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David

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Quick question, just incase anyone here knows. Was Jeff's punch to Spencer in the garden on the last ultimate fighter shown on the dvd release? Or is the UFC pretending it didn't happen despite showing it in the trailer? The sicko in me wants to see this.

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With the TUF finale being on tonight, here is a nice history review with lots of stats and figures.

 

Prior to the 14th and final season of The Ultimate Fighter on Spike, 210 men had flown to Las Vegas and lived in a phone-free, television-free, internet-free environment for all or parts of six weeks with the hope of winning a tournament and earning a UFC contract.

 

During that time, the idea of being selected for TUF and having your face plastered on television for a few months has come to be considered one of the fastest ways to gain instant fame and credibility as a fighter in the eyes of a mass audience.

 

For the UFC, TUF has come to be the equivalent of a major league farm team, a way to evaluate talent, bolster depth and hopefully develop a superstar or two along the way.

 

As a superstar production unit, the show has had mixed results. It began with a splash in 2005, launching the careers of Forrest Griffin, Kenny Florian, Josh Koscheck and others, but in time, competition for talent from other organizations made it more difficult to land prime talent. That's led to criticism from some who believe it no longer serves a real purpose as a feeder.

 

That debate is worth an exploration, though it's ultimately moot as the franchise will continue in a newly revamped style on its new cable home on FX in 2012. But for now, let's take a look at the first 13 seasons of TUF in stats, facts and figures (season 14 is excluded because its competitors have yet to officially fight in the octagon).

 

3

Fighters who captured a UFC title after appearing on TUF. The first to do it was Matt Serra, who beat Georges St-Pierre in an upset for the ages at UFC 69. Forrest Griffin was next, beating Quinton "Rampage" Jackson at UFC 86, and Rashad Evans was the last do do so at UFC 92, wresting the belt from Griffin.

 

10

Fighters who competed for a UFC title after appearing on TUF. Aside from Serra, Griffin and Evans, the others were Nate Quarry, Florian, Diego Sanchez, Koscheck, Joe Stevenson, Patrick Cote and Gray Maynard. Travis Lutter won a title shot against Anderson Silva but missed weight, costing himself a chance at the gold.

 

.642

The winning percentage of the season 1 cast in the UFC, by far the best mark of any of the 13 casts with official octagon experience. The next best mark comes from the season five cast. Highlighted by Gray Maynard, Nate Diaz and Joe Lauzon, that group has a collective .604 win percentage.

 

.333

The winning percentage of the season 12 cast in the UFC, the worst mark of any group. To be fair, though, that group has only had 18 combined matches, so it is a small sample size. Six of the 13 casts have losing records in the octagon.

 

425-391-2, 1 no contest

The combined record of every TUF fighter in official UFC fights.

 

8

The most fighters from one cast never to get an official UFC fight. This happened in season nine, when Santino DeFranco, Richie Whitson, Jason Pierce, Mark Miller, Jeff Lawson, Martin Stapleton, Dean Amasinger and David Faulkner all failed to ever see the octagon in a non-exhibition bout.

 

Season-by-season cast records in UFC matches

Season 1: 86-48

Season 2: 60-56-1

Season 3: 38-36

Season 4: 54-69

Season 5: 49-33-1, 1 NC

Season 6: 19-24

Season 7: 27-23

Season 8: 31-33

Season 9: 15-19

Season 10: 18-17

Season 11: 15-11

Season 12: 6-12

Season 13: 7-10

 

Most successful alumni by season

1: Forrest Griffin, 9-5, former UFC light-heavyweight champion; Josh Koscheck 14-5

2: Rashad Evans, 11-1-1, former UFC light-heavyweight champion

3: Michael Bisping, 11-3

4: Matt Serra, 9-7, former UFC welterweight champion, Chris Lytle 10-10

5: Gray Maynard, 8-1-1

6: George Sotiropoulos, 7-2

7: Amir Sadollah, 5-3; Matt Riddle, 5-3

8: Ryan Bader, 6-2; Krystzof Soszynski, 6-2

9: Ross Pearson, 4-2

10: Matt Mitrione, 5-1

11: Court McGee, 3-0

12: Jonathan Brookins, 1-1; Kyle Watson, 1-1

13: Tony Ferguson, 2-0

 

Most UFC Wins by TUF Alumni

14 - Josh Koscheck

12 - Kenny Florian

12 - Chris Leben

12 - Diego Sanchez

11 - Rashad Evans

11 - Michael Bisping

 

Most UFC Losses by TUF Alumni

10 - Chris Lytle

8 - Joe Stevenson

7 - Chris Leben

7 - Keith Jardine

7 - Jorge Rivera

7 - Matt Serra

7 - Patrick Cote

 

Fighters who didn't survive the season

Season 2: Kenny Stevens (couldn't deal with cameras), Eli Joslin (couldn't make weight)

Season 3: Noah Inhofer (returned home for girlfriend)

Season 4: Jeremy Jackson (disqualified after leaving the house after hours)

Season 5: Gabe Ruediger (disqualified after missing weight)

Season 6: Joe Scarola (returned home for girlfriend)

Season 7: Paul Bradley (sent home due to skin infection), Jesse Taylor (DQ'd due to behavior)

Season 8: Brian McLaughlin (broken nose), Karn Grigoryan (broken nose)

Season 9: Jason Pierce (Dana White decision)

Season 11: Chris Camozzi (broken jaw)

Season 13: Myles Jury (knee injury), Keon Caldwell (family reasons)

 

TUF Notes

 

Jason Thacker is one of few fighters to have his one and only pro fight in the UFC. He participated in season one, lost to Chris Leben in the finals, and never fought again.

 

Rashad Evans had the best start to a UFC career of any TUF alumni, going unbeaten in his first nine fights (8-0-1) before Lyoto Machida finally defeated him. That remains the only loss in his career.

 

Season two's Jason Von Flue may be little remembered for his UFC run, but he did find a way to make his name memorable when he tapped out Alex Karalexis with a shoulder choke from side control at The Ultimate Fighter 3 finale, a submission that had never before been seen in the UFC. The move was immediately christened "The Von Flue Choke" in his honor.

 

Season 6 alumni George Sotoripoulos won seven fights in a row without a loss or draw after appearing on TUF, the longest such stretch. Interestingly, Sotiropoulos hadn't even won his season, losing in the semifinals.

 

Season 1 alumni Kenny Florian is the only fighter in UFC history to compete in four different weight classes, starting his career at middleweight and working his way downward to welterweight, lightweight and eventually featherweight.

 

Season 6 alum Jared Rollins fought a war with Jon Koppenhaver in the finale, a bout that won Fight of the Night, but he was still cut after the loss. He never fought again.

 

Season 7's Matt Riddle and Amir Sadollah both have the distinction of having their entire careers in the UFC. Ironically, they're both 5-3.

 

Season 10's Jon Madsen might have the most legitimate gripe about being prematurely released. The heavyweight won his first four bouts in the octagon, then got let go after his first loss dropped him to 4-1. Season 7's Gerald Harris also had a similar fate, getting released following his first loss after a 3-0 start.

 

Post-UFC lives of some memorable characters

 

Sam Hoger

Accused of stealing items from his fellow cast members on season 1, Hoger went on to a 2-3 record in the UFC before being cut, although two of his losses were to decisions to eventual champions Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida. Hoger went 4-1 in his post-UFC career and now runs his own gym in Houston.

 

Corey Hill

A contestant on season five, Hill was an intriguing talent with a 6-foot-4 body somehow cutting down to lightweight. He famously (and grotesquely) broke his leg on a kick against Dale Hartt back in December 2008, and never fought in the UFC again. After over a year away from the sport, Hill returned. He's gone 2-2 since and is facing another former TUF veteran, Charlie Rader, in Florida on Friday night.

 

Tommy Speer

Speer, from season 6, showed great promise during the show, beating Jon "War Machine" Koppenhaver, Ben Saunders and George Sotirpoulos. But he lost to Mac Danzig in the finals, then was KO'd in spectacular fashion by Anthony Johnson. That marked the end of his UFC run, and he quietly retired soon after. But that retirement didn't last long, and Speer, who is still just 27 years old, has won six of his last seven during his comeback.

 

Junie Browning

Browning might win TUF's most hated castmate in a poll, nearly getting kicked off the show multiple times, but he predicted great things for himself during season 8. Browning went just 1-1 in the UFC before being released, and since then, he's gone just 1-4.

 

MMAFighting.com

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Anyone seen the video of Chael Sonnen meeting Rhonda Rousey at the World MMA Awards for the first time (its over on middleeasy)? Chael is quite the ladies man, he bagged Rousey within seconds, she was moist.

 

Good on him.

