Guest Editorials
The Ultimate Fighter 14 Episode Nine Blog - John Albert on coaches challenge and second semifinal bout
Nov 17, 2011 - 12:45:07 PM The Ultimate Fighter 14 Episode Nine Blog - John Albert on coaches challenge and second semifinal bout

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By: John Albert, TUF 14 Competitor

This episode brings the first semifinal fight between the bantamweights, T.J. Dillashaw vs. Dustin Pague, as well as the coaches challenge.

First you get to see the fear factor of TUF 14. The funny thing is that this was all filmed way earlier in the show, probably in the second week. Yes Dustin eats it like a crazy bastard, but when you put money in front of people they will do crazy things.

Now onto coaches challenge, simply everyone thought Miller was gonna crush Bisping because he's a kid at heart and you would figure he'd crush him in air hockey; but instead Bisping came out and destroyed Mayhem. I tried not to get too excited because I didn't want to get my hopes up and have Bisping lose and feel all sad, but when Bisping was just crushing Mayhem I was screaming and getting all hyped up. I really wanted to win hahaha so I could get that 1500 bucks!

At the end, though, when Bisping eats it hard, he seriously actually hurt himself. He played it off, but he slammed hard hahaha someone was spraying water all over the place so he jumped off and slipped on it. It was also crazy getting up to the top of the Palms for the challenge; people were staring at us like 'are they a professional dodgeball team or something' with our blue and orange on. It was funny because no one came up to us, plus we had to be all discrete ourselves.

Now the fight ensues. The first round began and and T.J. completely dominated the round, out-struck Dustin and he took him down super easy and had some sick ground and pound. Dustin seemed to have a hard time creating space, as well as getting back up or committing to a submission, and T.J. defended well. It was paced really well so T.J. didn't gas out trying to pound him out, so he picked his shots in a great first round.

The second started with great exchanges from both, with T.J. landing the better shots, Dustin got a wicked knee that he threw away from the clinch, but again it went back to the mat and, same as the first, T.J. was picking shots and landed more ground and pound. Round 2 for T.J.

Round three was the same as all the rest, as T.J. out-wrestled, out-positioned and straight up ground and pounded Dustin. T.J. won all three rounds, and that was a wrap. Dustin is a tough S.O.B. for sure, he didn't stop working and he took some mean elbows and kept fighting. No quit in that guy.

Watch John Albert on The Ultimate Fighter 14 every week on Spike TV, and check back on Thursdays for his MMATorch blog on each episode.