The Ultimate Fighter 25: Redemption – Episode 5 Recap

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

At the end of the previous episode Team Garbrandt had the next fight pick and selected Hayder Hassan to take on his ATT training partner Dhiego Lima.

TJ Dillashaw revealed during fight preparations that he saw Lima having the advantage over Hassan everywhere in the fight with the possible exception of self confidence.

Cody Garbrandt brought in Dr. Jon Petrick to perform craniofacial releases to help clear the Team Garbrandt fighter’s nasal passages.

In the lead up to the fight, Hayder and the Team Garbrandt coaches worked on a game plan of pressuring on the feet and getting inside and using Hassan’s power to test Lima’s chin.

Hayder Hassan (6-3) vs Dhiego Lima (12-5)

A minute into the fight, Lima secured an easy takedown on Hassan and transitioned straight to his back and locked in his body triangle. With just under two minutes left in the round and after several face crank and rear naked choke attempts Hassan escaped and got back to his feet.

Back on the feet Lima landed some nice body kicks as Hayder threw hard with hooks and uppercuts with limited success and the round expired after very little output on the feet from either fighter in the last 30 seconds.

The second round started with two nice body kicks by Lima before he pushed Hassan up against the cage and secured another take down within the first 30 seconds of the round. Again Hayder worked himself free and back to the feet but Lima continued to be the busier fighter and used body kicks to keep Hassan at bay but began to find it more difficult to bring the fight back to the ground after Hassan stuffed a few takedown attempts.

With 90 seconds left in the second round Lima worked hard for a takedown and this time he managed to dump Hayder to the canvas before taking the back and securing his body triangle once again. Lima then landed some small ground and pound shots from the back before attempting an armbar as the clock expired.

The judges correctly awarded the decision to Dhiego Lima of Team Dillashaw who moved to 5-0 over Team Garbrandt.

TJ Dillashaw had the next fight pick and announced that Ramsey Nijem vs Julian “Let Me Bang Bro” Lane will be next week’s match up.

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