Though technically it’s not a trilogy fight since the first fight happened on the fifth season of The Ultimate Fighter, Gray Maynard and Nate Diaz are official for their third meeting. Each fighter made weight for the TUF 18 Finale, which is set to take place at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Though Diaz has been known to make the weigh-ins with his intensity in the stare down, this time there wasn’t much of an altercation. Diaz stood in fighter pose with his arms outstanding, and Maynard kept placidly at a distance with his hands at his side. With both fighters coming off of losses — Diaz to Josh Thomson, and Maynard to TJ Grant — this is a critical fight for relevance in the lightweight division.
Meanwhile, in the TUF 18 women’s bantamweight finals, both Julianna Pena (134) and the boxer Jessica Rakoczy (132) made weight for their clash. On the men’s side of things, Chris Holdsworth (136) and David Grant (135) weighed in, and are set to throw down for the contract.
Only one fighter didn’t make weight, and that was Josh Sampo, who tipped the scales at 127.5 pounds. The “Gremlin,” a Missouri native, was given an additional hour to shed the extra pound and a half. He elected to forgo re-weighing and accept the penalty for coming in over, which is 10 percent of his purse (five percent to the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and five percent to Ryan Benoit).
Main card (Fox Sports 1)
Gray Maynard (156) vs. Nate Diaz (156)
Juianna Pena (134) vs. Jessica Rakoczy (132)
Chris Holdsworth (136) vs. David Grant (135)
Jessamyn Duke (135.5) vs. Peggy Morgan (136)
Roxanne Modafferi (134) vs. Raquel Pennington (135)
Prelims (Fox Sports 1)
Akira Corassani (146) vs. Maximo Blanco (146)
Rani Yahya (145.5) vs. Tom Niinimaki (145)
Jared Rosholt (240) vs. Walt Harris (244)
Sean Spencer (171) vs. Drew Dober (170)
Facebook prelims
Josh Sampo (127.5) vs. Ryan Benoit (126)