The fourth week of The Ultimate Fighter: Live kicks off tonight with two top-ranked members of the series facing off as Team Cruz’ Myles Jury facing Team Faber’ Al Iaquinta.
We begin with a recap of last week with Justin Lawrence notching the second-straight victory for Team Cruz.
Team Cruz is celebrating backstage as a cocky Lawrence tells the world he won’t be happy until he wins the series and is in the UFC and Marcello on the other side was clearly disappointed but had a team of support behind him.
Tension is picking up in the house, Team Faber is looking to prove them wrong and that they don’t have the lesser team.
Sparring session time for Team Cruz as they prepare second time Ultimate Fighter hopeful Myles Jury as we go into montage city that made Jury look pretty deadly with his heavy-hands and demonstrates Dominicks tough-love coaching skills.
Mike Rio and Myles Jury are sparring before Jury attempts a spinning back fist that forces Rio to the mat and damages his knee but its nothing serious
Backstage fanatics happen as the teams join up to do impressions of people, spending all that time in that house for 13 weeks will drive the average person insane and I think most of them are about there.
Iaquinta training session as they show off the striking regiment before he reveals his gameplan of not focusing on the defensive part of his game, keeping in the face of Jury all night.
Faber refers to Cruz as the “Decisionater” Luckily hes better at beating dudes up in a cage than making jokes.
Faber comes to the house to speak with the house and brings in life coach Jim Peterson who works with Team Alpha Male – Jim talks about the life coach and seems to click with Andy Ogle more than everyone in the team.
Chris Tickle wasn’t as impressed with Jim as he left the room complaining about the need for a life coach.
Another Team Cruz training session as Mike Rio is once again dealing with his bung knee but despite his injury continues to train through the pain and they once again display the offensive skills of Jury.
A strange situation as Jury exits the shower as they all put their hands on his head and should “MFJ” (Myles “Fury” Jury)
Less than 8 minutes left until the fight and Team Cruz are discussing pitting Mike Rio in to fight next week, little do they know that he’s got his knee injury.
Time to weigh-in as once again Keith Keizer is here to watch over the proceedings as both are on target heading into the fight.
Less than five minutes away from the fights as we go backstage as both coaches speak to their fighters giving them last minute tips before they step into the cage.
We begin trading on the outside with Iaquinta landing with a head kick as Jury is looking to get in close and tie him up before beginning to rush Iaquinta with strikes and keeping him at bay with his leg kick but Iaquinta is being really active with his counter right-hook and avoiding damage as Jury is getting a little wild with front-kicks and superman punches.
Jury lands with a leg kick that wobbles Iaquinta before throwing a flying knee into Iaquinta as a scamble against the cage turns into an awkward situation on the mat with Jury tied up almost in a crucifix before he jumped on the back of Iaquinta as we return back to the feet to close out round 1.
Round two begins with an unintentional groin shot to Iaquinta who quickly shakes it off to return to action, Iaquinta is a lot more aggressive early on charging with a flurry and using his high-kick before Jury charged him with a knee that showed little effect as we returned to a closely contested back-and-forth striking match.
Iaquinta is doing his best to corner Jury to tee off but Jurys footwork is too quick and hes constantly moving which is causing problems for Team Fabers top pick before Jury takes the back of Iaquinta against the cage looking to trip him to the mat but didn’t so we resume in a striking match.
Iaquinta is the aggressor again pushing the pace as Jury is seemingly tiring, Jury finishes strong with a big uppercut and a knee before securing a takedown to maybe steal this round and notch another win for Team Cruz.
On my cards we have it a round a piece but it’s all up to the judges if we go to a third round and with that commercial break I am going to assume that we have a decision.
We begin third round as Iaquinta is the aggressor again, Jury got a lot of time to recover so hes going to be a lot more fresh here than in round 2 – Both men are circling and landing strikes in this high-tempo fight with Iaquinta getting in close and not allowing him to use his flying knee and front-kick that hes used a lot over the past 10 minutes.
With two minutes to go this is still anyones match, Jury fires off with a high kick before attempting another knee but Iaquinta is in his face again as Jury is not backing off and coming back to the table as both are throwing with neither getting a clear upper-hand as we close with Jury coming forward trying to seal the round with a combo.
A great fight after three rounds, I score the final frame for Iaquinta but it was a close fight.
We have a split decision, with Iaquinta winning on two of the three judges’ score cards to give Team Faber the upper hand for the first time in the competition.
Faber selects Jeremy Larsen to face Michael Chiesa of his team, an interesting pairing for next week.
Check back to MMASucka.com next week as we take the next step in crowning the next Ultimate Fighter champion.
