The eighth episode of The Ultimate Fighter 21 premiered on Wednesday night on Fox Sports 1 and the show began with Glenn Robinson discussing last week’s victory by Vicente Luque over Nathan Coy.
In the locker room, the team celebrated the win and Robinson announces that Felipe Portela will be fighting next for them. Later that night, Tyrone Spong came to the house and explained that they need to keep the pressure on American Top Team.
The next day at the American Top Team gym, the coaches discuss the next fight. They believe that Portela will be fighting next for the Blackzilians and they begin to discuss having Hayder Hassan fight again. Dan Lambert ends up approaching Hassan while he is working out and following their conversation, the team decides that Hassan will be fighting for them next.
The official weigh-in for the eighth fight took place at the Blackzilian gym and Hassan stepped forward as the fighter who will be representing American Top Team in the next fight. When the commission representative asked for the Blackzilian fighter who will be fighting, it took a moment before Portela stepped forward. Both fighters would make weight and this is a rematch of a fight that took place at Titan FC 31, which Hassan won by knockout.
After the fighters were through their final preparations, the fight took place at the Blackzilian gym. Portela opened the fight by immediately getting a takedown and Hassan worked his way back to his feet against the cage. The fighters would end up breaking away from each other and Hassan started to land his jab. Once again, Portela would look for a takedown and Hassan was able to stop the takedown with the assistance of a fence grab. The remainder of the round would be on the feet and Hassan stopping the takedown attempts by Portela.
In the second round, they continued to have a stand up fighter as Hassan was the fighter coming forward. Hassan began to mix up his strikes with kicks and Portela was not attempting any takedowns. Portela would land leg kicks, but struggle to put together an offensive attack. As the round was coming to an end, Portela scored a brief takedown but Hassan immediately got back to his feet and the round came to a conclusion.
The referee would end tell both teams that there was a decision and Hassan won by majority decision (20-18, 19-19, 20-18). With the victory by Hassan, American Top Team is now only down 100 points in the competition and the next fight will take place at the American Top Team gym.