On last night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter: Live Jon Proctor and Chris Tickle fought in an elimination match-up, but first we got to see the action from the last week in the TUF house.
It turns out that Tickle had turned up to the previous week’s live fight drunk and as has often been the case with him so far this season he was being somewhat obnoxious.
His team coach Dominick Cruz wasn’t impressed and told him to tone his mouthy antics down this week ahead of his fight. Tickle nods his head in agreement though it’s hard to tell if he ever takes in the good advice that he’s being given. He later asks Cruz to push him this week in training.
The next day Cruz actually apologizes to Tickle for calling him out on his behaviour and says it’s not his job to tell him how to act.
Back at the house Mike Rio is annoyed with fellow Team Cruz teammate Justin Lawrence’s arrogant attitude, and the next day tensions threaten to boil over between them in training.
During a sparring session Lawrence is throwing every kick in the book at him, and catches him a heel kick. Rio isn’t particularly happy about it and so he picks up the intensity himself and starts taking Lawrence to the mat repeatedly and gets the better of him on the ground, clearly getting under the cocky fighter’s skin in the process.
Cruz says he likes the intensity, and later he tells Lawrence that being tested like this is good for him in the long run and amongst other things will help teach him to keep his composure.
Tickle plays a plank on the other team by placing a jug of water over a door, and lo and behold it falls directly on to his opponent Proctor who just laughs it off.
After celebrating Easter with a turkey prepared by Tickle the action shifts to the live fight.
Earlier in the evening Tickle had revealed that he had tought himself everything he knows and didn’t even have a coach until three months ago, instead learning many of his techniques on YouTube.
That perhaps proved to be his downfall in his fight as after spending the majority of the first round in a relatively even stand-up battle, Proctor then switched things up in the final minute by swooping down for a double-leg takedown which he completed, and then switched to Tickle’s back as he tried to get back to his feet.
Tickle did get back upright, but Proctor still had his back and an arm round his neck which he used to drag him back down to the mat before sinking in a tight rear-naked choke.
To his credit Tickle did his best to attempt to fight it off, but in the end it was inevitable that the tap was coming and it did so 18 seconds of the round left.
So that’s Team Faber now up 3-2 overall after a shaky start to the season, and coach Urijah Faber then selected his man John Cofer to go up against Team Cruz’s Vince Pichel next week.
