Last week, Andrew Sanchez beat his teammate Eric Spicely in just 47 seconds to advance to the finals. This week, teammates fight each other again as Amanda Cooper goes against Lanchana Green. Claudia Gadelha has brought in Miesha Tate to be a guest coach on this week’s episode. Not surprisingly, she’s showing them her takedown techniques. Cooper and Green are both thrilled, with the latter noting that wrestling isn’t something she does a lot of back home in England.
Green is freaking out at the house because she usually fights at 125, and even though she made the weight for her first fight, her body rebounded and gained weight after. “I’ve got a week so I think I can get it done.” Coincidentally at the next training session, Gadelha admits Cooper is both stronger and heavier. “I can’t prepare my fighters for this fight. I’m too close to them.”
Green wins an impromptu bowling tournament in the house using UFC water bottles as the bowling pins. The focus goes from there to her training at the gym. She says that no matter how good of friends she has been with Cooper, when the fight comes, she’ll have to turn on her “mean face.” She says she started out in muay thai, didn’t make much money, then realized once UFC had a strawweight division, she could make it.
Team Jedrzejczyk fighters Khalil Rountree and Josh Stansbury are preparing for their semifinal fight since Rountree got back in as an injury alternate which Dana White notes guarantees at least one Jedrzejczyk fighter will be in the finals. Meanwhile, Cooper has gotten her weight down to 120.2 so she’s almost there, but she’s worried about cutting the final four pounds successfully in the morning. She’s 119.6 after she wakes up and she’s in a hurry to get to the gym and finish the cut.
Cooper literally sweats it in the sauna until the bitter end, gets on the scale for the weigh-in, and she’s 117.5. She gets an additional hour to get down to the one pound allowance of 116. White: “If she doesn’t make it she’s out of the competition. And I can tell you when you get that far down that last pound and a half isn’t easy.” Green is 115.0 on the dot.
After an extra hour of sweating and water shedding and wearing nothing but what she was born with, she finally makes 116 even on the scale. I’m happy she made it but I’m concerned that she’s going to be super drawn out and dehydrated for that fight – and White notes that he’s thinking the exact same thing.
* Amanda Cooper (Team Gadelha) vs. Lanchana Green (Team Gadelha)
John McCarthy is our ref. Cooper is in the red trunks and Green is in the black. We’re starting the fight with under ten minutes left so this isn’t going even a full round. Cooper is being aggressive early and forcing Green to backpedal. It’s deceptive though because Green already had a black eye from training before the fight began. Cooper shoots for a single and gets it. Green kicks her away but she jumps back on in side control. Cooper is drilling her with hard lefts. Green tries to scramble but Cooper gets right back on top in full. Nasty right elbows from guard. Green tries to scramble and gives up position again allowing Cooper to take her back and sink in the RNC with under a minute left. Green taps at 4:25.
Cooper advances to the finals. Next week’s show is the season finale featuring Rountree vs. Stansbury and Tatiana Suarez vs. Kate Jackson.
