Caution this post contains spoilers from the eleventh episode of The Ultimate Fighter 6: Team Hughes vs. Team Serra

With the internal bouts between Team Serra over, coach Matt Serra is now focusing on Ben Saunders’ quarter final bout against Team Hughes’ Tommy Speer. Once again Saunders’ game plan is to rely on his size. Saunders plans on maintaining the distance and pick apart Speer with his striking. Coach Serra likes Saunders chances going into the match as he believes Speer to be a one dimensional fighter. Serra is confident that Saunders will send the farm boy home.

Tommy Speer’s participation in the quarterfinals remains in question as he has not completely healed since his last fight against War Machine. Speer’s face remains cut up real bad. Jared Rollins compares Speer to the Lion from The Chronicles of Narnia while Mac Danzig warns that Speer’s cut has the potential to be career ending should it sustain any more damage. Nevertheless, Speer decides he’s going to continue to train until the commission tells him otherwise. Team Hughes prepares Speer to defend against Saunders’ kicks. Coach Matt Hughes does not see Saunders’ ground game as a threat; Hughes believes that Tommy can outmuscle himself out of any dangerous situation.

The drunken chaos ensues this week, and this time the culprits are Team Serra’s Troy, John, and Richie Hightower. The trio gets into the usual trouble that we’re all so familiar seeing on previous episodes of TUF such as, trashing the place, driving broomsticks into the walls, as well as other forms of vandalizing. However, this season, Team Serra decides to add a little twist and they treat Team Hughes to an “upper deck.” For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term “upper deck,” it refers to the act of defecating on the top of the toilet so that remnants of the feces distribute itself into the toilet bowl whenever the toilet is flushed. Yes, that’s what they did, I know. Team Hughes return home from a training session to find all three fighters, Troy, John, and Richie Hightower sitting back and giggling away half drunk. The sound of Hightower’s cackle drives Danzig up the wall. An annoyed Danzig advises Hightower that he sounds like Fran Drescher. Spread out in his La-z boy, Hightower fires back with “me, you, and space.” A scrum ensues but the other household members step in before anything can happen.

Team Hughes’ Billie is granted the unfortunate honor of discovering the upper deck. Billie gathers the rest of Team Hughes to discuss matters. After informing his teammates what Team Serra had done, everyone seemed to have take the unsettling news quite well. Danzig who promised Billie that he wouldn’t flip out actually remained calm upon hearing the unfortunate news. The big surprise came from J-Rock, who calmly left the Team Hughes meeting only to smash the toilet cover against Team Serra’s room before kicking down the door. A startled War Machine questions J-Rock’s actions, while J-Rock interrogates War Machine and his reasons for ruining the toilet. Before you know it a scuffle breaks out which is stopped before anyone could get hurt. The tension builds over to Danzig who also took the liberty of questioning Hightower on whether or not he “upper decked” the Team Hughes toilet. With fighters holding them apart, Hightower insists to Danzig it was not him. Things eventually settle down when War Machine attempts to break bread with J-Rock; he assures J-Rock that the whole incident was not personal, it was just a matter of Team Serra goofing off. J-Rock accepts War Machine’s apology, and, just to put an end to everything, both War Machine and Troy clean up the mess they made in Team Hughes toilet. Ewww!!!

Fight day arrives and Ben wakes up feeling ill. Saunders has a fever he feels like his head is going to explode. Ben decides to down a few pills and sleeps for several hours before heading down into the arena. Just before the fight, in the locker room, Ben reveals to Matt Serra that he is having trouble breathing from his nose. Nonetheless, Ben has no plans of walking away and forces out one of his signature smiles, thus comforting Coach Serra.

The fight starts and almost immediately Speer closes the distance and the two fighters clinch. From here Saunders throws a couple of uppercuts and knees to which Speer admitted afterwards were pretty solid throws. Tommy opts to grab a double-leg and manages to take down Ben with relative ease. Almost immediately Saunders locks in an armbar that looks extremely deep. With Tommy’s arm fully extended, just about everyone was certain that the Minnesota kid was going to tap. Instead never-say-die Speer manages to power himself out of the armbar. Things aren’t going Tommy’s way as he then rolls out only to find himself inside a very tight triangle choke. Ben has the choke in pretty deep and even Serra is confident that it’s over. Lo and behold, Tommy fights himself loose and manages to pop his head free of the choke. From here on out for the rest of the round, it’s all Speer. Tommy fights the remainder of the round from the top position and punishes Saunders with a series of body shots, elbows, and punches. At one point Tommy stands up and Ben throws an up-kick that just misses its mark. Tommy answers back with a heavy right hand that lands. The first round ends and Ben looks tired.

