The Ultimate Fighter 25: Redemption – Episode 3 Recap

The Ultimate Fighter 25: Redemption returned this evening with the third episode of the season.

At the end of episode two, Team Dillashaw’s Tom Gallicchio defeated Eddie Gordon and head coach TJ Dillashaw revealed that his team’s number two pick Jesse Taylor would face Mehdi Baghdad of Team Garbrandt in the next bout.

Ahead of their fight Jesse Taylor and Mehdi Baghdad both spoke about training together in the past and Jesse Taylor revealed that the two became “buddies” but that “this is business”.

In fight preparations Dillashaw revealed that he sensed a nervousness in Baghdad after the fight announcement was made and said that the two having training together in the past would benefit Taylor.

At the house on weigh-in day, Jesse Taylor celebrated making weight by running around the garden naked. Later that day both fighters stepped on the official scale and both made weight.

In the fight warm up room, Garbrandt stressed to Mehdi the importance of constantly moving on the feet while Dillashaw drilled punching combinations to takedown attempt sequences with Taylor.

Jesse Taylor (30-15) vs Mehdi Baghdad (11-5)

Taylor immediately took the centre of the cage and shot a successful takedown which planted Baghdad on his back against the cage. After some ground and pound Taylor took the back momentarily but couldn’t secure the position and landed back in half guard.

From there he kept busy with choke attempts, punches and elbows from the top position which opened a cut on the face of Mehdi half way through the first round. Taylor then transition to the back mount once again and fished for the rear naked choke before Baghdad managed to reverse the position and get back to his feet.

It wasn’t long before Taylor dumped Baghdad back to the canvas and once again took mount and then his opponent’s back but couldn’t get the finish before the bell.

The second round began with another takedown attempt from Taylor but Baghdad grabbed an underhook and sprawled out before throwing what looked like an illegal knee to the head of Taylor who was grounded at the time. The referee allowed the fight to continue but shouted at Baghdad to be careful.

As Taylor rushed in for yet another takedown attempt, Mehdi caught him with a nice left hook but that and a grab of the cage wasn’t enough to stop Taylor’s chained takedown attempts and Baghdad ended up on his back against the cage once more.

Dillashaw called for Jesse to concentrate on maintaining top position over securing the submission which he did until the clock expired on what was a dominant wrestling and ground and pound display from Taylor.

Jesse Taylor was awarded the unanimous decision and moved into the next round of the competition.

The arguing continued between Cody and TJ as they waited to reveal the next fight announcement.

In the next episode, Team Dillashaw’s number one selection James Krause will face Johnny Nunez, who replaced Hector Urbina on the show after Hector failed to make weight in the season premiere.

Catch The Ultimate Fighter: REDEMPTION at 3am BST on Thursday mornings on BT Sport. Repeated at 10pm BST later than same day.