In this week’s edition of her TUF 23 blog, Team Claudia’s Lanchana Green recalls the aftermath of her impressive win in last week’s episode and recaps her teammate Eric Spicely’s bout against Team Joanna’s Elias Urbina.
Following my victory for Team Claudia in last week’s episode I got a little fun poked at me from my gym buddies at home for my celebratory dance moves in the locker room. But if I made people laugh it’s all good, and I’ve decided I’m going to try and set a trend and get everyone dancing after I fight.
Our team were still on a high, however it was a little tainted with Abdel Medjedoub’s situation. We were gutted to see him so upset and that none of us could do anything to help. Abdel ended up going home and we had no idea if he was going to come back or not. Eric and Andrew Sanchez were basically the only guys left training with Abdel gone and Cory Hendricks injured. I honestly didn’t think he was going to come back so when he walked into the changing room we all screamed and ran over to hug him. Our team were great. You can see how genuinely pleased we all were to have him back even though we’d only known him a short time.
Eric was as straight-talking and laid back as me so we got along well. I was really looking forward to his fight and was hoping he could continue our winning streak. So, without further ado, onto this week’s fight.
Round 1: Eric took Elias down and began hunting for submissions, locked in an armbar but Elias managed to pick Eric up and swing him into the fence. Elias defended every sub attempt and managed to lay some damage on Eric in the process. Eric then took Elias’s back and remained there for the rest of the round, constantly looking for the submission and landing some strikes also.
I knew he had the round.
Round 2: Elias landed a good few more strikes and managed to stuff some of Eric’s takedown attempts but eventually Eric got him down and was immediately on Elias’s back. Elias was tough – he defended the choke the entire time but couldn’t escape the position.
We were all shouting for Eric to finish the fight. He kept trying and trying but ended up with a unanimous decision win. Dana didn’t seem too impressed with the result but Eric came out with the win, which was important for us to keep the lead so the whole team was buzzing.
Next up to fight from our team is Amanda Cooper who will face Jamie Moyle. I was super excited for this fight as I had heard good things about both these girls. Make sure to tune in next week to see how this fight went down.
As always, a big thank you to my sponsors: Revgear Europe, Functional Self, Steffan Abel, Chiropractors, SL Sports Massage, Mindsport Consulting, Upgraded Grappler and LED Supply & Fit.
UK fans can watch The Ultimate Fighter at 3am (BST) every Thursday morning on BT Sport (repeated at 10pm later that same day). The show is available on Fox Sports in the US (check your local listings).
