The Ultimate Fighter 22 Finale Preview
The Ultimate Fighter is a constant in the UFC and it doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon as the promotion continues to use it to bring new and promising fighters into the UFC.
Lately the original version of the show has been used to highlight aspects of the MMA world that the UFC wants to showcase.
The Ultimate Fighter 20 brought a focus on the new strawweight division by bringing in the first strawweights in the UFC to fight for the title.
The Ultimate Fighter 21 featured the world of teams, a big but often forgotten aspect of the UFC, when the Blackzillians and American Top Team faced off.
The latest version will end like the rest, with one fighter coming out on top and earning a contract in the process.
This time though the UFC highlighted one of the fastest growing sections of MMA, European MMA fighters.
There is no doubt that Brazilians and Americans make up most of the UFC but there are more fighters making a name for themselves that hail from Europe.
The strawweight champion is a Polish woman and the interim featherweight champion is from Ireland.
Both are the leaders of the most successful period of European MMA ever in the UFC and so the promotion decided to look to Europe and let the younger generation prove themselves in the ultimate proving ground.
The Ultimate Fighter 22 was Team Europe against Team USA with McGregor coaching the European side and Urijah Faber coaching the American side.
The Europeans were given a shot to prove themselves in a big way and a chance to show that they belonged as a part of the European uprising.
They took that chance and ran with it as McGregor’s team was absolutely dominant throughout the show.
The Americans only won two fights the entire round robin and only one moved on to the semi-finals and technically to the finale.
The season was a weird one though as Saul Rogers won his semi-final fight to earn a spot in the finale but ran into issues after apparently lying on his visa application and will not be allowed into the country to fight.
Instead Ryan Hall, an American Jiu Jitsu practitioner, will take his place after losing to Rogers by Majority Decision in the quarter-finals.
On the other side is a fighter who lost his opening fight and didn’t get a spot in the house until Dana White threw a wrench into the show.
Lobov’s loss was an exciting fight and White wanted to encourage the fighters to go all out so he brought back two losing fighters and stated that the winner with the worst fight will be eliminated.
Lobov made good on his second chance knocking out everyone on his way to the finale and into a chance to win a contract.
The fight will be interesting as Lobov is a dangerous striker that can seemingly knockout everyone.
Hall is a Jiu Jitsu practitioner that specializes in the 50-50 position, which essentially means he loves to attack his opponent’s legs.
It is very uncommon and gave a lot of people problems but if Lobov fights smart like Rogers did he can win the fight and likely will to earn the contract.
After the latest TUF champion is crowned two featherweights will face-off in what is essentially a #1 contender fight for the featherweight division.
A day later McGregor will fight Jose Aldo to unify the belt in the featherweight division and likely after will be a rematch, depending on the quality of the fight.
Sitting right behind the two champions is former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar and the last person to fight for the belt, Chad Mendes.
Both remain at the top of the division despite losing their respective title challenges in the division and they will face-off in what looks to be the top contender fight.
Of course a rematch between McGregor and Aldo ruins this but all they can do is prepare to win and put their name up to be a top contender in the division.
Both have seen plenty of success as Edgar was the lightweight champion before losing the belt and dropping weight classes where he has won four in a row after losing his division debut against Aldo for the championship.
Mendes meanwhile has been on a tear since 2008 only losing three fights and all of them were title fights, two against Aldo and his last fight against McGregor.
Both have made their case to sit on top and they will try to make that case stronger as the winner will wait a day to see if he does get another shot at the title.
The Ultimate Finale is sure to have some fireworks as a new TUF champion is crowned and a new featherweight contender will emerge as another season of the UFC’s reality show ends.
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