The Ultimate Fighter 25: Redemption – Episode 4 Recap

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

At the end of episode three it was announced that Team Dillashaw’s James Krause, the number one overall pick, would take on Johnny Nunez who replaced Hector Urbina on the show after Urbina failed to make weight in the first episode.

Cody Garbrant, Urijah Faber, Miesha Tate and others from Team Dillashaw arrived at the TUF house to watch a UFC event with the fighters.

Some of the contestants served up shots of alcohol to themselves and the Team Garbrandt coaches. After knocking a few drinks back Cody became tipsy and seemed to enjoy his time “hanging with the boys” as he drunkenly proclaimed more than a couple of times.

In fight preparation Team Garbrandt worked on Johnny Nunez’s game plan of blending his striking into his wrestling and making it an ugly high paced fight.

On fight day Kruase said he doesn’t really believe in rituals, superstitions or luck but then revealed his painted toenails and that he always gets a pedicure before he fights.

James Krause (23-7) vs Johnny Nunez (6-1)

After both fighters exchanged early strikes, Johnny Nunez secured a takedown about 30 seconds into the fight but Krause was able to use his butterfly guard to disrupt Nunez on top and work his way back to his feet with the help of the cage. On the feet, Krause landed some heavy knees from the clinch before Nunez dropped Krause temporarily with a left hand. Krause then pushed forward and landed a quick knee to the chin of Nunez before Johnny fired back successfully with left and right hands.

As the first round wore on Krause began to find a consistent home for his long range kicks to the head, legs and especially to Nunez’s body and with just over a minute left in the round Krause landed a huge knee from the clinch to the body of Nunez which dropped him. From there Krause circled, took Nunez’s back, landed some ground and pound strikes and was able to secure the rear naked choke finish with mere seconds left in the round.

Team Garbrandt had the next fight pick and selected Hayder Hassan against his ATT training partner Dhiego Lima.

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