The latest episode of The Ultimate Fighter: Live aired last night on FX with Team Faber’s Michael Chiesa going up against Team Cruz’s Jeremy Larsen in the end of show eliminator fight.
First up though we saw the action from the past week in the TUF house and Dominick Cruz was looking to give his team an edge by grilling Chiesa’s real-life friend and training partner Sam Sicilia, also a member of Team Cruz, to find out his strengths and weaknesses, buy Sicilia stayed loyal and politely refused to do so.
Meanwhile Chris Tickle was digging himself an ever deeper hole by continuing to moan about his injuries and give less than 100% in training. However, it seemed like he may have a valid excuse at one point as he had a doctor come in to speak to Cruz and his coaches and let them know that there was a good chance that Tickle had gout in his toe which was affecting his performance.
Cruz wasn’t exactly blown away by the news though and told Tickle he either had to tough it out and keep his focus on fighting, or leave the show.
Later we see Tickle at the hospital getting results from his gout test, and lo-and-behold it turns out he doesn’t have it after all. He says he’s happy about the verdict.
So, onto the fight with Chiesa determined to honor his father who recently passed away, while Larsen wanted to prove people wrong regarding his underdog status in this fight and earn their respect with his fists.
That wasn’t how it worked out though, with Chiesa taking full advantage of his trumph card in this fight which was his superior wrestling abilities.
That lead to multiple takedowns throughout the course of the fight, though he didn’t do an awful lot with the spells of top control he enjoyed during the 10 minutes of fighting.
And so it was no surprise when Chiesa was awarded a unanimous decision victory and he moves on to the next round of competition while Team Faber is now back on an equal footing with Team Cruz at 2-2 in the elimination fights so far.
Finally we got to see the fight pick for next week’s show and the house’s No.1 moaner Chris Tickle was picked by Faber to take on Joe Proctor.
