GLENDALE — While neither Sako Chivichyan or Sevak Magakian found their way into the octagon, both were forced to deal with a second straight loss, as Team Koscheck fell to 0-2 in the third episode of Spike TV’s “The Ultimate Fighter,” which aired Wednesday night.
Both Glendale fighters, members of Josh Koscheck’s team on the show, could do nothing but watch as teammate Aaron Wilkinson tapped out to a third-round rear-naked choke from Michael Johnson.
“Losing sucks, I want to win,” Magakian said, adding that each of the first two losses were tough to take because both of his teammates had been winning their bouts before getting stopped by submissions. “They were both winning the fights before they just got caught.”
The Johnson win retained control for Coach Georges St. Pierre’s team, meaning St. Pierre and his squad have the ability to pick the next fight.
“It was not comforting knowing that we were starting out the tournament 0-2 and St. Pierre still has control of the picks,” said Chivichyan during a break from workouts on Thursday at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose where he’s training with the likes of Koscheck and other Ultimate Fighting Championship standouts like Cain Velasquez, Mike Swick and Lyoto Machida. “When they’re controlling the picks, mentally they’re in their comfort zone.”
Aside from a fabulous back-and-forth fight between Johnson and Wilkinson, episode highlights included an appearance by Mike Tyson taking in the fight and the lead-up to a very heated confrontation between Magakian and Team GSP’s Alex Caceres in the next episode.
The third episode began with Caceres boasting about his win on the previous episode against Jeffrey Lentz.
“He was very unsportsmanlike,” Chivichyan said. “He won his fight, he was drinking every day, he was talking big like he won the UFC belt or something.”
Clearly annoying most in the house, Caceres’ boasts were a major topic among the rest of the fighters.
“You’re going to get your ass kicked,” said Magakian of Caceres in a conversation with Johnson in the house.
Eventually, it cut to a camera one-on-one confessional with Magakian, who offered: “Bruce Leroy, you know, that kid talks too much, he’s just annoying, he’s here [to be on] TV and [expletive deleted].”
For Magakian, his annoyance with Caceres was something that had already began building and wasn’t about to simmer.
“Too much talking about himself,” Magakian said. “You have a limit. It was OK the first couple times and then six or seven times it gets too much.”
It was the beginning of an episode in which Magakian got his fair share of face time, while Chivichyan remained in the background.
After a grueling Johnson win that saw the fight forced into a sudden-victory third round, a preview for the next episode ran. It concluded with Magakian charging after Caceres in an altercation.
“He was the only one,” said Magakian of Caceres being the one fighter in the house he didn’t like. “All the guys were great, but that guy, even his own teammates didn’t like him.”