Kerry Schall, who blew out his knee in week 1, is gone, and a new replacement comes in: Dan Christison. Now excuse the language, but HOLY SHITBALLS! This guy's absolutely immense, enough to dwarf just about every other heavyweight on the show. And though it doesn't show so much on screen, all the heavyweights are pretty big guys -- bigger than anyone you might be likely to meet in your office or at your nice yuppie gym. Damn, why the hell does this guy need to train to fight? Who'd be dumb enough to take him on?
Cut to training scenes. In yet another illustration of the theme, "mixed martial arts is not good for your health," Jorge throws a high kick during some light sparring and gets knocked down, thus knocking his kneecap out of place. I'd be pretty nonplussed at this, but for Jorge, this is evidently a normal occurrence. Ho hum, a part of my leg is in the wrong place, let's drain some blood and pop it back on. Just another day at the office, dear. Again: HOLY SHITBALLS. These guys must be nuts! I want my parts to stay in place on their own, thank you very much.
Next comes team selections. Of course there are expressions of relief and confidence from the guys picked first and hurt feelings by the guys picked last. Standard playground stuff.
After that was the first team challenge of this season: Randy Couture is back, running the first challenge. I like Randy, but what I hope this means is that Chuck Liddell, the other coach from season 1, will make an appearance at some point. Of course, this won't likely happen, since Chuck pissed off Dana and the rest of the UFC owners after he beat Randy Couture for the heavyweight championship: when asked what he planned next, Chuck announced he wanted to fight in PRIDE -- UFC's chief rival in the professional mixed-martial arts arena. It's a logical move for Chuck, since PRIDE is generally considered to have a more international and a more highly skilled cadre of fighters. But Dana didn't take it well at all. No sirree.
Anyway, the challenge was a good one: a bear crawl race by the two teams, to a heavy bag lying in the middle of a football field. Team that gets the bag to their side wins. As predicted, Luke showed that, despite his eccentricities, he's got a good head on his shoulders. In the mad scrum for the bag, Luke used his head and his body. Rather than try to wrestle the bag away for himself, Luke managed to tie up two members of the opposing team, thus leaving one of his team a free opportunity to grab the bag without interference.
