Get caught up with everything that happened in the last twenty-four hours with today’s edition of the Daily MMA review with notes from Ultimate Fighter 19 and two UFC fight announcements.
TUF 19 Recap
On the last episode of the Ultimate Fighter, Team Penn’s Dan Spohn used a steady diet of wrestling and positional control to outpoint Team Edgar’s Todd Monaghan and advance to the light heavyweight tournament semifinals.
This week, middleweights will collide as Team Penn’s Tim Williams is scheduled to face Team Edgar’s Dhiego Lima.
At the first Team Edgar training session of the day, tempers flared up as Todd Monaghan didn’t take to kindly to Patrick Walsh when Walsh told him that they would have used the same game-plan that Spohn used if he fought Monaghan. Monaghan criticized Walsh for not being totally supportive of the team, but the teammates eventually reconciled and continued their training session without any more altercations.
The only other negative at that Team Edgar session was that Patrick Walsh had some back issues during training, and he was forced to just do conditioning throughout. Walsh has a long history of back injuries that developed from his wrestling days, and those injuries flare up from time to time.
During an interview at a Team Penn training session segment, BJ Penn says that Tim Williams is “probably” his pick from his team to win the middleweight bracket.
At the house, Tim Williams talked to Mike Hill about some of the low points in his past. When was just 18 years old, Williams got a DUI after he flipped a car that he was driving in. Since then, he’s had a new lease on life, and he also talked about the parallels of second chances that have been present throughout his life, even in his MMA career. He actually competed on the 17th season of TUF, but he unsuccessful in his efforts to make it in the house. Now, he’s in the TUF house, competing to win the show.
Also, Williams would go on to talk about he persevered after suffering from a brain aneurism early in his amateur MMA career.
Team Edgar light heavyweight Matt Van Buren built a reputation for being the outlandish character in the house that tells it how it is. His rubbed Chris Fields of Team Penn the wrong way, who later in the episode took exception to Van Buren making fun of his accent. The fighters got in a heated argument at the house that will likely conclude with a fight on the show since both guys are 205 pounders.
Dhiego Lima spent some time talking about how his family moved him and his brother Douglas – the current Bellator welterweight champion – to Atlanta from Brazil when he was just 11. He was thrown into school right away and was forced to learn English quickly. Lima also discussed how Wanderlei Silva was one of his early inspirations as a fighter.
Both Tim Williams and Dhiego Lima made the middleweight limit.
Up next was the fight, Lima was able to win the fight late in the second round by submitting Williams with a rear-naked choke. Lima was on the verge of losing the fight, having been taken down and outpaced up until that point, but he was able to shuck off a takedown attempt from Williams, apply the choke and elicit a tap.
The episode ended with Frankie Edgar making the fight announcement. Edgar picked Corey Anderson to take on Team Penn’s Josh Clark in a light heavyweight match-up.
The News
1. UFC heavyweight Stefan Struve (25-6) has fully recovered from a rare-heart disease and his return to the UFC has been scheduled. It was announced late last night that Struve will be facing Matt Mitrione (7-3) at UFC 175 on July 5th. Struve’s last fight was a loss to Mark Hunt on March 3rd, 2013.
2. Jon Tuck (7-1) has a new opponent after his original opponent, Yosdenis Cedeno, withdrew due to an injury. The lightweight from Guam will take on UFC newcomer Jake Lindsey (9-0) at UFC Fight Night 42 on June 7th.