Review of The Ultimate Fighter 18 episode 9

This week we are back with a new episode of The Ultimate Fighter 18. There are supposed to be two fights on this episode. It will be Anthony Gutierrez of Team Rousey vs Cody Bollinger of Team Tate and Peggy Morgan of Team Rousey vs Sarah Moras of Team Tate. The first half of the episode is about Gutierrez and Bollinger trying to cut down to 135lb. That's probably lower than their usual fighting weight. Gutierrez seems to be handling the weight cut OK but Bollinger is having problems. This combined with his homesickness is causing Bollinger big problems. There are only a few hours left and he is still way over. Miesha Tate and Bryan Caraway try to help him but when he gains a pound after a trip to the sauna, Bollinger decides that he can't make weight. Raquel Pennington convinces him to try a salt bath. But Bollinger changes his mind and quits. It looks like that final trip to the sauna broke him. Miesha calls UFC president Dana White. He calls a meeting at the gym and Bollinger is sent home. To his credit, he doesn't make any excuses. In the business world, we would call that a career limiting move. He accepted the terms and failed. Gutierrez is given the choice of rehydrating and fighting Chris Beal or taking a bye to the semi-finals. He wisely took the bye. Why should he put himself through another weight cut? Now we go to Sarah Moras vs Peggy Morgan. Sarah has a good ground game so Ronda Rousey is concerned about Peggy's takedown defence. Peggy's strategy was to keep Sarah at a distance and pepper her with jabs. I didn't think that would work. Sarah is a lot quicker than Peggy. So not surprisingly, Sarah took Peggy down and won with an armbar. Then the semi-final matches were determined. Next week Michael Wooten will face Chris Holdsworth. That will be followed by Sarah Moras vs Julianna Pena, David Grant vs Anthony Gutierrez and Jessica Rakoczy vs Raquel Pennington. Check out the video of this week's episode.