‘The 19th season of The Ultimate Fighter continued Wednesday night, and the middleweights were again front and center. This time around, it was Team Penn’s top pick, Mike King, taking on Chris Weidman training partner and Team Edgar’s Eddie Gordon.
The episode was pretty standard, as we heard about both fighters’ backgrounds. The most interesting part was King’s strategy, as he wanted to stand and bang with Gordon, while BJ Penn and Mark Coleman thought it would be best to wrestle him.
This episode also showed the coaches challenge, which was kayaking. BJ Penn defeated Frankie Edgar to win $10,000 for himself and $1,500 a piece for his fighters.
The fight followed the typical, decent-at-best performance that we have seen all season since the quarterfinals started. King won the first round with aggression and striking, while Gordon took Rounds 2 and 3 with takedown defense and better striking.
Both men committed eye pokes, and a low blow was landed, tainting the fight a bit. Dana White openly disapproved of this fight, just like the last few before it.
The win equaled things up for Team Edgar in the middleweight semifinals with two fighters from their team and two from Team Penn. It also set up the final light heavyweight bout between Matt van Buren of Team Edgar and Chris Fields of Team Penn. It’s the only fight that has a real beef between the fighters.
Teams
| Team Edgar 185 | Team Penn 185 | Team Edgar 205 | Team Penn 205 |
| Ian Stephens | Mike King | Corey Anderson | Anton Berzin |
| Dhiego Lima | Tim Williams | Patrick Walsh | Josh Clark |
| Eddie Gordon | Cathal Pendred | Matt van Buren | Dan Spohn |
| Hector Urbina | Roger Zapata | Todd Monaghan | Chris Fields |
Notes and Observations
- Mike King was shown at the beginning of the episode upset about all of the dirty dishes in the kitchen and how big of a mess it was. I can totally understand where he is coming from there, as college was a constant struggle, especially with dirty roommates. Eddie Gordon brushed it off, but that is a huge pet peeve of mine and others I know.
- I have to agree with Frankie Edgar with the coaches challenge. Kayaking is big in Hawaii because of its proximity to the ocean. I’m not saying Penn is a huge kayaker, but I am sure he’s done it more than a few times in his life.
- I think this season of the show has some really talented fighters, but the fights have been far from marvelous so far. I think Dhiego Lima, Eddie Gordon, Mike King, Tim Williams, Cathal Pendred, Corey Anderson, Anton Berzin, Patrick Walsh and Dan Spohn all have great potential, but their fights have been real so-so at best.
- Speaking of King, how tough is that guy? His elimination-round fight against Nordine Taleb was awesome, and he took a bunch of punishment. In this fight, he took a brutal eye poke that shut his eye by the end of the day and had him bleeding. Dana White said, “King damn near got his eye gouged out.” No arguments here, it looked really rough.
- Matt van Buren vs. Chris Fields at least has some emotion behind it, which leads me to believe it could be the best fight of the quarterfinals (not that it would be that tough). Fields is a striker, but he was getting dominated by Josh Stansbury in the elimination round before Stansbury blew out his knee. Van Buren is a pretty tough guy himself and is likely the favorite here. Fields is tough, but I think van Buren can notch the finish.
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