So, Ryan Hall likes them heel hooks eh?
The fights between Team Europe and Team U.S.A. got underway on episode two of The Ultimate Fighter Season 22 and the Virginia lightweight showed that he’s up there with the favourites to win the whole show with his second consecutive grappling exhibition.
Team U.S.A. coach Urijah Faber won the coin toss and selected Hall to be his first fighter to compete and pitted him against Sweden’s Frantz Slioa.
Hall needed just thirty seconds to earn his way into the TUF house after he showed unprecedented ability in the 50/50 guard before submitting Johnny Nunez by heel hook.
One more fight, one more win, one more heel hook! Ryan Hall gets it done again with a first round tap out!#TUF22 pic.twitter.com/Ou7BA0upHe
— The Ultimate Fighter (@UltimateFighter) September 17, 2015
And his bout against Slioa was pretty much a carbon copy of that.
Slioa started promisingly, keeping his range with snappy kicks and pawing with his lead hand.
But after getting fed up of the stand-up battle, Hall dove on the legs of Slioa and went straight to work on a heel hook.
While Slioa fought the submission well at the beginning, it was only a matter of time before the leg lock specialist found the proper leverage and could cinch up the heel hook, getting the tap from Slioa.
Hall’s dominant performance moves Team U.S.A. to 1-0 over Conor McGregor’s Team Europe and Urijah Faber retained control of the fight picks.
The California Kid went on to pick the inimitable Chris Gruetzemacher to take on Sascha Sharma which we will see next Thursday morning on BT Sport.
