This episode was entitled “Draft Dodger” after Team Bisping’s TJ Dillashaw opted to take an easier fight in his quarter final match versus Roland Delorme instead of taking on Team Mayhem’s number one pick in John Dodson. His own team thought this was a draft dodging move especially Akira Corassani and Diego Brandao who decided to teach Dillashaw a lesson during their sparing sessions. While grappling, Brandao submitted Dillashaw several times and gave each lock an extra crank to let Dillashaw know that they were unhappy with his decisions. While MMA sparing, Akira added extra power to his strikes, which upset Dillashaw. Dillashaw’s discontent spilled over into his next sparing round against Marcus Brimage and caused a heated exchange between the two team Bisping fighters. Coach Bisping was required to step in and calm his team down and regain the peace within his team.
I can understand TJ’s decisions as this is a reality show. It is a game just like Survivor, or Big Brother, and you want to play it as strategic as possible, so taking an easy road to the finals would make sense. If you can come out of each fight with the least amount of injuries especially with having multiple fights within a short period of time can extend your life in the game. When it comes down to it, the more times he has a chance to fight, the more air time and exposure you get, the more likely you will gain some fans and have a chance of getting into the UFC even if you don’t win the whole show.
On the other hand however, you don’t want to come off like a guy who is not willing to fight the best in the house. Once you get out into the UFC, all of a sudden you are fighting the best in the world. Dana and Lorenzo always talk about how much they love guys who come out and fight. Being a draft dodger may show you are the exact opposite.
On Team Miller, Roland Delorme was fighting an injury to his foot which caused him to miss several practices leading up to his fight against Dillashaw. Fortunately, he had five days to recover from the injury and the doctors had cleared him to fight. The additional benefit to the injury was that it caused Delorme to lose weight and had no trouble making weight for the fight.
Also on this episode, both teams had brought in great guest coaches. Mayhem Miller brought in his coach Master Rafael Cordeiro of Kings MMA to help the team with their Striking. Master Cordeiro was one of the head coaches from the legendary Chute Boxe Academy in Brazil that had produced fighters like Wanderlei Silva, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, and Anderson Silva. The team was excited to learn from Cordeiro as he has a wealth of knowledge of striking in MMA. Michael Bisping brought in his former Ultimate Fighter Coach Tito Ortiz. Ortiz showed Team Bisping techniques to help with their ground and pound.
The last quarter-final bout of the season went according to plan for TJ Dillashaw. Dillashaw was able to capitalize on his strong take down abilities, especially off of Roland Delorme’s kicks. Delorme spent most of the fight off his back actively attempting to work his submission game. Dillashaw was able to stifle all Delorme’s attempts and reign down strong ground and pound. At the beginning of the second round, Dillashaw connected with a solid punch to the jaw which dropped Delorme to the canvas. Dillashaw eventually secured a rear naked choke to make it to the semifinal round.
TJ Dillashaw defeated Roland Delorme via submission (rear-naked choke) 1:43, round 2.
Afterward, the head coaches and Dana White sit down with each semifinalist to see whom they want to fight. Bryan Caraway, who is coincidentally a teammate of TJ Dillashaw outside of the TUF show at Team Alpha Male in California, pulls his own draft dodger move when voices that he would like to fight Team Bisping’s Akira Corassani as he believes that Diego Brandao is the tougher opponent and they would make the best fight for the finals. Unfortunately for Caraway, the fight against Brandao is the exact fight that the coaches and Dana would like to see. The Semifinal fights are:
Bantamweight Semifinals
TJ Dillashaw vs. Dustin Pague
John Dodson vs. Johnny Bedford.
Featherweight Semifinals
Akira Corassani vs. Dennis Bermudez
Diego Brandao vs. Bryan Caraway
