JUjitsu: 6.5 out of 10

To combat Jesse’s ground and pound Tim threw every submission attempt in the book.  Although Tim did a decent job controlling Coco’s posture, he did eat his fair share of blows. The first 2 rounds consisted of Coco on top, in Tim’s full guard, pounding his face in. Tim’s biggest mistake was his over reliance on submission attempts, sure he caught Coco in practice time and time again, but in a real fight things were a little different. Constantly throwing his legs up for armbars while Jesse powered out of them took it’s toll.

The one shining light in Tim’s performance was his cornerman, Cameron Diffley.  Diffley shouted out excellent instruction the whole fight, opening up the guard, go for sweeps, and use the butterfly guard to neutralize Coco’s lay and pray strategy.  Unfotunately it wasnt until later in the fight - when Tim was significantly worn out by Coco’s barrage - that he started to implement it, and when he did - it worked flawlessly.  Using hip escapes, a high guard, butterfly guard Tim was able to finally scramble into a full mount position started when he threatened Jesse with a heel hook.

More often than not wrestlers, especially new to mma, aren’t comfortable in the bottom, but Tim made a HUGE mistake by letting Coco use his power and spin out.  For someone that specializes in JUjitsu, not securing a full mount seems like a newbie mistake, BJ Penn would never ever do that - hell he actually CROSSES his feet underneath him for a nearly unescapable mount.  This was the underlying theme of Tim’s JUjitsu - he lost every scramble by not securing some type of body lock, letting Coco scramble and use his power to eventually end up on top in Tim’s guard where he would pound him out for the rest of the round.

Ground: 7.5 out of 10:

The only ground game we were able to see was Coco’s; smothering ground and pound, hammer fists, forearms and elbows that weren’t very damaging but enough to bother Tim’s submission attempts, the classic lay ‘n’ pray strategy.

Tim on the other hand did very little while he had full mount, Coco was able to minimize damage by bucking him off and scrambling back into Tim’s guard.

Overall: 6.5 out of 10

Jesse Taylor’s style was obvious, I don’t know why Tim did not train more against the enivitable takedown attempt.  In one instance, instead of sprawling, Tim tries to go for kimura as Coco shoots in and eventually ends up in guard instead.

And so we (seemlingly) finish up the season with another boring fighter making it to the finals ala Rashad Evans (Season 2), Manny Gamburyan (Season 5) and Tommy Spear (Season 6).  Luckily in the other semi-final draw we have 2 very exciting fighters in Amir Sadollah and CB Dollaway - so the finale can’t be all bad.  On the bright side, we may get to see more Coco the Monkey in next weeks episode!