It had been mostly smooth sailing during the opening round of The Ultimate Fighter: Team Cormier vs. Team Sonnen tournaments, but the third episode began with the first bit of controversy.
The first welterweight matchup of the season saw Team Cormier’s Daniil Donchenko get past Team Sonnen’s Richard Martins in the second episode of the season, and the action in the 170-pound bracket resumed with Team Cormier’s Jeff Creighton taking on Team Sonnen’s Andreeas Binder in a quarterfinal bout.
Spoilers below for TUF 33, Episode 4:
The special guest coach this week was former UFC welterweight champion Matt Serra, who won Season 4 of The Ultimate Fighter titled The Comeback that featured exclusively fighters that had previously competed in the UFC and were seeking a second chance.
Serra earned a title shot for winning TUF 4 and ended up pulling off one of the biggest upsets in the sport’s history when he finished Georges St-Pierre for the welterweight title in 2007.
WEIGHT CUT PUTS MATCHUP IN JEOPARDY
Creighton is an 11-2 pro from the United States, while Binder is an Irish-Romanian fighter with a 10-2 record who acknowledged he has had difficulty cutting weight in the past.
“Cutting weight is (expletive). It’s just not nice but every fighter has to do it,” Binder said before explaining he began his cut while 184.5 pounds on the day before the scheduled weigh-in.
Welterweight fighters are required to weigh no more than 171 pounds for non-title fights. The 28-year-old Binder got down to 176 pounds before he stopped sweating.
His head coach, Chael Sonnen, called Daniel Cormier and Creighton to explain the situation and make an offer.
Binder was at risk of forfeiting and Creighton had the option of taking a free pass to the second round. Instead, Sonnen offered Creighton $5,000, or a thousand dollars per additional pound, to accept the matchup.
Creighton responded with a $2,500 per-pound counteroffer, arguing that TUF 33 is the biggest opportunity of his career and that it’s Binder’s responsibility to be professional and make weight.
Sonnen agreed to pay Creighton $12,500 so the fight could continue, and Creighton accepted. Creighton weighed an even 170 pounds and Binder’s official weight ended up as 175.5 pounds.
UFC president Dana White typically does not respond well to fighters missing weight during TUF tournaments, but the fight was allowed to proceed after all parties agreed.
In the competitive opening round, Creighton threw kicks to the body in the hopes it would drain Binder’s gas tank as Binder looked for overhand rights, left hooks and spent some time on top after catching one of Creighton’s kicks. Creighton opened a cut over Binder’s right eye late in Round 1 thanks to an elbow strike in the clinch and continued that momentum into the second round.
Sonnen described Creighton as “the best wrestler” in the TUF 33 house while admitting Binder is perhaps the least credentialled wrestler among all the competitors. Creighton used those wrestling skills to take the action to the ground where he secured back control.
Creighton battered a bloody Binder with punches and elbows while continuously working to lock in a rear-naked choke. Although the submission never happened, the judges awarded Creighton a two-round majority decision and a third round was not necessary.
“I was saying the entire time I wanted a bloody, nasty fight and that’s what I got,” Creighton said after advancing to the semifinals of the 170-pound tournament.
Flyweight action resumes with Team Cormier’s Alibi Idiris taking on Team Sonnen’s Furkatbek Yokubov.
Idiris is 10-0 from Kazakhstan and Yokubov is a kickboxing champion from Uzbekistan who boasts a 15-4 MMA record.
