The Contender Season 4 Finale
MGM Foxwoods Casino, Connecticut
25th February 2009

Rico Hoye (22-3) vs. Akinyemi “AK” Laleye (12-2)
The live broadcast opened with Rico Hoye taking on Akinyemi “AK” Laleye over eight rounds in the Bronze medal match. AK started off fast, closing down Rico, and throwing a lot of powerful shots on the inside. He looked to be the far more confident of the two in the early going, but the momentum quickly switched when Hoye hurt Laleye with a hard shot to the body late in the second round. It appeared to knock a lot of the fight out of AK. His work rate dropped after that and it never really recovered. He continued to press forward, but was throwing fewer punches, and Rico was able to outwork him at close range.

Hoye came close to finishing it with a big flurry of shots in the 4th round. Laleye was blocking a lot of the punches, but nothing was coming back from him. He lay against the ropes under consistent pressure from Hoye. The Referee took a very close look, but AK did just enough to keep himself in the fight.
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The live finale is next week so this is the last regular episode of this seasons Contender. We have our two semifinal match ups as Troy faces off against AK in the first bout, while Hino squares off with Rico in the second.

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This week on The Contender we have the two remaining quarter final match ups. Hino faces off against Deon in the first bout, while Rico will compete with Joell for the last spot in the semifinals.

All the members of the blue team have now been eliminated, and the gold team is left alone in the house to celebrate their victory. Rico is particularly happy that Alfredo is gone due to the animosity that was beginning to develop between them.

At training, Joell was much improved and he looks to be getting back into fighting shape just in time for his match.
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Troy has established himself as the man to beat with two impressive knock outs in his first two fights. Tommy Brooks tells him that this tournament is now his for the taking. The pressure is now really on for the other contenders, particularly AK and Alfredo – one of whom will go on to fight Troy in the next round. The Blue team is now down to only two remaining fighters Alfredo and Ryan. Ryan still has to be assessed by the doctor before being cleared to compete in the next round.
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This week on The Contender we have our first Quarter Final match up as Felix takes on Troy.

Ryan is pretty beat up after his fight last week. He is taken to the hospital to get his cut attended to. He has to get stitches, and they tease that he may not be healed in time for his next fight.
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This week we have the final two first round match ups. The gold team is up 4-2 thus far, winning four straight after having suffered back to back defeats at the start of the series.

The blue team is demoralized after yet another loss. The pressure is on Ryan and Mike to turn the ship around. Tommy Brooks teases John about letting his early lead slip.
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