(“Don’t just DirecTV, PredicTV”)
It’s been an entertaining, if fairly routine season of The Ultimate Fighter thus far, despite all the hubbub about “a champion being crowned” and a new division and all that. The fights have been thoroughly enjoyable across the board, the in-house drama kept to a near minimum, and Anthony Pettis is seemingly doing the best he can to remind us why we should care that he’s the lightweight champion. Another season, another dollar, yadda yadda, yadda yadda…
Last week, #4 ranked Jessica Penne (who has been my dark horse pick to win the season since the cast was announced) defeated #5 Aisling Daly via unanimous decision to advance to the semifinals alongside #12 Randa Markos. Next week’s episode features a pair of pivotal quarterfinal matchups in #7 Rose Namajunas (THUG ROSE!) vs. #2 Joanne Calderwood and #1 Carla Esparza vs. #3 Tecia Torres, and the only way you’ll ever find out who wins will be to tune in!!
Unless you happen to have DirecTV, that is, in which case you could just scroll ahead to the summary for episode 12 and read it for yourself. Someone dun screwed up alright, and thanks to r/MMA user 3JSand (and our goddamned curiosity), we now know exactly how the semifinals will look.
Major spoilers below. Proceed at your own risk.
If you recall, this isn’t the first time that we’ve had a TUF episode spoiled due to a slip-up on the broadcasting end. Just last year, a TUF 18 promo unintentionally gave away the winner of Raquel Pennington vs. Jessica Rakoczy thanks to some poor editing (and a little sleuth work on our part). But there you have it: Esparza defeats Torres, and Thug Rose bests JoJo.
Come at us, Dana.
Related: The highlights from last week’s quarterfinal battle between Jessica Penne and Aisling Daly.