‘The Voice’ Judges Blake Shelton and Miley Cyrus Spar Over Country Singers

The Voice coach Blake Shelton may be the king of country, but fellow mentor Miley Cyrus has dubbed herself the queen.

As she explores her own country roots in her upcoming album Younger Now, Cyrus hasn’t kept tight-lipped about the fact that she’s looking to round out her reality show team with some southern-sounding talent.

On Tuesday night’s episode of blind auditions, Shelton and Cyrus battled it out over three diverse voices — each with raw country talent.

First was Keisha Renee, who sang “I Can’t Stop Loving You” by Ray Charles and earned a four-chair turn.

The “country-pop-soul” artist had coach Jennifer Hudson throwing her notebook toward the stage to show her love, then Shelton showed “love” to Cyrus by tossing his book at her. Cyrus retaliated by throwing her book back and running over to her country rival to hit him on the back.

“This is turning into Maury Povich over here,” coach Adam Levine laughed.

“We all were gonna turn around no matter what, but I had my eye on Blake,” Cyrus told the contestant. “This is our expertise—”

Blake interrupted: “Wait a minute, did you say our?”

“Our,” Cyrus repeated. “He’s not from Nashville. I was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee.”

Ultimately, Renee chose team Shelton to begin her journey on the show.

After contestant Red Marlow caught the attention of Cyrus and Shelton for his cover of “Swingin,’” Cyrus rolled up her sleeves to brawl with her fellow coach.

“You may already have this set that you wanna go to Blake, but I’m a strong fighter. That’s why I’m sitting here in this chair,” Cyrus pitched. “And I came here to this season because I wanna bring a new face to country music. When I grew up, I sat with Waylon Jennings, I sat with Dolly Parton, I took notes. I’m here to win The Voice with a country artist and Red, you’re as country as they get.”

Shelton responded: “I’m hoping they pump some more oxygen into the room because she just sucked it all out.”

Red shared a story about meeting Shelton years ago, and the potential coach didn’t need to say much more than “Red, Red, Red, Red, Red” — lyrics to his own song “Boys ‘Round Here” — to win over the contestant.

But Tuesday night’s final singer shook up the competition.

Country rocker Ashland Craft‘s unique cover of “You Are My Sunshine” had Shelton, Cyrus and Levine on their feet to fight over the singer.

“This is about to go down,” Cyrus said. “This one might be for me and Blake,” she told Levine.

“Blake, he really is the king of country, that’s for sure, but they need a queen. And I would hope that would be me,” Cyrus said. “I want us to be this power team of these two females who aren’t scared of being the punk-rock Dolly Parton.”

“I don’t know why, if I was in your shoes, I would go, ‘Wow, maybe I’ll just experiment,’” Shelton told the contestant to shut down his fellow coaches.

But unlike the other two country brawls, Craft picked Cyrus to lead her through the next round.

Though the “Malibu” singer has a country talent on her team, here’s to hoping that these fights for southern singers don’t let up. We’re quite enjoying the twang-laden digs and punches.

Photo credit: NBC