The Ultimate Fighter 19, episode 3 recap: Spohn defeats Monaghan; Tensions rise in the house

Episode three of The Ultimate Fighter began with a look at some of the rising tensions in the fighters' house.

Cathal Pendred of Team Penn, went up to the man he defeated during episode two, Hector Urbina of Team Edgar and asked him how it felt to get back inside the cage again. Urbina told him it felt good to have another fight. Pendred then thanked Urbina for the fight.

Despite Pendred's seemingly positive comments, Urbina felt as though Pendred was slyly rubbing it in that he won the fight between the two. Urbina even asked his teammates if he should shank Pendred.

After that little dust up, we get right into the training sessions. Frankie Edgar brought in a special guest for his team to learn from in the form of the legendary Renzo Gracie.

Team Edgar raved about the tips and techniques Gracie passed along while he was training with them. Over at Team Penn, B.J. Penn didn't bring in any special guests, but did implore his students to relax, especially Daniel Spohn, who was fighting against Todd Monaghan at the end of the episode.

The episode then shifted to the two combatants and their respective backgrounds. First up was Monaghan.

Monaghan is a devout Christian and is on his way to becoming a preacher. He had the idea to bring the good word to the house and hold some sort of sermon every Sunday.

During the sermon, Monaghan (black) explained where he came from, which was an adopted white family. He then talked about how he was picked on when he was a kid and how that led to him to getting into fights and eventually dealing in illegal activities.

Monaghan eventually turned his life around with the help of religion, but almost seemed to brag about the prized possessions he has accumulated in the name of god, including a new Jaguar.

Although Monaghan seemed sincere while speaking, Pendred made no bones about the fact that he did not buy into his message and talked about it with Team Penn while the fighters were their way to a practice.

Pendred took offense to Monaghan talking about the things he possesses and believes he should give away some of his money to the less fortunate.

After that interesting series of events, the focus shifted to Spohn, who knocked out his opponent to get into the house. His performance in that fight and in the training sessions that followed prompted Penn to select Spohn as one of his favorites.

Edgar, on the other hand, wasn't quite as confident in Monaghan as Penn was in Spohn. That was mainly due to Monaghan's tendency to make technical mistakes and his unorthodox style of fighting. Edgar believes Managhan has potential, but needs to clean up the unnecessary mistakes.

The episodes then shifted back to the house where Pendred was able to land some mats to roll around on for the house whenever members of Team Penn wanted to get some extra work. After rolling around on the mats a little, Spohn shared some of his kung-fu techniques with his teammates.

Meanwhile, members of Team Edgar gathered around a fire to talk about the upcoming fight. The team talked about how much confidence comes into play when preparing for a fight.

The team essentially agreed that Monaghan was walking into the fight a little too confident in his striking, and hadn't prepared enough for if his plan goes awry. Corey Anderson was the main proponent of this sentiment and brought it up to Monaghan when he joined the rest of his teammates.

Anderson asked Monaghan if he had a backup plan. Monaghan's answer pretty much confirmed the feeling the rest of his team had.

From here, we went right into fight day, as Monaghan and Spohn made their last-minute preparations. Monaghan warmed up for the fight in an aggressive fashion, as he worked on his strikes whereas Spohn was quietly on his knees throwing punches.

Once the fight began, Spohn wasted little time in taking Monaghan to the ground despite taking a solid punch from him. Once Spohn had Monaghan down, he opted not to use his punching power to finish his opponent, but did pretty much nothing instead.

Monaghan was able to mount a little bit of offense, but he spent most of the first round on his back and lost the round to Spohn as a result.

The second round was more of the same as Spohn would put Monaghan on the mat and essentially kept him bay. The second horn rang and that was it. The fight went by without anything eventful happening.

Spohn was declared the winner by unanimous decision and won his team the right to choose the next fight.

Before Team Penn did that, UFC president Dana White absolutely buried the Spohn-Monaghan fight. He called it boring and admonished both men for not only lacking action, but also failing to listen to their corners.

After White gave the fight a tongue lashing, Team Penn announced that the next fight would pit Millville, N.J. native Tim Williams of Team Penn against Dhiego Lima of Team Edgar.