Episode No. 8 recap: ‘The Ultimate Fighter Nations: Canada vs. Australia’

Episode No. 8 of “The Ultimate Fighter Nations: Canada vs. Australia” opens with Team Canada’s Olivier Aubin-Mercier celebrating his victory over Team Australia’s Jake Matthews with a massive feast at the house.

An emotional Matthews is down after his decision loss, but has the support of his teammates who tell him to keep positive and take the defeat as a learning experience.

At the next Team Australia training session, head coach Kyle Noke brings in UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones as a special guest coach to help out of the team. “Bones” says his goal is to provide motivation and inspiration to Team Australia, who currently trail 2-5 in the competition.

Vik Grujic, who will fight Team Canada’s Luke Harris in the final quarterfinal matchup of the season later in the episode, said he couldn’t be happier with Jones’ presence just before his fight.

Team Canada’s Harris, who at 36 is amongst the oldest fighters in the competition, readies for his upcoming bout and talks about his storied MMA career. Harris has suffered just one defeat in his past 12 fights and all of his victories have come by first-round submission. He’ll hope to continue that trend against Grujic.

Team Canada head coach Patrick Cote brings Cung Le, who defeated “The Predator” by decision at UFC 148 in 2012, as a guest coach to help his team with training striking techniques.

Sheldon Westcott of Team Canada has a lingering neck injury and is told by the doctor he might have to be removed from the tournament all together if his condition doesn’t improve in the coming days, which breeds new hope for the already eliminated contestants.

With the final quarterfinal matchup rapidly approaching, Cote and the members of Team Canada are beginning to discuss what the semifinal matchups will look like, especially since there will be at least five Canadians in the next round.

With training behind them, both fighters hit the 185-pound middleweight mark at the weigh-in, making the fourth and final quarterfinal matchup of the season official.

TEAM CANADA’S LUKE HARRIS (10-2) VS. TEAM AUSTRALIA’S VIK GRUJIC (6-2)

Round 1 – Veteran referee Yves Lavigne oversees the action. The two fighters start cautiously with a long feeling out process on the feet. Grujic connects with a jab then a left hook. Grujic gets a body clinch and slams Harris to the ground. From half guard, Grujic unleashes a series of vicious elbow strikes that cut Harris open badly and put the Canadian out cold less than one minute into the round.

Vik Grujic def. Luke Harris via knockout (elbows) – Round 1

Grujic and his team celebrate the impressive victory, which ends the quarterfinal round of the competition. Canada moves five fighters into the second round while Australia has moved just three fighters on to the semifinals.

With teammates soon being forced to turn into opponents and enemies, the fighters prepare for next week’s episode where the semifinal matchups in both the welterweight and middleweight divisions will be announced.

Catch new episodes of “The Ultimate Fighter Nations: Canada vs. Australia” every Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET (7 p.m. PT) on FOX Sports 1. MMAjunkie recaps each episode of the reality series.