Author: Riley Kontek

The quarterfinals of The Ultimate Fighter 18 are now complete, as we are now left with four men and four women in the semifinals. There were a lot of shockers in the opening round, as favorites fell and new contenders arose.

On the men’s side of the bracket, Team Rousey has three fighters and Team Tate has just one. As for the women, it’s the exact opposite, as Team Tate has three fighters to Rousey‘s one.

Now that the fights for the quarterfinals have been completed, let’s power rank the fighters still in the house. 

 

Women’s Rankings

Fighter	Team	QF Result
1. Julianna Pena	Team Tate	Defeated Shayna Baszler
2. Sarah Moras	Team Tate	Defeated Peggy Morgan
3. Jessica Rakoczy	Team Rousey	Defeated Roxanne Modafferi
4. Raquel Pennington	Team Tate	Defeated Jessamyn Duke
5. Shayna Baszler	Team Rousey	Loss to Julianna Pena
6. Jessamyn Duke	Team Rousey	Loss to Raquel Pennington
7. Peggy Morgan	Team Rousey	Loss to Sarah Moras
8. Roxanne Modafferi	Team Tate	Loss to Jessica Rakoczy

The women’s side of the bracket shaped up with many surprises. Going into the quarterfinals, I thought Team Rousey had the bigger, more talented team, but they sent just one fighter, the last overall pick, into the next round.

Julianna Pena, despite early struggles in her fight, overcame the heavily-favored Shayna Baszler via submission. Pena showed powerful striking in her fight, as well as composure on the ground against the overconfident Baszler.

Sarah Moras, despite a hefty height disadvantage, showed that her ground game is legit in tapping out Peggy Morgan. She has great takedowns and submission ability, as seen in her slick armbar win against “The Daywalker.”

Jessica Rakoczy, the ultimate underdog of the season, had an impressive performance in blasting through MMA pioneer Roxanne Modafferi. The former pro boxer came into the house with just a 1-3 record, leading many to doubt her skill.

Raquel Pennington won the fight of the season so far over Jessamyn Duke in a bout where she showed a great chin and powerful sledgehammers for fists. She may be the toughest woman in the house in terms of punishment absorption and damage infliction.

The semifinal matchups are set. Pena and Moras will duke it out to see who makes it to the live finale, while fellow strikers Pennington and Rakoczy will attempt to one-up Pennington’s last fight to have the best bout of the season.

 

Men’s Rankings

Fighter	Team	QF Result
1. Chris Holdsworth	Team Tate	Defeated Chris Beal
2. David Grant	Team Rousey	Defeated Louis Fisette
3. Michael Wootten	Team Rousey	Defeated Josh Hill
4. Chris Beal	Team Rousey	Loss to Chris Holdsworth
5. Josh Hill	Team Tate	Loss to Michael Wootten
6. Anthony Gutierrez	Team Rousey	Bye due to forfeit
7. Louis Fisette	Team Tate	Loss to David Grant
8. Cody Bollinger	Team Tate	Forfeit to Anthony Gutierrez

The men’s side of the bracket is the less featured of the two genders due to the decent-at-best fights and overall less fights in terms of quantity. That came courtesy of Cody Bollinger, whose inability to make weight for his fight against Anthony Gutierrez left the latter man with a bye to the semis.

Chris Holdsworth looks like the man to beat on the men’s side of the bracket. He has top-notch jiu-jitsu that was overshadowed in his last fight when he used powerful striking to hurt Chris Beal.

David Grant and Michael Wootten are the two Brits in the house and both won their respective quarterfinals against the two Canadian fighters. Grant dominated Louis Fisette from bell to bell, while Wootten won a scrappy effort against Josh Hill to really earn his way into the next round.

The semifinals see two Brits fight two Americans. Wootten will face off with Holdsworth, while Grant meets Gutierrez, who had the aforementioned bye into this round.

 

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The ninth episode of TUF 18 was to feature the final fights of the men’s and women’s quarterfinals, with Cody Bollinger taking on Anthony Gutierrez and Peggy Morgan taking on Sarah Moras. Of course, we only got one of those bouts, as Bollinger failed to make weight, allowing Gutierrez a bye into the semifinals.

As for the women’s fight, Moras and Morgan fought for under a round until the Team Tate grappler tapped out Morgan. Moras gave up a great deal of size, but was far too overwhelming on that mat, scoring an armbar victory.

• I would have loved to see Chris Beal back in the competition, but I can understand Gutierrez not wanting to cut that much weight in a short time. I am pretty sure that is the first bye into the semifinals since the first ever seasons when they had different rules.
• If Morgan were able to keep her distance better than she did, I think she could have jabbed her way to victory. Moras was very aggressive, but footwork and solid counterstriking could have been the recipe for success.
• Moras was very confident in her ground game coming into this fight, and for good reason. Her takedown on Morgan was powerful and her top game was slick. That armbar was nasty, which eventually led to the tap.
• With the win, Team Tate’s women showed that size doesn’t matter. They had a smaller team than Team Rousey, especially since they had Jessamyn Duke and Morgan.

 

TUF 18 Rosters

Team Rousey	Team Tate
Shayna Baszler	Julianna Pena
Jessamyn Duke	Sarah Moras
Peggy Morgan	Raquel Pennington
Jessica Rakoczy	Roxanne Modafferi
Chris Beal	Cody Bollinger
Davey Grant	Chris Holdsworth
Anthony Gutierrez	Josh Hill
Michael Wootten	Louis Fisette

 

• Most of the episode concerned the weight cut for Cody Bollinger and Anthony Gutierrez. I am not surprised that Bollinger didn’t make the weight, as he pigged out on bad food all season. Plus, he’s a massive bantamweight that may actually be better suited at featherweight, a weight class he competed in while with Bellator.
• That being said, I am shocked that Gutierrez made weight. He looked to be a bigger perpetrator when it came to feasting on junk food, but it looked like he was working hard to get the weight down.
• As stated, I would have really loved to see Chris Beal get a second shot, especially if his hand was healed up. But, you can’t blame Gutierrez for wanting a huge weight cut for the second time in a short amount of time.
• Until the finish, the Sarah Moras-Peggy Morgan fight seemed to be dragging on with boredom. However, once Moras got Morgan off the cage and was able to grapple more freely, it was worth the wait. That was a nifty, painful armbar.
• It was crazy to see how agreeable Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate were when making the semifinal matchups. I figured we’d have at least a little back-and-forth, but there was nothing there.
• The male semifinal matchups are Davey Grant vs. Anthony Gutierrez and Chris Woldsworth vs. Michael Wootten. Gutierrez and Grant both cut a lot of weight to get to 135, but Gutierrez has the benefit of being fresh from no fight in the quarterfinals. He is the grappler to Grant’s striker. As for Holdsworth-Wootten, this will likely be a striker vs. grappler match. Holdsworth is a high-level ground fighter, while Wootten is a more-refined striker. That being said, Holdsworth showed good striking against Beal in his quarterfinal.
• The female semifinal matchups are Sarah Moras-Julianna Pena and Jessica Rakoczy-Raquel Pennington. The Moras-Pena fight is interesting because Pena was tough on the ground, but I think Moras is better there. Pena is a brawler, though, and if she can stay on her feet, she should be able to beat Moras. If you didn’t know, Moras beat Pena last year by doctor’s stoppage. As for Rakoczy-Pennington, that is going to be a slugfest. Rakoczy is a world champion boxer and Pennington is the most powerful striker in the house.
• Next week, we have Wootten-Holdsworth. The winner goes to the live finale.

 

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