Herb Dean’s call to stop, review and restart the semifinal between Xavier Franklin and Illimbek Akylbek Uulu became the defining moment of Episode 10 of The Ultimate Fighter 34. With Franklin appearing to have the momentum and likely needing a stoppage heading into round three, the intervention changed the rhythm of the fight at the exact point where pressure was building.
The bout had already been shaped by small but important margins. During round two, Dean broke up a clinch along the fence and reset the fighters at center just moments before the horn. Then, in round three, Illimbek Akylbek Uulu bent over and indicated an eye poke, leading Dean to call for a video review before the fight was restarted after the ruling.
Herb Dean: the restart that changed the bout
In a semifinal, every reset matters. That is especially true when one fighter has the sense that time is slipping away and a finish is becoming the only realistic route through.
Franklin’s corner made that urgency plain, telling him: “you need a finish!” That line captured the state of the contest as the fight moved into the third round. The restart after the eye poke did not just pause the action; it interrupted a moment when Franklin may have needed to force the issue.
The sequence also underlined the role of the referee in a fight where the stakes were already high. Once Dean ruled there had been an eye poke, he did what the moment required and sent it to video review before restarting the bout. In a competition like this, those decisions can feel even bigger because there is no room to recover later.
The Ultimate Fighter 34 remains as much about relationships as results
The week leading into Episode 10 had already highlighted the unusual atmosphere of the series. During the week off before the episode, Daniel Cormier took his team mini-golfing, and he described the wider purpose of the show by saying: “This competition is about more than just fighting. It’s about the relationships that you build and you foster over these moments, that will last a lifetime,”
Michael Bisping, meanwhile, told both of his fighters he was only doing general coaching to keep things fair, saying he was “not running specific game plans, just doing general coaching, to keep it fair.” That detail matters because it shows how carefully the episode balanced competition and coaching as the semifinal pressure rose.
By the time the eye-poke review arrived, the fight had become less about steady accumulation and more about control of momentum. Herb Dean’s restart put the spotlight back on the contest itself, but it also reminded everyone how fragile momentum can be in a semifinal. For Xavier Franklin and Illimbek Akylbek Uulu, the next exchange mattered more because the previous one had already been disrupted.
The restart did not settle the fight by itself, but it did reset the terms. In a bout where Franklin likely needed a stoppage, that was a major development.
