Which season of TUF was the most successful?

Intro: This Wednesday the ninth season of The Ultimate Fighter will debut on Spike. The Ultimate Fighter serves several purposes. Besides its position as an entertainment show (and the need to generate ratings) the show is also required to build a fan base, create exposure for future fights while simultaneously building the next generation of top tier UFC fighters.

So how do we rank which season was the most successful? With a Bill Simmons style draft of course! Ryan Harkness of fightlinker.com will be joining me to break down which season of TUF was the most successful.

First Pick by Zak Woods: The Ultimate Fighter season one, was hands down the best season and it is nearly impossible to argue against it. Eight of the shows sixteen fighters are still in the UFC, one has won a title, and one is fighting for a title this August. That is an unbelievable success rate for what is essentially amounts to a draft.

No season of the show has ever come close to over all talent and impact on the UFC. Let's just recap some of the fighters that this season produced. Forrest Griffin of course he won the LHW title, Kenny Florian is the number one contender at lightweight, Josh Koscheck is a top-5 welterweight. Diego Sanchez was a legit welterweight and has now moved down to lightweight and will most likely compete for the title with one more win. Nate Quarry and Chris Leben (when he is not taking steroids) have also become staples at middleweight. Mike Swick competed at middleweight and now looks close to becoming a top-ten welterweight. Oh yeah I forgot Stephan Bonnar. Listing these guys reminds me of the Steelers '74 draft, where they drafted four hall-of-famers with their first four picks (for football buffs that would be Lynn Swan, Jack Lambert, Mike Webster and John Stallworth).

Of course I would be remise if I didn't mention the macro-impact this season had. Besides bringing MMA to cable television, the epic three round bout between Griffin and Bonnar is cited as the single reason for the explosion of the UFC and MMA. I know I was one of those idiots running through my dorm screaming, "Holy Shit! You have to watch this, it is fucking amazing!"

The show also introduce new fans to two legends of the sport in Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture. The finale was aired on April 9th, 2005 and Liddell-Couture II occurred a week later. One could argue that if TUF-1 catapulted the sport, it also created the legends Couture and Liddell for the newly created fan base."

Ryan Harkness: Yep, I can't disagree with Zak here on choice number one. It's a no brainer: everyone watching reality television wanted to see half the contestants get their ass kicked, and the Ultimate Fighter built that into the show. As a foot in the door to get people interested in MMA, there was no better formula.

There could have been 1000 ways the first season could have sucked a thousand dicks, but the UFC managed to put together a surprisingly slick product and save their own asses in the process. Add in Forrest Griffin vs. Stephan Bonnar turning into a historic meme that changed the course of mixed martial arts forever, and how can you deny Season 1 as the undisputed champ of Ultimate Fighter seasons?

Second Pick by Ryan Harkness: The Ultimate Fighter Season 3. Where the first season brought MMA to reality television, season 3 brought reality television to MMA. Where the first two seasons relied on the fighters to stir the pot, season three introduced the concept of rival coaches. And not in that "we're rivals for the mud wrestling challenge" kind of way. Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock may or may not have really hated each other, but they rode the drama llama to the best ratings TUF would ever manage to pull. Griffin vs. Bonnar got people to check out MMA, but Ortiz vs. Shamrock was the fight that galvanized people's interests.

Season 3 might have been light on talent - when Ed Herman is considered a season success you know it wasn't a great year - but you can't deny the impact this one had on the series as a whole. Zuffa would attempt to recreate the drama of Ortiz / Shamrock several more times down the road, never quite succeeding and actually kind of ruining a lot of what made TUF great in the process. But standing on it's own, Team Shamrock vs. Team Ortiz was the perfect balance of all the elements you need to make an entertaining season of TUF.

Zak Woods: Season 3 as the second best season of TUF, I didn't see this coming. When it comes to talent I have it ranked fifth out of all the seasons. Ed Herman and Kendall Grove have been disappointments. Kalib Starnes put together an okay run but then flamed out in spectacular fashion (thank you for the website name!). The other two fighters to come out TUF-3 were Michael Bisping and Matt Hamill. (Side note: Matt Hamill beat Bisping. Sorry but I am from Ohio and I can't let this go).

However when it comes to Tito Ortiz, Ken Shamrock and the whole reality television thing I can't disagree. Besides while I might bemoan Bisping's success as invalid or aristocratic, his presence helped launch the UFC's expansion to the U.K. so on a macro-level this season was extremely important.

Third Pick by ZW: Imagine a box, now imagine me outside it, because that's where I am going with this pick.

The third best season of The Ultimate Fighter is in fact the fourth season, dubbed ‘The Comeback'.

I can see the collective eyebrows being raised but this totally makes sense for one simple reason, Matt Serra beat George St. Pierre.

The gimmick for the fourth season of TUF, was to feature former UFC fighters that would compete with the winners given a title shot in the middleweight and welterweight divisions. While the season may of been dull on the entertainment side it did provide the UFC with several fighters such as Din Thomas and Chris Lytle.

The winners of the season were Travis Lutter and Matt Serra. While Lutter squandered his title shot and made his name synonymous in MMA with the verb choke, he did provide the blueprint on how to beat Anderson Silva. Though no one has yet to follow through on it.

But the real reason why I rank this season so high has to do with the aforementioned Matt Serra upset. Without this season of TUF the UFC would never of had their version of George Mason, Appalachian State, Buster Douglas, '85 Villanova and the "Miracle on Ice". Simply put TUF 4 gave us the greatest upset in UFC and MMA history. Given that fact how can we not rank this season as huge success?

RH: I would actually qualify it as the biggest disaster ever. Travis Lutter failing to make weight for his title shot and Matt Serra beating Georges St Pierre are worst case scenarios ... the only possible outcome that could have been more terrible would have been Lutter pulling off the non-title upset (which he came close to for about 4 seconds).

From A to Z, this season was an abject disaster. Ratings wise it hurt the show so badly that it never really recovered - forget downward trending ... between 3 and 4, viewer ship was cut in half. Quality wise, it dragged the show into the gutter ... 'The Comeback' made MMA look so boring and tame that Spike started really pushing the Jackass elements of the show over the sporting elements. And debut concepts like "No coach"? Epic fail. And don't even get me started on the whole journeyman idea.

Okay, well I'm started anyways. No one wants to see a bunch of dudes who already had their chance and blew it. When your best alumni are Matt Serra and Patrick Cote, you've got issues. The rest of the 'best' that haven't been fired from the UFC long ago are Chris Lytle and Jorge Riviera.

From top to bottom, this season had turd sandwich written all over it.

Fourth Pick by RH: Season 2 is what Zak should have picked if he wasn't smoking crack. While it didn't do much to revolutionize the show concept, it makes up for that fact by producing a bevy of fighters who have made names for themselves: Rashad Evans, Keith Jardine, Joe Stevenson, Marcus Davis, Luke Cummo, Josh Burkman, Jorge Gurgel, and let's not forget Seth Petruzelli.

Watching season 2 again is trippy to the max: seeing Rashad Evans win after everyone shit on him for being the laziest, most terrible guy on the show was cool enough. Now that he's 205 champ, it's even crazier. Plus seeing everyone else back when they were young nobodies (a mere 4 years ago, but it might as well be a lifetime) is a treat. Even the team challenges are pretty cool because they were based on MMA drills.

So I dunno, maybe I just appreciate this season on a different level since rewatching it. But as far as entertainment goes, TUF 2 is almost underserved in 4th place.

ZW: I have to start off by defending my use of drugs. First of all in the words of Rick James "cocaine is a hell of a drug." Second, the whole point of TUF 4 was to give journeymen fighters a chance at a title shot. Matt Serra came through, giving MMA and the UFC its GREATEST upset of all time. That's a win in my book, even if the ratings were sub par (perhaps a validation of the Spike producers casting crazy people).

But Ryan is right Mexican crack can mess with your mind, and TUF season 2 definitely produced more talent then TUF 4. Rashad Evans sudden rise to light heavyweight champion is more than enough evidence to validate the entire season. Besides this season opened everyone up to Matt Hughes' dickitude. 

Rest of the picks after the jump...

Fifth Pick by ZW: Season 5

Besides having B.J. Penn and Jens Pulver, with their obscene hatred for each other, this season featured several promising lightweights. While some have not panned out --for instance Mannvel is now in the WEC-- the show did hit on most of the contestants. Joe Lauzon, Gray Maynard and Nate Diaz are the most prominent names to come out of this season. But the show also gave us Matt Wiman, Cole Miller, Corey Hill and Rob Emerson. If we include Manny's brief run, the fifth season hit on eight contestants out of sixteen, another fantastic job by the UFC.

There were also several memorable reality television moments, including Gabe Ruediger's tear filled breakdown. The best moment had to be Karo 'The Heat' Parisyan reminding everyone who he is and what he can do.

"DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!"

Unfortunately this strategy did not work out when his friends were giving him narcotic painkillers.

RH: I'm still not sold on if Season 5 actually yielded much talent or if the UFC simply isn't done sucking all the marketability out of the hangers-on before tossing them away. The saving grace and ultimate failure of season 5 (because now we're up to 5th pick so it's all lower end stuff) is in it's coaches. BJ Penn and Jens Pulver dislike each other, but the show never bothers to put them in more than two or three situations where they have to interact. Past that the show returns to the same formula that was used from season 1-3, but it's gotten old pretty fast.

