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The Ultimate Fighter Season 32 - Episode 3 Recap
By Matt ten-Hoeve
June 20, 2024
Last week’s episode ended with Giannis Bachar struggling with his quick loss to Robert Valentin. Episode 3 starts off with Giannis coming back to the house and yelling at Robert about the loss. Robert was in the middle of showing his teammate a ground strategy and no one in the vicinity knew what to do. Is Giannis serious? Joking? His tone isn’t clear. However, he then starts to break down and cry in the kitchen. Robert goes over and consoles him. It’s a tough scene, but shows just how tough losing can be on a person.
The show then begins to concentrate on the fighters who will square off during this episode. We start with a look at Kaan Ofli, who is representing Australia and is on Team Alexa. He had a tough upbringing - no money, abuse, being homeless at times, and giving up school at the age of 15. He found balance in MMA, though, and is now living and fighting out of Indonesia, where he also coaches Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He talks about how he thought the only path for him was joining the military, but luckily - his coach stopped him and has been focusing on MMA ever since the age of 18.
He’ll be facing Nathan Fletcher, out of England, on Team Valentina. Valentina talks about how Nathan is really well-rounded and we get a look at some of his Cage Warriors highlights. A lot of Cage Warrior fighters are awesome fighters, so this provides some legitimacy to Nathan. He says that he likes to look for finishes.
We then learn that Nathan has almost the complete opposite upbringing than Kaan. Nathan had a very supportive family. He trains in the same gym as Paddy Pimblett and Molly McCann. Paddy even makes an appearance on Nathan’s pre-show video segment.
Both fighters make weight. Dana White has a talking head segment where he actually hypes up the fight quite nicely. The Tale of the Tape reveals that Fletcher has a six inch reach advantage and is the younger fighter. Can he utilize those advantages?
Ofli starts off really aggressive. He lands some punches, a kick, and a takedown. Ofli keeps him down. Fletcher gets free and swings at the end, but it’s a pretty clear round for Ofli in the first.
Second round was pretty awesome. Ofli comes out aggressive again and gets Fletcher down. Ofli is looking really good, but Fletcher gets free and lands a few shots. He sets up a takedown really nicely and almost gets a standing submission at one point, but loses it with Ofli using a nice wiggle strategy. This allows Ofli to get back on top to finish the round.
The second round was indeed close, but both rounds went to Ofli, which gave him the win. Ofli looked good and will be tough. Fletcher will be ok in MMA. I think he still has a strong future. I’d like to see him get off his back heel more and move forward instead of back.
Next week is the postponed fight from two weeks ago - Middleweights Omran Chaaban from Team Alexa vs. Shamidkhan Magomedov from Team Valentina.
What did you think of Kaan Ofli’s performance? Who do you have winning between Chaaban and Magomedov? Let me know at matt.tenhoeve@gmail.com. I’ll be back next week to talk about Episode 4. See you then!
