained about how Team Australia consistently keeps the house dirty.
What followed was a profile of Theodorou, and what was learned was that he talks quite a bit. Theodorou talked about how he is single because of his love of MMA, but he’s never had any trouble with the opposite sex. The Canadian also discussed his career as both a model and an actor, and he topped off by saying he has the best hair in MMA.
Weigh-ins for the next fight took place next. Saliba and Theodorou both had no trouble making weight for their middleweight bout.
After the loss, Team Australia heard Cote’s squad chant “CANADA” in celebration. Kyle Noke and Israel Martinez used the opportunity to try and motive Team Australia.
Cote and a few of his assistant coaches dropped by the TUF house later in the day to eat a meal, but more importantly, to introduce his team to Jean-Francois Gaudreau. Gaudreau is a nutritionist, and per Cote’s request, he gave Team Canada a lot of nutritional advice.
Team Australia also had it’s fair share of team bonding. The Aussies celebrated middleweight Dan Kelly’s thirty sixth birthday. Noke brought in a cake, that eventually ended up all over Kelly’s face.
We also got a closer look into the details of the Noke’s coaching staff. It appeared as though Team Australia has a good cop/bad cop scenario when it comes to it’s assistant coaches.
The good cop is striking coach, Adrian Pang. Pang is a rather lax coach that brings a lot of technical knowledge to the table, whereas the bad cop, Israel Martinez, tends to use push his fighters to the limit and get the most out of them through shouting.
The fight between Team Canada’s Theodorou and Team Australia’s Saliba took place next, and Theodorou utilized his wrestling and relentless pace to win the fight on the judges’ scorecards. In the first round, Theodorou controlled Saliba against the cage within the clinch, and followed that period up with a takedowns in the second frame.
Finally, the episode came to a close as Cote announced next week’s match-up, a welterweight bout between Canada’s Chad Laprise and Australia’s Chris Indich.