There’s a saying around my group of friends. Whenever someone is not pulling their weight, whenever they are acting retarded, or just plain pissing people off we have an expression for it: they are fucking up. Ladies and gentlemen, Shonie Carter is fucking up. Big Time. At the beginning of this week’s episode, Shonie decides to betray his teammates and go train with Team No Love. This pisses pretty much everyone on Team No Love off, especially Jorge Rivera (who is probably feeling a little on edge anyway, seeing as he is fighting this week). Shonie remarks that in this sport “there are no teams,” and that he only cares about Team Shonie. While I definitely agree that the competition comes down to the individual, it’s your trainers, partners, and friends that inspire you to grind it out in the gym when you could be out at the beach or the bar.

The members of Team Mojo arrive to the Training Center to find that everyone stuck around to talk, and the focus of the conversation is Shonie. After some tense moments in the spotlight, Shonie comes clean and states that he’ll never betray his team again. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Later that night, with Shonie counting sheep in his bed, the rest of the household has a Lord of the Flies-esque campfire meeting. Although nobody is really that happy about Shonie’s actions, it seems that the other fighters have no problem putting it all behind them.

An interesting dynamic is added to this week’s fight. Georges St. Pierre is busy working with Patrick Cote for his upcoming fight with Jorge Rivera. St. Pierre comments that not only is Patrick a teammate of his, but Cote is also a longtime friend. St. Pierre caps it off by stating that he would never think to bet against Cote in this fight. On the other side of things, we discover that striking coach Mark Dellagrotte has been training Rivera for a long time outside of the show. Mark has high hopes for Rivera, and they get busy working on a game plan for fight day. Here we are in the middle of a heated battle between coaches. We’ll just have to wait and see how it all turns out. This week’s episode also reveals another big surprise: Chuck Liddell has been invited to be a guest trainer on the show. Taking a page out of Frank “Twinkle Toes” Trigg’s book, Chuck is sporting some freshly painted toe nails. Of course nobody would ever have the cojones to bust Chuck’s balls about it, but at least I’m safe on the other side of this keyboard.

This week’s background check rolls around, and we’re treated to some choice bits of both fighters’ careers. Cote’s fights with Ortiz, Doerkson, and Leben are examined. Every fight of his is a slugfest, until he rocks somebody, then they usually try their hardest to take the fight to the ground (ala his fight with Ortiz). Rivera’s UFC career grants him more experience than most on the show, having fought inside the Octagon five times. On top of that, Rivera has a wealth of experience against UFC vets and high caliber fighters. This week’s fight is going to be an extremely competitive bout, and the fact that we have roughly 20 minutes left in the time slot at fight time supports this.

This week’s fight is started by a nice throw by Rivera, who lands in Cote’s half guard. Cote manages to work back to full guard, while Rivera lands some nice ground n’ pound along the way. Cote manages to create enough space to land a vicious up kick that connects square on Rivera’s jaw. This knocks him down temporarily, allowing Cote to get up and pounce on his prone opponent. Cote tries hard to finish, but Rivera manages to recover and work to half guard before securing the full guard. The round ends with Cote pounding as Rivera gets back to his feet.

Round 2 starts with a bang. The fighters exchange some leather with Cote getting the better of it, separately landing two counter rights that knock Rivera’s head back. Cote gets a takedown into half guard. From here on out, it was basically a repeat of the first stanza, with Cote controlling effectively from the top position and landing some chopping punches. When the fight got back to the feet, Cote landed some nice hooks to a visibly winded Rivera. Jorge had his bursts of activity, attempting a couple guillotine chokes that Cote was able to fight his way out of. When the decision is announced, its no surprise to see Patrick “The Predator” Cote’s hand raised.

After the fight, Rivera was visibly dejected and on the verge of tears. He remarked that he “doesn’t fight to fight, he fights to perform,” and added that he just didn’t feel like his body was putting out enough effort. I hope Rivera utilizes the rest of his time on the show well, and when he gets back home hopefully he’ll be able to pull it back together. Cote was really excited about his victory, and it looks like he will make it far in the rest of the tournament. Next week we get to see some semi-final fights, and whatever the match up you know it will be full of excitement. I’ll see you next week on….THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER!