Team Serra's Ben Saunders
This week's show opens with the fght announcement: Team Serra's Ben Saunders vs. Team Hughes Dan Barrera.
We see Team Hughes training, with Barrera going at it hard. "Oh, yeah, Barrera dude, dropped his knee on my nuts in training," Jared Rollins said.
Saunders says he is a Jeet Kune Do concepts (Bruce Lee's martial art) student.
Serra to Saunders: "I'm looking at you as one of the guys who can go all the way."
Saunders: "I get to go to war with somebody and it gets me really, really excited." Then later, he talks about the upcoming fight again, saying, "I get real giddy. I feel like a little schoolgirl."
Barrera is allowed to make a phone call to his wife because she had some kind of "medical situation," UFC Prez Dana White says.
Seems like she is suffering from panic attacks, as she tells Barrera she feels like she is dying, she hasn't slept in days, hasn't eaten in a week.
Barrera tells White there is also a "financial situation" too: he left his job as a firefighter to be on The Ultimate Fighter.
Saunders about Barrera: "I got you man, your house, your dog, and your woman - I'll take care of them."
The fight: Saunders uses his range with kicks and strikes, the shorter Barrera trying to go inside. Barrera knocks Saunders down with a strike, and Saunders lays on the ground and smiles up at Barrera with blood in his mouth.
Barrera wants nothing to do with a ground war, and so Herb Dean stands the fighters up. Saunders starts to use his knees in the clinch. Barrera is also bleeding now, from a cut on his forehead.
Round two, we see Saunders continue to be aggressive, and Barrea has to jog around the cage to get away from him. Dean calls time, and looks to be stopping the fight, then asks Barrera if he wants to keep fighting, and Barrera says yes.
At the end of the second round, White thinks it was an even fight, and so it should go to a third deciding round. The judges don't see it that way, and award Saunders the decision. White calls it "bad judging."
Matt Hughes on Barrera: "He wasn't listening to anything I said."
Team Serra is now 5-1, so they get control over all of the quarterfinal fights.
"That was a sick fight," White says.
Serra congratulates Barrera, and Hughes starts to question his role as coach, wondering why his fighters aren't following their game plans and if he maybe picked "the wrong guys."
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