TUF 9

The final first-round lightweight match on this season of “The Ultimate Fighter” saw American Jason Dent, of Ohio, take advantage of exhausted Brit Jeff Lawson by rolling into an anaconda choke for the submission win. Lawson, an armbar specialist who said he had no remote chance of knocking Dent out, was competitive in taking the first round. The win put the team standings at 4-3, with Michael Bisping's U.K. squad still ahead.

A welterweight fight between Jason Pierce and David Faulkner was also in the plans, but Pierce developed a staph infection in his leg. Pierce told White he thought he could fight, but White said he could see Pierce truly didn't want to and pulled the plug. Pierce's coach, Dan Henderson, said he was better off not fighting because he would have lost. As for Faulkner, he was shown having extreme difficulty keeping his mouthpiece in during sparring due to an overactive gag reflex. He’ll see a hypnotist on next week's episode to try to solve the problem before fighting whichever U.S. welterweight replaces Pierce. The fight will be the last semifinal bout of the season, which ends with a live finale on June 20.

Last week's episode pulled a 1.1 rating for 1.5 million viewers on Spike TV, according to MMA Payout. That was identical to the previous week's episode. This week's episode did a 1.0 rating for 1.3 million viewers, according to wrestlingobserver.com.

The next season of TUF is set to begin taping June 1, according to The Wrestling Observer. Coaches have yet to be announced, but it's expected that Quinton Jackson will oppose the winner of the Evans-Machida fight.