The Ultimate Fighter 18 Week 11 Notes: First Female Finalist Emerges

Team Tate addresses favoritism allegations and the first female finalist emerges in this week’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter 18.

Favoritism and Emotions

In last week’s episode, Team Tate members alleged that the coaching staff was playing favorites and focused on Chris Holdsworth and Julianna Pena more than the rest of the team. Both fighters have previous relationships with members of the coaching staff outside of the show and the allegations were brought to the coaches’ attention.

“I’m fighting Julianna. I definitely feel like Miesha (Tate) and Bryan (Caraway) have sort of favored her this whole time. They’ve been friends before. She was their first pick, so I sort of feel a bit out of the loop,” said Sarah Moras. “I saw it coming. It does upset me.”

Moras had an emotional breakdown in the sauna during team practice over her feeling on the outside looking in on Team Tate.

“I was feeling a bit left out. I know that Julianna has trained with Miesha and stuff in the past. So I knew that they were close, so I sort of felt like I was the odd one out when I have to fight Julianna and we’re on the same team,” said Moras.

“We’re going to fix this,” promised Coach Tate. The coaching staff was slit into two separate groups to work with the fighters separately during training sessions.

“Moras was feeling really, really emotional being that she’s going to have to fight Julie and we were closer to Julie. And she was really worried,” said Coach Tate. “For me, I decided to just remove myself from the situation so there can’t be any feelings of resentment there.”

The House Turns on Pena

“Julianna, nobody really likes her, including myself,” said Team Tate’s Josh Hill. “The longer I’m here, the more annoying she is.”

“Roxanne Modaferri will socialize with her a little bit. But it’s really sad because Shayna Baszler even said that Roxanne was talking crap on Julianna. If Roxanne is saying something bad about you then you know you’re failing at life,” commented Team Rousey’s Anthony Gutierrez.

Pena’s roommate Raquel Pennington voiced her displeasure about Pena’s behavior. “It’s been frustrating, “ she said. “She’s a head-case sometimes.”

“Everybody usually likes me for the most part, so it’s really weird to like be in a house where I feel like everybody hates me,” said Pena.

The Fight: Julianna Pena vs. Sarah Moras

The two had fought before. Moras defeated Pena in April 2012 by doctor stoppage due to a dislocated arm. Moras applied an arm bar and Pena refused to tap out.

Pena had success early with her strikes. Moras clinched and Pena secured a trip takedown. Moras was active from the bottom, but was unable to get back to her feet or find a submission. When the first round came to an end, Pena was in side control and landing punches.

Pena pressed forward behind her punches in the second round and quickly took the fight to the ground. She landed in side control and began delivering elbows. Moras rolled and tried to gain top position but Pena applied a guillotine choke and pulled guard to tighten it down. Moras tapped out.

“It wasn’t me in there. She did a great job. She got me,” said Moras in defeat. “I deserve to be here. I should have won that. I’m pissed off with myself. I’m just pissed off right now. I’m pissed off , and I’m bleeding.”

“I went in there with vengeance, and I got the victory. I’m really happy,” said Pena following the win. “The work’s not over. This is the first day of the rest of my life. I think I did good, and I’m really happy for myself.”

Pena advances to the finals and will face the winner between Pennington and Jessica Rakoczy on Nov. 30 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.