After last week’s ground war between Pete “Drago” Sell and Charles “Captain Miserable” McCarthy, I was looking forward to seeing some celebratory drinking from Pete and his trainer Matt Serra. Thankfully this week’s episode was lacking disappointments in that regard. Honestly, I just can’t get enough of those silly ass fighters getting drunk. Every time one of these professional ass-beaters gets crunk, hilarity ensues. Pete Sell mixed up some Bacardi and Cola, got hammered, and made an ass of himself. Priceless and mindless humor for all viewers in attendance.

So the big drama this week largely involves Rich Franklin, whom was brought in as a coach last episode. While under the guise of a coach, Rich is secretly spying on all his possible middleweight opponents. Rich seems more like a verbal coach, as according to the guys he doesn’t grapple or spar with anyone. Rich’s excuse is the rampant staph outbreak, along with his still injured hand. Both are valid excuses for not training, but Rich’s lack of activity sparks Jorge Rivera to make accusations of espionage. Mr. Franklin also seems generally unimpressed with the training routine, as when he comes in on “Cardio Day” most of the guys are lying around the gym taking it easy. Matt Serra makes a good point in stating that Rich came onto the show after a month had already passed, and for that entire duration everyone was busting their balls every day. It isn’t fair for Rich to judge the past week or so as his ultimate impression.

Rich Franklin’s credibility is also threatened when he gives Matt Serra some questionable advice on his upcoming prelim fight with Spratt. Rich tells Matt to touch gloves with Spratt and immediately go down to one knee, so Spratt can’t kick to the head. Matt doesn’t think this is very good advice, and due to this comment doesn’t know what to make about Rich’s coaching skills. Back at the house the guys laugh it up at how bad Rich’s advice really sounds. Din Thomas comments, “as a world champion, how you gonna tell someone to get on a knee?” The drama gets worse when Charles McCarthy tells Rich about what the guys really think, assuming that Rich was just joking around. Apparently Rich wasn’t joking at all. He reveals he just said it to start some drama, which he believes is his purpose for being on the show in the first place. Finally, the shit hits the fan when Matt finds out about Rich’s little conversation with Charles. Sometimes the guys on this show are more ridiculous than the students at your average private high school.

The spotlight shifts to Pete Spratt, who is training hard for his upcoming bout with Serra. He makes a good point in saying that everyone is looking past him, and really not giving him any chance to beat Serra. Pete is extremely motivated by his previous loss, and this gives him a lot more drive to train hard and win the fight. Mickey Burnette works with Spratt on his sprawl and brawl tactics, along with some other familiar strategies a striker can use when going up against a grappler. Back at the house, the guys make fun of “Captain Miserable” Charles McCarthy by drawing a superhero caricature of him and putting it on the fridge. Everyone laughs it up, until Charles gets home that is. Moving to the fridge to get a drinkie-poo, McCarthy attempts to ignore the drawing, knowing that any kind of reaction will put the other guys into middle-school mode. From the expression on his face you can tell he’s more than a little butt-hurt about it, and the other fighters in the house readily pick up on this.

Right before this week’s background check, Matt Serra consults Randy Couture about Franklin’s theory. Randy doesn’t even think twice before telling Matt it’s a bad idea. During Matt’s reexamination of his UFC career we get to see some pretty good highlights of some of his biggest fights. The standouts are most definitely his fights against BJ Penn, Karo Parisyan, and of course Shonie Carter. Interestingly enough, when the Carter vs. Serra match was first examined they only played up the spinning backfist KO. Anyone who has seen that fight is familiar with what really happened, i.e. that Serra was putting on a jujitsu clinic en route to a unanimous decision before he got caught with the fight ending strike. Matt’s fight against BJ Penn was very controversial. Matt remarks that the online community scored the fight 2 rounds to 1 for Serra, but he doesn’t like to complain and leaves it at that. The Parisyan fight was one of Matt’s toughest to date. Although Matt dropped Karo with an overhand right, and almost finished him early with the ensuing barrage of ground and pound, he ran out of gas and was then pounded with elbows on the way to losing a decision. Matt remarks that he will never run out of gas again. Pete Spratt is absent from this week’s reexamination, as his UFC career was already highlighted before his first fight on the show.

Now for my mandatory fight spoiler: “Jesus Christ, 10:50pm and the fight still hasn’t started.” My incredibly “enlightened” prediction: this one isn’t going to a decision. Pre-fight, Pete reveals he is all about lateral movement and sprawl and brawl tactics, whereas Matt explains that he’s going for the typical strategy of taking the striker down and submitting him. The fight starts and Matt Serra surprises Spratt with a high kick. After shaking it off, it looked like Spratt was going to impose his will, as he did a great job of avoiding the takedown while countering with strikes. He even opened a cut under Matt’s right eye with one of the first blows he threw. Pete countered a shot attempt with a switch left knee, which connected with Serra’s eye for some damage. Unfortunately for the striker, Serra used this gift of a strike to take Pete down into the half guard. From here, Matt used some light ground and pound while working for side control. After an unsuccessful attempt at taking mount, Serra worked his way back to side control before finally gaining the mounted position. Once Serra got there, he unleashed a barrage of hard strikes that forced Pete to roll to his stomach. Matt kept on pounding, inducing the tapout from Spratt with 1:33 left in the first period.

After all is said and done, Pete says he’s not disappointed, and he really shouldn’t be. He gave it all he had, and took a lot of punches before tapping. Matt is ecstatic about the win, and remarks that he won’t be celebrating, but will be back in the gym the very next day. No doubt he’ll be working on his high kicks. On the next episode, Chuck Liddell is brought in as a new coach, and Jorge “El Conquistador” Rivera takes on Patrick “The Predator” Cote in the final preliminary fight. I’ll see you next week with potentially one of the best fight match ups of the season, on the next episode of….THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER!