The Ultimate Fighter: A Look Back

It’s hard to believe that The Ulti­mate Fighter has been grac­ing our tele­vi­sion sets on Spike TV since 2005. I credit TUF with being the show that made me a Mixed Mar­tial Arts fan. Hon­estly, I really didn’t know much about the sport before then, since obvi­ously it was not as main­stream as it has grown to be now. My knowl­edge of the UFC was sadly, only that of Ken Sham­rock and Dan Sev­ern – and that was solely based upon my being a WWE fan.

I’d like to take a look back at all of the sea­sons and refresh our mem­o­ries on what we have seen over the past five years. On top of all the MMA action, let’s not for­get things like the Coaches’ Chal­lenges, as well as all the drunken chaos and other enter­tain­ing stuff that has hap­pened in the TUF house.

Sea­son 1 — Light Heavy­weights and Mid­dleweights - Coaches Randy Cou­ture and Chuck Liddell

In the debut sea­son, we saw the teams com­pete in phys­i­cal chal­lenges, with seg­ments hosted Willa Ford (why?), to deter­mine which team would have the right to pick the fight. I think this sea­son had one of  the best crop of fight­ers –as many are still going at it today.

Team Lid­dell: Light Heavy­weights: Bobby South­worth, Sam Hoger, For­rest Grif­fin and Alex Schoe­nauer. Mid­dleweights: Diego Sanchez, Josh Koscheck, Kenny Flo­rian and Josh Rafferty.

Team Cou­ture: Light Heavy­weights: Stephan Bon­nar, Mike Swick, Lodune Sin­caid and Jason Thacker. Mid­dleweights: Nathan Quarry, Chris Leben, Alex Kar­alexis and Chris Sanford.

Result: The Light Heavy­weight finale between Bon­nar and Grif­fin is one of the most watched UFC fights ever. The knock-down, drag ‘em out spec­ta­cle that was this fight was insane! (I highly rec­om­mend  watch­ing it on youtube  it if you have never wit­nessed this epic bat­tle.) The Mid­dleweight bout saw Diego Sanchez beat­ing Kenny Flo­rian via TKO in the 1^st Round. Another great fight. (YES! cart­wheel anyone?)

Sea­son 2 - Heavy­weights and Wel­ter­weights - Coaches Matt Hughes and Rich Franklin

Randy Cou­ture hosted and designed the team chal­lenge seg­ments, which were never done again after this season.

Team Hughes: Wel­ter­weights: Joe Steven­son, Luke Cummo, Josh Burk­man and Sammy Mor­gan. Heavy­weights: Mike White­head, Dan Chris­ti­son, Rob Mac­Don­ald and Tom Mur­phy. Unas­signed: Kenny Stevens.

Team Franklin: Wel­ter­weights: Mar­cus Davis, Jorge Gurgel, Anthony Tor­res, Melvin Guil­lard. Heavy­weights: Keith Jar­dine, Seth Petruzelli, Rashad Evans and Brad Imes. Unas­signed: Kerry Schall and Eli Joslin.

Result: For the Wel­ter­weights, Joe Sev­en­son beat Luke Cummo via  unan­i­mous deci­sion. In the Heavy­weight finale bout, Rashad Evans beat Brad Imes via a split decision.

Sea­son 3 — Light Heavy­weights and Mid­dleweights - Coaches Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock

This is my per­sonal all-time favorite sea­son of this show. Tito’s coach­ing skill made me a fan of his, which I remain to this day. I loved his antics and alter­ca­tions with Sham­rock as well — as they hate each other. Clas­sic! It was also the first sea­son where non-U.S. resid­ing fight­ers were allowed on the cast.

Team Ortiz: Mid­dleweights: Mike Stine, Kendall Grove, Rory Singer and Danny Abbadi. Light Heavy­weights: Michael Bisp­ing, Noah Inhofer, Josh Haynes and Matt Hamill.

Team Sham­rock: Mid­dleweights: Kalib Starnes, Ed Her­man, Ross Pointon and Solomon Hutch­er­son. Light Heavy­weights: Jesse Forbes, Kris­t­ian Rothaer­mel, Tait Fletcher and Mike Nickels.

Result: For the Mid­dleweights, Kendall Grove won via unan­i­mous deci­sion over Ed Her­man. The Light Heavy­weight win­ner was Michael Bisp­ing, beat­ing Josh Haynes by TKO (strikes) in the 2^nd Round.

Sea­son  4: “The Come­back”- Mid­dleweights and Welterweights

Instead of hav­ing spe­cific coaches, this sea­son was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent. UFC fight­ers and train­ers acted as “advi­sors” for the cast. We got to see Randy Cou­ture, Georges St. Pierre, Chuck Lid­dell, Matt Hughes, Rich Franklin, Marc Lai­mon and Mark Del­la­Grotte all give their exper­tise to the fighters.

The cast was split into 2 Teams:

Team No Love: Mid­dleweights: Travis Lut­ter, Charles McCarthy, Gideon Ray and Jorge Rivera. Wel­ter­weights: Rich Clementi, Mikey Bur­nett, Jeremy Jack­son and Pete Spratt.

Team Mojo: Mid­dleweights: Pete Sell, Scott Smith, Patrick Coté and Edwin DeWees. Wel­ter­weights: Shonie Carter, Chris Lytle, Matt Serra and Din Thomas.

Result: The Mid­dleweight win­ner was, of course, NY’s own Matt Serra, beat­ing Chris Lytle via split deci­sion. The Wel­ter­weight win­ner was Travis Lut­ter beat­ing Oatrick Coté via arm­bar sub­mis­sion in the 1^st Round.

Sea­son 5 — Light­weights — Coaches BJ Penn and Jens Pulver

This was the first sea­son with only one weight class. Also, no one will for­get Gabe Ruediger’s bitch ass not being able to cut weight, pass­ing out and being stretchered out of the house and  Mar­lon Sims and Noah Thomas’ back­yard brawl end­ing with Sims slam­ming Thomas on his head on the con­crete. Not to for­get Nate Diaz want­ing to kill Karo Parisyan’s punk ass.

Team Penn was Gray May­nard, Matt Wiman, Gabe Ruedi­ger, Joe Lau­zon, Rob Emer­son, Andy Wang, Allen Berube and Noah Thomas.

Team Pul­ver had Corey Hill, Nate Diaz, Bran­don Melen­dez, Mar­lon Sims, Man­vel “Manny: Gam­buryan, Cole Miller, Brian Ger­aghty and Wayne Weems.

Result: The finale saw Nate Diaz beat­ing Manny Gam­buryan via an injury (he dis­lo­cated Manny’s shoul­der) at :20 of Round 2. Insane win for Nate, get­ting a lit­tle bit of ret­ri­bu­tion on Karo, since Gam­buryan is his cousin.

Sea­son 6 — Wel­ter­weights - Team Hughes vs. Team Serra

This sea­son brought back Matt Hughes for a sec­ond go ’round and Matt Serra back as coach, not cast mem­ber. Joey Scarola takes the brunt of com­edy in this one, as he vol­un­tar­ily leaves the house to be with his girl­friend, whom he misses/thinks is cheat­ing on him. Pu_ _y.

Team Hughes was Dan Bar­rera, Blake Bow­man, Mac Danzig, Paul Georgi­eff, Billy Miles, Dorian Price, Jared Rollins and Tommy Speer.

Team Serra was Matt Arroyo, Richie High­tower, John Kolosci, Jon “War Machine” Kop­pen­haver, Troy Man­dal­o­niz, Ben Saun­ders, Joey Scarola, and George Sotiropoulos.

Result: Mac Danzig wins this sea­son via sub­mis­sion (rear naked choke) in Round 1 over Tommy Speer.

Sea­son 7 — Mid­dleweights - Team Ram­page vs. Team Forrest

Ram­page shoot­ing For­rest with a net gun!!! All I have to say. Also, this is the first sea­son where we have dou­ble the num­ber of poten­tial cast mem­bers fight­ing to earn a spot in the house, a pol­icy which remains.

Team Ram­page: C.B. Doll­away, Matthew Rid­dle, Patrick Schultz, Dan Cramer, Ger­ald Har­ris, Mike Dolce, Jeremy May, Bran­don Sene, Paul Bradley.

Team For­rest : Tim Cre­deur, Amir Sadol­lah, Jesse Tay­lor, Matt Brown, Cale Yarbrough, Dante Rivera, Nick Klein, Luke Zachrich.

