TUF 23 recap: Divorce ultimatums…and some fighting too

This season, both the women’s strawweight division and the men’s light heavyweight division will be competing. At the end of the season Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Claudia Gadelha fight on the TUF 23 Finale with Joanna Champion defending her strawweight title. Last week Claudia Gadelha’s team won again and took a 4-0 lead. She picked Eric Spicely vs. Elias Urbina IV for this week’s fight. Here we go!

*****

We open with Dana White talking about Gadelha’s lead and Abdel Medjedoub’s personal problem. On last week’s show, his wife threatened to divorce him if he didn’t quit UFC. After talking to Medjedoub, he agrees to allow another phone call. He tries to explain to her that if he leaves the show, he’ll never do anything in MMA again, but she’s not having it. She basically gives him an ultimatum – come home or we’re done.

White makes Medjedoub a very unique offer – leave the show for a few days but if he comes back before the next fight, Sunday he can stay on the show. White’s position is he doesn’t want Medjedoub to have to choose between his career and marriage. Medjedoub takes him up on the offer and backs his bag to fly to Montreal and try to straighten things out.

Finally we get to see some actual training with Elias Urbina IV. He admits he’s the baby of the show and talks about how growing up his family was intent on keeping him and his siblings in the sport of wrestling. If they had one dollar left that dollar went to wrestling shoes. Urbina says he doesn’t fear anything and that he feels relaxed in the cage whether it’s on the feet or on the ground.

Meanwhile, Team Jedrzejczyk is game-planning for what they’ll do if Medjedoub can’t return. While they believe Khalil Rountree would get a second shot, he’s having so much pain in his knees training Jedrzejczyk advises him to take time off and heal up.

Eric Spicely talks about his girlfriend dying in a camping accident when her canoe flipped under a bridge and she smashed her head into a pillar – she drowned while she was unconscious. He talks about how she never had any vices or issues – all she cared about was family, sports and school. He vows to continue to win in her memory.

Pranking has infected the house. The guys put baby powder in the blow dryers. The girls respond by pouring baby powder on them while they’re in the hot tub. Khalil pranks Myron by jumping out of the shower when he goes to use the bathroom. Etc.

Weigh-in. Urbina is 203.5 and Spicely is 205.5.

Medjedoub flies back and is welcomed by Team Gadelha with hugs and smiles all around. Whatever he did it has been resolved. He refuses to talk about it on the camera, only saying he admits 1000% all the fault was his, and it will remain between him and her. 

* Eric Spicely (Team Gadelha) vs. Elias Urbina IV (Team Jedrzejczyk)

Spicely nearly catches Urbina in an armbar, and Urbina does something I’ve never seen before – he picks up his opponent and SWINGS HIM into the fence trying to shake him off. Spicely rolls for a leg and Urbina ends up dropping hard elbows on his ribs, but Spicely just won’t let go. He makes a transition to the back and get one hook in at the point Urbina nearly had top mount. Urbina keeps his chin tucked and concentrates on controlling Spicely’s arms. Spicely tries to soften Urbina up with rights to the head. The rest of R1 is Urbina defending.

Whatever happens now, this fight’s not going three rounds given the TV time left.

Urbina is attacking with kicks. Spicely shoots in for a single and misses. He shoots for the double and Urbina keeps his footing until 56 seconds. He nearly gets to his knees and pops up but Spicely drags him down to the ground and gets both hooks in. Chris Tognoni warns Spicely about shots to the back of the head. Urbina keeps defending and blocking as best he can but that’s all he can do. Dana is pissed off.

Spicely 20-18 X3. Team Gadelha is 5-0. Gadelha predicts a clean sweep and picks Amanda Cooper to fight Jamie Moyle next week. See you then!