We open with a training session for Georges St. Pierre’s team, which seems a little deflated by the fact that Dane Sayers won’t be in the wild-card fight.

Dana White defends the decision, saying Marc Stevens is the better fighter and the obvious pick. This despite his lightning-fast loss to Cody McKenzie through a colossal tactical mistake and technical failure.

Maybe losing quickly is a good strategy, though. His win in the prelims and his loss by guillotine were brief, so he’s had all the benefits of training with little of the damage from fighting.

As threatened, we get another chapter in the feud between Josh Koscheck and Brad Tate, a paramedic with GSP’s team.

“We kept it very professional,” Koscheck says. Then they fight with a trash can and plunger. Tate traps Koscheck’s plunger in the door. That’s a 10-9 round for the male nurse. Or clever editing.

We also get a few peeks into a feud between GSP teammates Michael Johnson and Alex “Bruce Leeroy” Caceres. Johnson thinks Caceres is using a back injury as an excuse to avoid training. Caceres thinks he’s the best fighter in the world, or something to that effect. Later in the episode, GSP reminds his team that two of them will need to face off in the next round, and he asks them to submit preferred opponent. GSP lets on that he knows — Caceres and Johnson want to bash each other good.

For the wild-card fight itself, we have no bad blood at all. Stevens and teammate Aaron Wilkinson like each other and talk about training together after the show.

So as we go to the weigh-in, we focus on Tate and Koscheck. A de-pantsing is involved. Tate accuses Koscheck of faking a knee — a reference to the bout against Anthony Johnson in which the commentators thought Koscheck pretended to be hurt by a knee to the head while he was downed, a foul. The knee missed, but Koscheck claims — and replay suggests he’s right — that he took an eye poke just before that.

Oh, that hits Koscheck’s nerves. He gets a hand on Tate’s neck. People jump in to intervene, and suddenly Koscheck is shoving Sayers in the face. Sayers, who’s already dealing with the wild-card snub, isn’t happy. After tempers cool, Sayers storms out of the room. Koscheck chases after him. GSP jumps up and says he’ll handle. Kos offers Sayers a handshake and the least effective apology ever, telling Sayers that HE put his hands in Kos’ face. Sayers doesn’t remember it that way but takes the “apology” anyway.

Koscheck, still steaming at his confessional, accuses GSP of bringing Tate to the show just to trash-talk him so that GSP could appear to be above the fray. He concedes that it’s working.

So is GSP an accidental genius or an evil genius? He claims the former, saying he has told Tate repeatedly to stop the trash-talk. He does indeed look disappointed. Koscheck has the look of someone who knows he just let his emotions get away from him.

Back from the 10:30 ad break, we get a shocker. Wilkinson gets a phone call, which is rare in this show. It’s Wilkinson’s mom. “Nana’s gone,” she says. She insists to Wilkinson that Nana would kick his ass if he even thought about coming home. Wilkinson says “yeah” as he starts to break down.

If you’re rooting for the underdog Englishman even harder after that scene, the first round will be a disappointment. It’s all Stevens, who takes him down and spends the next four and a half minutes mangling Wilkinson on the ground. He never gets really close to a submission, so it’s probably a 10-9 round rather than 10-8, but Wilkinson doesn’t seem to be competitive in the least.

White makes fun of USA TODAY interviewee Nam Phan as “the world’s worst cornerman,” yelling at Wilkinson that he’s winning.

In round 2, Stevens again takes him down early, just like round 1. But just like the McKenzie fight, he falls straight into a guillotine. McKenzie wins pretty much all his fights by guillotine, so that’s not a shocker. Wilkinson isn’t quite as good on the ground, but he squeezes as if his life depends on it, his face showing the strain. He knows it’s his only chance.

Tap tap tap. Immediate cut to Stevens interview: “I guess I need to work on my guillotine defense.”

Next up: The quarterfinal pairings. GSP wants Caceres and Johnson to fight each other because he thinks they will learn to respect each other, like “the tiger and the lion.” Koscheck objects, again seeing a GSP master plan to get rid of Caceres.

Koscheck starts asking GSP about the strengths and weaknesses of his fighters, then brags that he got GSP to start talking like an idiot. “Went right over his head,” Kos claims. Or is GSP lying to you, Kos? Aren’t you the one telling us everything is a GSP master plan?

The pairings:

Jonathan Brookins (GSP) vs. Sako Chivitchian (Kos)

Cody McKenzie (GSP) vs. Nam Phan (Kos)

Kyle Watson (GSP) vs. Aaron Wilkinson (Kos)

and as desired …

Michael Johnson (GSP) vs. Alex Caceres (GSP)

Koscheck gripes that Dana felt sorry for GSP after the wild-card … no, I’m not rehashing his entire argument. Kos certainly got a lot of screen time in this one.

Next week — the first two quarterfinals. Who will advance? What will Koscheck complain about? Who does these guys’ hair? Find out some of the answers next week.