Wisconsin Fighter Nick Klein Earns His Spot on the Ultimate Fighter

Last night the Ultimate Fighter Season 7 debuted on Spike TV after the Kenny Florian vs. Joe Lauzon Fight Night in Broomfield, Colorado. Sun Prairie’s Nick Klein arrived at the UFC training facility in Las Vegas, Nevada with a total of 31 other fighters. What’s different than previous seasons is that this season the 16 lucky contestants will have to earn their spot on the show by fighting, which was a surprise to all of the fighters when they arrived. The fighters were given 48 hours to make the 185lb weight limit before they were matched up with opponents, the winners could stay and the losers must go home. Coaches Forrest Griffin and Quinton Jackson will then select teams after the preliminary fights are completed.

A total of eight preliminary fights were shown in the one-hour episode with the other eight airing next week. Half were shown in their entirety and half were just highlights. In last night’s episode, Nick Klein faced off against a friend of Forrest Griffin’s from Athens, Georgia by the name of Dave Mewborn, who sports a (4-0) record according to Sherdog. The whole fight was not shown but what was shown was a dominant display of jiu-jitsu by Klein. He was shown in full mount, then side control locking up an arm triangle choke, followed by full mount again. Mewborn quickly tapped out and Nick Klein earned his spot on the show.

Of the 32 fighters, here is who made the first round and will be on the show going forward:

Mike Dolce, Nick Klein, Jeremy May, Cale Yarbrough, Amir Sadollah, C.B. Dollaway, Dante Rivera, and Paul Bradley.

Here are the 8 fighters who will sent home due to losing last night:

Dave Mewborn, David Roberts, Prince Mclean, John Clarke, Steve Byrnes, David Baggett, John Wood, and Reggie Orr.

Next week these 16 fighters will battle to earn the 8 remaining spots on the show:

Matt Brown, John Hall, Patrick Schultz, Erik Charles, Daniel Cramer, Dan Simmler, Nick Rossborough, Matthew Riddle, Timothy Credeur, Luke Zachrich, Mike Marrello, Jesse Taylor, Gerald Harris, Aaron Meisner, Brandon Sene, and Jeremiah Riggs.

Wisconsin Combat Sports and our readers would like to congratulate Nick Klein on his win and will keep you posted on Nick’s progress on the show.

For more information on Nick Klein read my earlier article:

Wisconsin Fighter Nick Klein Selected for UFC’s Ultimate Fighter 7

For more photos of the fight check out the gallery at the UFC's website:

Ultimate Fighter Episode 1

This article originally appeared on Wisconsin Combat Sports on 04-03-2008.