TUF 18 Episode 11 Results and Recap: Utter Domination in Moras vs. Pena

The first women's semifinal fight goes down as Sarah Moras faces off with Julianna Pena. 

Storylines that began at the beginning of the season are beginning to wrap up, as Pena continues burning bridges while the preferential treatment of the Team Tate coaching staff grates further on the survivors. 

That ultimately distracts from what is truly at hand; two young, talented ladies are about to throw down hard. Two serious threats to win it all are coming together to knock off the other. So how do things shake out?

• I hate to keep referring back to my Guide to the TUF 18 Ladies, but it really is a great reference. On Pena, I stated, "the greatest thing she has shown in her game thus far is her grappling, which she expertly uses to maintain top position over wounded opponents. Her striking is highly unrefined, but what she lacks in technique, she compensates for with a pure desire to hurt her opponent." It played out exactly like that.
• For essentially the entire fight, Pena wrestled Moras down to the canvas, Greco-Roman style, and threw angry, ferocious, merciless ground-and-pound. While I love and regularly follow women's MMA, I rarely say "Wow, she's scary." Julianna Pena, though? I've said that about her twice now this season.
• By the end of the fight, Moras was battered as badly as her countryman Mark Hominick following his fight with Jose Aldo. That included sporting an ugly protrusion from her forehead that resulted from some scary elbows from the top.
• In spite of the loss, it's worth noting that Sarah Moras is a really good fighter. Physically, she is one of the most powerful ladies at 135 pounds. She still has a bright future in women's MMA and is somebody to follow, regardless of where she ends up after TUF.

TUF 18 Semifinals Results

Men
Chris Holdsworth	Michael Wootten
David Grant	Anthony Gutierrez
Women
Sarah Moras	Julianna Pena
Jessica Rakoczy	Raquel Pennington

(Note: Winners are in bold, losers are scratched off the list and the next competitors' names are in italics.)

More notes from Episode 11:

• There was very little Team Rousey in this episode. It makes sense, given the fact both fighters this week are from Team Tate (and next week features some Team-Rousey-on-Team-Rousey violence). Ronda herself shows up at the house to do that rips-down-the-side-of-her-shirts thing with the other ladies on the show, but there was little past that.
• Everyone still hates Julianna, except Roxanne Modafferi. 
• Speaking of Roxy, she has become Team Tate's female practice dummy, as she was seen training with both Sarah and Julianna before their fight. She caught a hard elbow from Sarah that gave her a major black eye that she will likely wear for the rest of the season.
• Team Tate, with two fighters competing against each other, divided up their coaching staff after Sarah cried over her worries that she would be left to fly solo against Julianna. It will be interesting to see how Team Rousey handles David Grant and Anthony Gutierrez facing off next week.
• Speaking of which, apparently something totally crazy is going to happen. While normally that wouldn't be something to get all that excited about, the teasers this season have actually paid off 100 percent of the time.