Result: In the finale, Amir Sadol­lah defeated C.B. Doll­away via arm­bar at 3:02 of the 1^st Round.

Sea­son 8 — Light Heavy­weights and Light­weights - Team Nogueira vs. Team Mir

Back to two weight classes for this sea­son. We saw a lot of prank­ing in the house this time around, a lot with food.

Team Nogueira — Light­weights: Rolando Del­gado, Efrain Escud­ero, Phillipe Nover, John Polakowski. Light Heavy­weights: Ryan Bader, Jules Bruchez, Kyle Kings­bury, Shane Primm.

Team Mir : Light­weights: Junie Brown­ing, Dave Kaplan, Shane Nel­son, George Roop. Light Heavy­weights: Tom Lawlor, Vinny Mag­a­l­hães, Eliot Mar­shall, Krzysztof Soszynski.

Result: In the Light Heavy­weight bout, Ryan Bader fought Vinny Mag­a­l­hães. Bader defeated Mag­a­l­hães via TKO (Punches) in Round 1. The Light­weight finale saw Escud­ero beat­ing Nover via unan­i­mous decision.

Sea­son 9 – “United States vs. United King­dom” Wel­ter­weights and Light­weights - Dan Hen­der­son / Michael Bisping

This was my lease favorite sea­son, and I hon­estly can­not remem­ber much about it. Dan Hen­der­son, in my opin­ion, has no per­son­al­ity and I was bored. I am a Bisp­ing fan, and he made some funny remarks, but over­all, I didn’t see much that they brought to coach­ing. All I remem­ber is Bisp­ing not show­ing up to someone’s fight to cor­ner him — which pissed me off.

Team United States (Hen­der­son): Light­weights: San­tino DeFranco, jason Dent, Cameron Dol­lar and Richie Whit­son. Wel­ter­weights: DaMar­ques John­son, Frank Lester, Mark Miller and Jason Pierce.

Team United King­dom (Bisp­ing): Light­weights: Jeff Law­son, Ross Pear­son, Andre Win­ner and Mar­tin Sta­ple­ton. Wel­ter­weights: Dean Amasinger, Nick Osipezak, James Wilks and David Faulkner.

Result: The Light­weight Finale saw Andre Win­ner beat  Ross Pear­son via unan­i­mous deci­sion. For the Wel­ter­weight bout, DaMar­ques John­son defeated James Wilks via sub­mis­sion (rear naked choke) in the 1st Round.

Sea­son 10: Heavy­weights– Heavy­weights - Quin­ton “Ram­page” Jack­son / Rashad Evans

This sea­son dif­fered from the past few, as the UFC and Spike TV held an open cast­ing in Seat­tle. The cast­ing called for mixed-martial artists in the Mid­dleweight, Light Heavy­weight and Heavy­weight divi­sions. The try­outs saw UFC fight­ers, IFL fight­ers, and for­mer NFL play­ers. All appli­cants were required to have a pro­fes­sional MMA record. The sea­son didn’t have an elim­i­na­tion round. Those who moved past the cast­ing were invited to Las Vegas and par­tic­i­pated in the entire sea­son. We also had Kimbo Slice enter the MMA world, some­thing we never thought would happen.

Team Rashad was James McSweeney, Bren­dan Schaub, Justin Wren, Jon Mad­sen, Roy Nel­son, Dar­rill Schoonover, Matt Mitri­one and Mike Wes­sel.  J

Team Ram­page was Kevin Fer­gu­son (Kimbo Slice), Abe Wag­ner, Demico Rogers, Wes Sims, Scott Junk, Wes Shiv­ers, Mar­cus Jones and Zak Jensen.

Result: Roy “Big Country”Nelson defeated Bren­dan Schaub via KO  at 3:45 of Round 1.

We are still wait­ing for Ram­page and Evans to face off, as do all the coaches after a sea­son. Their highly antic­i­pated fight is sched­uled for UFC 114, which is being held on May 29, 2010.

What has your favorite sea­son been? Any fond mem­o­ries? Who do you think has been the best fighter to come­out of any of these years? Hit up the com­ment sec­tion and let us know. I will post your favorite moments at a later date for all to enjoy.

Andrea

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