Sixth Pick by RH: Season 8

You might think it's wacky to choose season 8 over season 7 but at least I actually watched season 8, while season 7 was so boring that I stopped caring if I saw the show or not. I don't know if TUF has jumped the shark, but season 8 was by far the most offensive, insane, disgusting, and degrading season of TUF out there. In season 1, spritzing on a pillow caused crazy drama, but season 8 sees that bed urination and raises it with semen ingestion and piss drinking. Junie Browning gives everyone in the house a taste of what it's like to be in an abusive relationship, and let's not forget the coaches. Big Nog comes across as the coolest dude in the universe, more so because he brings Al "Stankie" Stankiewicz along with him. Frank Mir is appropriately douchey, and that's exactly what I wanted out of him.

It was probably some of the trashiest product ever produced regarding the sport of mixed martial arts, and that's saying a lot. But it's entertainment value alone and it's quest to really hit rock bottom raise this season up out of last place.

ZW: I don't blame you for picking TUF 8, really all of the past three seasons of TUF have been pretty low quality on talent and entertainment. On the other hand, we do have to consider that there hasn't been enough time to really judge the talent from these seasons. But hey let's do it anyways. I will say this though, rewarding the spectacle that was Junie Browning makes me want to vomit.

Seventh Pick by ZW: Season seven.

Well we are getting to the bottom of the barrel but I just can't bring myself to pick season six here, considering that all of those fighters flamed out.

Season seven did give us C.B. Dolloway and sexual identity jokes, so that has to be a positive. Also Amir Sadollah pulled off a March Madness ‘Cinderella' victory. Too bad he has yet to fight in the Octagon due to injuries and has already dropped in weight.

Then there is good old Jesse Taylor. His fraternity antics foreshadowed the coming of Junie Browning the same way John the Baptist foretold the coming of Jesus (you have to give me points for comparing Junie to Jesus, come on!). Taylor is out of the UFC, in part because of a Casino tirade that would make Joe Pesci cringe.

I almost forgot about Tim Credeur. That tells you a lot about this season.

For a season that's real goal was to add talent to the middleweight division it didn't work out so well. But we got to see a water fight between Rampage and Forrest.

RH: Amir Sadollah is the only bright point of this season, but even then I'm expecting that Cinderella story to turn back into a pumpkin once he starts fighting UFC veterans. Past that, can you really enjoy a show that's loaded from top to bottom with people you despise? The only people with an iota of likeability were Rampage and Forrest, but they seemed like they were trying their best not to be funny throughout the entire series.

The series didn't sink to the constant levels of debauchery seen on season 8, but that just made the occasional flashes of gross stick out even more. Was this the first time I ever saw someone urinate themselves on television? Sure I've seen it in movies but this was a real person doing it for real. How good can a season be when that is the most memorable moment?

Eighth Pick by RH: The Ultimate Fighter Season 6

Here's an idea: take the annoying dude who pretty much ruined TUF4 and make him the coach of a season! What a garbage idea. People had gotten a taste of Hughes' douchery in Season 2 and then a couple of blasts during TUF4, so the UFC decided to try and squeeze a few more ounces of disaster out of Matt Serra before he fades away once again.

Not only were the coaches unlikable, but the fighters were as well. You know your show has some charisma problems when the most likable dude is an insane Armenian. And talent wise, this episode was a total failure. Even Mac Danzig, the ringer Zuffa brought in to win the show, has been struggling in the UFC lately. And the rest? Across the entire series there has never been a longer list of fighters who flamed out in shorter time. As it stands, only Mac Danzig, Ben Saunders, and Troy Mandaloniz are left over, and that's pretty pathetic.

Past it's complete lack of talent, Season 6 embodies perhaps the worst attribute of TUF, the one that is going to kill the show sooner or later: staleness. It doesn't just recycle an overdone formula, it also regurgitates Matt Hughes and Matt Serra, who's feud wasn't even all that interesting to begin with. It was a fitting end to this season that the coach fight never even happened due to a Serra back injury.

ZW: Are we going to have to do the TUF 4 thing again? I am sure my one reader is sick of it.

I completely agree that TUF 6 was a bust. The season had two goals, add more welterweight talent and set up a December fight between Hughes and Serra. The Hughes-Serra fight fell apart and the season didn't deliver on talent. There really isn't that much to say. Except that Jon Koppenhaver is sorry he ever started a myspace blog.

Any final thoughts on TUF?

RH: For all the grossness and crassness and classless behavior we're exposed to on the Ultimate Fighter, the real enemy of the show is that it's stale. Maybe this whole US vs UK thing they've got brewing will change things up a bit but I think TUF's problems go deeper than that. The format itself needs a good shake ... something that means the episodes aren't just house / training / fight over and over and over again.    

ZW: I think you hit the nail on the head. Really TUF is undergoing what all reality shows undergo, a period of staleness due to repetition. I don't blame the people at Spike and Zuffa for not trying to reinvent the wheel because they have created a valuable commodity and they don't want to risk damaging it. I do have one humble suggestion that may make the show less fraternal, allow the fighters some outside contact, in order to prevent simple cabin fever from boiling over into all out excrement warfare.