One of the favorites have been eliminated from The Ultimate Fighter: A New World Champion. No. 3 seed Lauren Murphy was defeated by No. 14 seed Nicco Montano on the fourth episode of the reality series.
Murphy was Team Alvarez’ third pick. The former Invicta FC bantamweight champion and UFC veteran made a rookie mistake and started looking at the brackets and who she’d face later in the competition. Montano focused on the fight at hand and picked up the biggest win of her mixed martial arts career.
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Montano used kicks to keep Murphy on the outside and picked the more experienced Murphy apart with strikes. Murphy was unable to mount an offense or get the fight to the ground. She worked for a single-leg takedown in the opening frame but was met with a series of hammer fists to the head and had to abandon the takedown attempt. ]
Muphy worked hard to get the fight to the ground early in the second round, but Montano shook it off the attempt and delivered right hands and elbows. Murphy continued to try and secure a takedown but was unable to ground Team Gaethje’s Montano. After two rounds of fighting, Montano was declared the winner by unanimous decision.
“Honestly, I’ve never felt that before,” said Montano after advancing in the tournament. “I did what I had to do to get the win. Whatever it takes is our team motto and I think I demonstrated that pretty well.”
“I’m tired of losing. I (expletive) tired of losing. I was already coming off a loss coming into the show. I thought maybe dropping to 125 was going to be like the answer to all my problems. Clearly it’s not,” said Murphy after the loss.
Coach Justin Gaetje selected No. 5 seed Maia Stevenson to take on No. 12 seed Sijara Eubanks of Team Alvarez in the next bout of the season. In the team competition, Team Gaethje leads Team Alvarez 3-1.