Round 2 starts with a weak high kick attempt from Saunders that lands nowhere near its intended target. Quickly, Speer charges in and scores a trip that sends the fight down to the canvas. Not wanting to spend another round underneath of Speer, Saunders quickly manages to get up. In response, Tommy throws a right and immediately prances in, taking down Ben again with a single-leg trip. With Speer inside of Saunders’ guard, not much activity is going on so referee Steve Mazzagatti calls a halt to the action to have the fighters stand up. Shortly after, Ben goes for a flying knee just as Tommy goes in for a take down. The knee just misses Tommy who manages to take the fight down to the matt with a hold of a single-leg. With little activity from both fighters on the ground, referee Mazzagatti steps in to stand the fight up once more. Tommy, wasting no time to put on a takedown clinic, manages to trip Saunders yet again. At this point, it’s quite clear that Ben is spent as he does little but grabs onto both of Tommy’s hands for the remainder of the fight. Round 2 ends and both fighters retreat to their respective corners, eyeing the possibility of a third round. However, none would be needed as Tommy Speer is declared the winner by unanimous decision.

In the post-fight interview Tommy gives his thoughts on muscling out of the armbar and triangle choke. In regards to the armbar Tommy replied, “I didn’t hear anything crack or pop so I didn’t tap.” As for the triangle choke, Speer admitted that it was in pretty tight, and he was fighting for his breath at one point. Regardless, Tommy also added that the thought of tapping out never occurred to him.

With Saunders out, we now boil down to the final four: two fighters from Team Serra and two fighters from Team Hughes. The coaches meet with Dana White to discuss the semi-final match-ups. After a bit of talking and analyzing (mostly between White and Serra) the semi-final matches are decided, much to the delight of Matt Hughes who didn’t even have to say a word. The semi-final matches are decided as follows:

• Mac Danzig (Team Hughes) vs. Matt Arroyo (Team Serra)
• Tommy Speer (Team Hughes) vs. George Sotiropoulos (Team Hughes)

Matt Hughes is stoked. He is almost certain that both his guys are going to make it into the finals. In Hughes’ opinion Danzig’s experience is going to prove to be the deciding factor against Arroyo. In the case of Tommy Speer, Hughes feels that Speer is way too powerful for Sotiropoulos.

Here’s a look at the teams after week 11:

Team Serra

• Matt Arroyo (2-0)
• George Sotiropoulos (2-0)
  
• John Kolosci (1-1, Eliminated by Mac Danzig – Week 9)
  
• Ben Saunders (1-1, Eliminated by Tommy Speer – Week 11)
  
• Jon Koppenhaver (Eliminated by Tommy Speer – Week
  
• Troy Mandaloniz (1-1, Eliminated by Matt Arroyo – Week 10)
  
• Richie Hightower (1-1, Eliminated by George Sotiropoulos)
  
• Joe Scarola (Eliminated by Mac Danzig – Week 1)
  
• Roman Mitichyan (Injured – Week 1)

Team Hughes

• Mac Danzig (2-0)
• Tommy Speer (2-0)
  
• Jared Rollins (Eliminated by George Sotiropoulos – Week 7)
  
• Dan Barrera (Eliminated by Ben Saunders – Week 6)
  
• Paul Georgieff (Eliminated by Troy Mandaloniz – Week 5)
  
• Blake Bowman (Eliminated by Richie Hightower – Week 4)
  
• Dorian Price (Eliminated by Matt Arroyo – Week 2)
  
• Billy Miles (Eliminated John Kolosci – Week 3)

Next week on The Ultimate Fighter:

• Mac Danzig takes on Matt Arroyo
• Tommy Speer takes on George Sotiropoulos
• But wait, there’s a twist. One of the fighters won’t be able to fight and someone else gets a second chance.

Missed an episode? For more on this season, check out some of our previous recaps:

• Episode 1
• Episode 2
• Episode 3
• Episode 4
• Episode 5
• Episode 6
• Episode 7
• Episode 8
• Episode 9
• Episode 10

Tags: Ben Saunders, tommy speer