Xavier Franklin's Buzzer-Beater KO Sparks TUF 34 Chaos and a Cormier Meltdown

Xavier Franklin knocked Micaias Urena out cold at the buzzer to end the first round, and just like that the TUF 34 coaching series between Michael Bisping and Daniel Cormier was dead even at four wins apiece heading into the semifinals. That should have been the story. Instead, the finish detonated into one of the messiest scenes the house has produced this season.

The controversy wasn't the buzzer-beating punch — it was a knee that landed a split-second earlier. Franklin says he tried to lift Urena and knee him in the head, couldn't get the angle, and caught him in the chest instead. Replay backed him up: the strike clearly connected around the chest and shoulder, nowhere near the head. That didn't stop Cormier from erupting cageside.

The Cormier Circus

By Franklin's account, what aired was the edited version. He describes bodies flooding the cage, fans in the stands trying to climb in while he talked trash, and a crowd swarming Dana White, who at one point could only ask what the hell was going on. White reportedly floated that Cormier might be 'mentally ill' for continuing to argue an illegal knee that never was. Cormier eventually conceded in a post-show clip that the knee was legal.

The wait for a decision was its own drama. With Urena still down and doctors working on him, officials reportedly floated a second round. Bisping's response, per Franklin, cut to the bone: how do you send an unconscious man back out to fight? Once the bout was finally waved off, Franklin climbed the fence and unloaded on Team Cormier — payback, he says, for pre-fight chatter from Urena's corner that the cameras never showed.

The Kitchen Beef

There's a wrinkle that makes the whole thing sting a little more. Franklin says he and Urena had a genuine heart-to-heart earlier that day — Urena opening up about his father, his country, his life. Franklin told him he hoped everyone in the house made the UFC regardless of results. Then Urena approached him in the kitchen pushing the idea that they needed to 'put on a show.' Franklin wasn't buying manufactured beef. He's a fighter, he said, not an actor, reality TV or not.

Now the bracket sets up the exact scenario Franklin dreaded. Bisping carries three bantamweights and a strawweight into the semis; Cormier has three strawweights and one bantamweight. Franklin wanted Strong — he'd targeted him since the teams were picked — and flatly refused to fight Akylbek Uulu, the housemate he calls a little brother. Predictably, the coaches booked Franklin against Uulu anyway, with Ali Osmanli drawing Strong. Franklin saw it coming, telling teammate Marlon Jones that producers love nothing more than making friends fight. Sick reality TV, he called it. He wasn't wrong.