 

The video of the interview

 

Ronda's fit, I bet he dicked her. Fair play to him. And a good move for him, I dare say his triangle defence should improve tenfold :)

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Quick question, just incase anyone here knows. Was Jeff's punch to Spencer in the garden on the last ultimate fighter shown on the dvd release? Or is the UFC pretending it didn't happen despite showing it in the trailer? The sicko in me wants to see this.

 

Do you mean TUF 12 with GSP and Koscheck Kev? I've got the DVD release and it's not on there sadly. It was still shown in the trailer at the end of episode 1 like on TV but then it's never brought up or shown again for some reason.

 

Good DVD though, the extras on the TUF releases are always fun.

 

GSP's dodgy English translation in one of them was funny. When showing the fighters a technique from the guard, he said something like "make sure iz scrotim iz on the floor" to a bunch of confused faces. John Danaher pointed out his error and added "I'm glad my scrotum isn't on the fucking floor" :laugh:

 

And they show more Koscheck stuff with that 'male nurse' bloke including him actually apologizing backstage which I didn't know about. And Cody's guillotine challenge in the garden was fun.

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Here's a question for you lot, I was discussing this with my mate the other day. Let's say that you're in charge at Zuffa, and have to make the decision on how, or if, Strikeforce should continue. How would you go about it?

 

Good question.

 

I don't know if I would keep it going to be honest. I love Strikeforce but if I were running things, especially with the way things are with more and more UFC cards being added to the calender, they're gonna need more fighters. I think I'd just incorporate the fighters into the UFC and have done with it.

 

People say keep it going as a feeder org but what's the point really? Just get them in the Octagon if they lose a few, cut them and you'll end up with the best guys anyway. To keep an entire seperate company going just for that reason, I couldn't be arsed with the headache of having it seperate.

 

If they're gonna strip the company of all it's top fighters I don't see the point in keeping it going because altough there's a ton of hugely talented up and coming fighters on the cards and Challengers shows and stuff, if there's no big names to attract the viewers, these up and comers won't really get seen anyway. Get 'em in the UFC and bring them up through the prelims and Fight Nights/FX/FUEL/Versus type shows and use that as the feeder to the main cards I reckon.

 

I think it's pretty clear the only reason Strikeforce exists now is because of the Showtime deal. I think if they can come to an agreement to continue that then it would be worth keeping Strikeforce alive, but they'd need to strengthen the roster imo. If they don't continue on Showtime I think they will just pull the plug.

 

Jobs wouldn't need to be lost necessarily either because they could still use the Strikeforce announcers like Miletich, Quadros and Ranallo, backstage staff, Coker etc in the UFC. The more shows UFC adds they'll need more guys anyway.

 

The women's divison, despite Dana not being a fan, I'd keep that around exclusively on the free TV shows until there's a deeper pool of women fighters.

 

Basically to answer your question cos I've gone off on one a tad, if I was keeping Strikeforce around I'd ship some UFC fighters over, some names etc to bulk up the roster in all divisions. Then have one big card a year (New Years card or Superbowl weekend probably) with some of the top guys from each company. I'd have UFC title fights and SF title fights on that card and a couple of crossover super fights. It's a lot of pissing about though and these big fights could be made anyway if they just merged.

 

So yeah, myself I would just merge all the fighters into the UFC.

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I agree that they're probably best rid of it now. I think it draws alot of comparisons to when Vince bought WCW. Vince was never gonna put 'his stars' under the WCW name and I believe Dana will not want to do that with his fighters either. So all you'd get out of it would be a feeder promotion. If The Strikeforce brand doesn't have any 'big names' then it becomes severely weakened. May as well just amalgamate them together as one big UFC brand. Makes it easier for the casuals then too.

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Do you mean TUF 12 with GSP and Koscheck Kev? I've got the DVD release and it's not on there sadly. It was still shown in the trailer at the end of episode 1 like on TV but then it's never brought up or shown again for some reason.

 

That's the one. Thanks, and damn.

 

 

I also think they should just do away with Strikeforce.

 

I still want the idea that was floating around a few years ago to come to fruition, having regional UFC divisions and a global one. Like a UFC: UK, UFC: Canada, UFC Brazil etc.

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According to ESPN UK UFC podcast John Anik will be doing trial runs on commentary tonight and 140 with different people. He will debut on commentary officially on UFC on FX

 

He worked with Mir at the last event and is doing it with Bonnar tonight. Chances are he will be with Florian at 140.

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