Tonight: We have the final quarterfinal match of the show between T.J Dillashaw and Roland Delorme.
We open with a look at Roland’s infected foot, which is disgusting. He says he feels good except for his foot. Yeah, I would say the same thing. He has five days until the fight and he’s resting it, hoping that it gets better in time so he can fight. He doesn’t want to spend five weeks in the house and then go home with an injury.
We go to the gym for a Team Miller training session. Legendary Chute Box coach Rafael Cordeiro shows up to work on striking with the guys. He puts them through their paces, and they’re all awestruck at being able to work with such a legend. Mayhem is even visibly awed at being able to work with him.
Team Bisping hits the gym. They have a special guest as well: Tito Ortiz. Ortiz works the guys on ground and pound and properly throwing nasty elbows. Marcus Brimage gets off one of the best lines in Ultimate Fighter history when he says that all he could think about when Tito was talking was “wow, that’s a big f*cking head.” I laughed so hard at this. Ortiz tells the guys to pay attention because Bisping is a great coach.
Back at the house, T.J’s teammates are still talking about him being a “draft dodger.” Akira says that if you’re the best, you should fight the toughest guys on the other team and eliminate those guys. Diego and Akira tell the camera that they’re going to teach T.J. a lesson during sparring the next day. What great teammates these guys are.
We’re at the gym for the aforementioned sparring session. Akira keeps talking about T.J. being a coward for wanting the coaches to push him to the finals. Diego submits T.J. twice during what is supposed to be a single grappling session. The thing is, and Dillashaw will explain this in his exclusive Heavy blog tomorrow – the tap outs didn’t happen during one day. They happened over the course of two weeks. A little creative editing here.
They go into the cage and things start to get rough with Akira and then transfers over to Marcus, so they throw leather, hard, until things devolve into a screaming match. Bisping says that hard sparring is the best kind you can get, but he wasn’t aware that there were deeper issues going on. He’s not happy that Diego and Akira’s plan was to knock T.J. out.
Roland has been cleared to fight by the docs, so he shows up for a training session. His weight is fine because he’s been sick, so he’s on point. He goes through his paces while feeling a little sluggish, but he says he’ll be ready to go.
Dillashaw goes through his training session with some heavy bag work. Bisping says T.J. is the most complete mixed martial artist on the show. Tiki says T.J. can take the fight anywhere he wants to, but he wants to make a point and pound him out.
And now it’s time for the prank of the week. Team Mayhem brings in some concrete highway barriers and places them around Tiki’s car at the gym. Okay, that’s pretty creative. Mayhem says he’s friends with the working class and that “blue collar loves the Mayhem.” Tiki says it’s a pretty cool prank. Mayhem sits in his car and laughs maniacally.
It’s time for weigh-ins.
Official results: T.J. Dillashaw (135) vs. Roland Delorme (135)
Everyone in the house says that T.J. is the best fighter in the house, but that Roland is dangerous and can catch you.
Back at the house on fight day, Roland says that he gave up everything to come to the house and fight. He owned a restaurant outside of Winnipeg and took a chance in selling it to come on the show. T.J. says he came into the house prepared to fight and has been waiting a long time to get a fight out of the way. Roland’s foot looks much better, which is to say it looks a lot less disgusting than it did at the beginning of this episode.
T.J. DILLASHAW vs. ROLAND DELORME
Round 1: Dillashaw pretty much has his way with Roland throughout the first. Roland thought he had a real chance to compete with T.J., but the truth is, he didn’t. Dillashaw picked him apart on the feet, took him down with ease and completely controlled the fight on the ground. We give the first round to T.J. 10-9.
Round 2: More of the same here. Dillashaw dropped him early with a nasty right hand, controlled him on the ground and landed a ton of nasty shots from the top. He eventually took his back and submitted him with the rear-naked choke. T.J. Dillashaw d. Roland Delorme via submission, round 2
Analysis: This fight didn’t even really test Dillashaw. We knew going into the season that he was the best fighter in his weight class in the house, and this pretty much proved that he can dominate lesser fighters. His next bout will be truly interesting.
To close out the show, we have the semi-final fight announcements.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Diego Brandao vs. Bryan Caraway, Dennis Bermudez vs. Akira Corrasani
BANTAMWEIGHT: T.J. Dillashaw vs. Dustin Pague, John Dodson vs. Johnny Bedford
That wraps it up this week. We’ll see our first semi-final bout next week, along with what is promised to be the “biggest prank in Ultimate Fighter history.” That encompasses a lot of ground, so this one better be good.