It stands as the seminal, pivotal fight in the history of the UFC. But there was no belt on the line, and it wasn’t on pay-per-view. It was on a network that no longer exists. The winner is now 45. The other fighter—there was, Dana White rightly noted at the time, no loser—has since, tragically, passed away.
But this fight lives on.
In the spring of 2005, the UFC was like a gassed fighter, stuck in a bad position and sucking in air. The promotion was losing money. Dismissed as barbaric, the sport was not legal in most states. Some of the same distributors that were fine airing pornography, drew the line at televising two dudes (there were no female fighters then) swapping punches and kicks and plasma inside a cage.
Mostly through White’s force of personality, the now defunct Spike TV network, hungry for a young male audience, agreed to partner on a reality show. A cross between The Real World and Fight Club, The Ultimate Fighter (shorthanded TUF) transformed a Las Vegas house into a kennel of alpha dogs, aspiring mixed martial arts fighters. The show encompassed a tournament, pitting housemate-against-housemate. The winners would receive a six-figure UFC contract.
Over the course of the season—the first of 31 and counting—the audience grew with each episode. Turns out, compelling fights plus compelling characters made for good television. Then the finale: On April 9, 2005, Spike aired the winner-take-all bout between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar.
Their bios alone shattered the myth the MMA was for goons leaving the drunk tank. Bonnar had wrestled at Purdue. Griffin had graduated from the University of Georgia and was working as a policeman. Then, for three five-minute rounds they turned in a classic of a fight. Swaying momentum. A wide variety of skills. Durability. Blood.
Griffin won a unanimous decision. But White gave both fighters UFC contracts. As he should have. In fifteen minutes, mixed martial arts had not only captivated the TUF audience, but it had been demystified—right there on basic cable TV—for all to see. And millions did.
Two decades later, the UFC is barely recognizable. The promotion that sold for $2 million at the turn of the century is now worth in excess of $10 billion. The sport—and it is now indisputably seen as a sport—is legal in all 50 states. Cards are held worldwide. The UFC’s next rights deal may or may not remain with ESPN but it is almost certain to attract a streamer as well.
As for TUF, it is thoroughly recognizable. Same premise. Same vehicle for attracting young male viewers. Same track record of minting future UFC fighters and champs (15 and counting.) The new season debuts Tuesday, May 27, on ESPN 2, ESPN+ and ESPN Deportes.
The two coaches are among the more prominent figures in the UFC cosmos. Daniel Cormier, former UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champ. And Chael Sonnen, a former UFC middleweight and light heavyweight title challenger. Last week in New York, Sports Illustrated caught up with them in advance of the season:
Sports Illustrated: So you guys watched the first season?
Daniel Cormier: I did. The final fight was the one that I remember. Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin, fighting at the Palm. Huh. That’s the one that I remember from that.
Chael Sonnen: Every Monday. I was so excited. I had two or three [Team Quest] teammates on it. So we would try to crack them every day at practice. Who wins tonight? Who fights? What happens? And no one would say a word. You could not get it outta any of them. And it did make it fun. Every Monday we’d go watch that and it was a blast.
SI: Tell me about the conceit, the team aspect in this fiercely individual sport….
Sonnen: What’s that word you say?
SI: Conceit?
CS: What’s that mean?
SI: Like, premise.
CS: Never heard it used in that context. Daniel, tell me about the conceit.
DC: I love the team aspect to this, but I also love how it shifts. If one team has great success, then that team dynamic starts to break down.
CS: Mmm-hmmm
DC: That’s life’s mess….So for us it’s perfect. We want them all to build this relationship. And then when you see, oh my God, these two guys are on a collision course, you start to see the dynamic shift in that team. And that’s, that’s the best for me. ‘Cause there’s gotta be something…. The fighters that go on the show are more professional than they’ve ever been. They’re not drinking beer and fighting and doing crazy shit no more, sadly. But you want to have something that draws in the general fan, and I think you have that whenever those teams start to fall apart. And we had some of that this year.
SI: Did the results conform with what you thought they’d be?
DC There were some good fights.
CS: Yeah. It generally goes that way, though, because it’s such a morale thing. Like the guys that come in kind of simpler as opposed to the alpha male on Day 1? On all the ultimate fighters that I’ve watched or have been part of there’s just kind of a shift about two to three weeks in.
DC: It’s hard because we evaluate these kids, it’s an hour and a half. So you’re basing your picks on an hour and a half of training, you get 45 minutes, sorry, with one half of the people, and you get 45 minutes with the other half. And then you start to pick a team based on those observations. Once you’re done, you go, well, this guy right here is the best. I mean, he is sparring, right? Or you might hold the pads for me. Like, wow, he’s really good. Then when you get him on your team and the competition actually starts, maybe he’s not as good. He was good in that moment. But you don’t have much time to truly evaluate ‘em. It’s all guessing, actually.
SI: To what extent did you have to play camp counselor? How do you find that sweet spot between you wanting to tease out the best in these guys, but you also can’t have them fighting over the remote.
DC: There’s no TV or anything.
CS: They bore them to death. No internet. They bore them. No newspapers, no conversations.
DC: You start hating the guy you live with for a month. I was a senior in college at Oklahoma State. I was living by myself and I go, God, I’m really dying here. My cousin, who’s my best friend, wasn’t really doing anything. He had stopped going to school. He goes, I’ll come and stay the second semester with you. I had a studio apartment with one of those murphy beds. A month in, I could not stand him. I was like, he’s my best friend in the world. Like, I can’t stand this f---ing guy, man. It’s like now you’re doing that with people that you have to fight.
CS: I don’t know how they do it. Eleven different countries, eight different languages. Like that’s a lot to deal with in under one roof.
SI: You can’t obviously talk about results, right?
Both: No, we can’t.
SI: But was there like a sleeper? A guy like Diego Sanchez that first season, one charismatic guy you’d tell us to keep our eyes on?
DC: There was a guy on the show, he was part of this team called The Fighting Nerds. Yep. They’re very good. They’re a very good team right now in MMA. They have this gimmick where they get in the ring after they win, they put on these glasses, they’re black with some tape in the middle…He was a part of that team, and he was so arrogant. Brazilian guy, cocky Playboy. They called him Playboy because his parents are wealthy. And they give him a stipend to make sure he’s living a big life still. It’s awesome.
CS: Like you would hear about a fighter whose parents were rich and funded his fighting.
DC: You need to have that edge.
SI: You think?
DC: Oh yeah. I always say, a little hunger. There has to be something that guides you, right? You want the guy that became an All-American, but he wasn’t a national champion, and he’s like, I should have won. I still got that chip on my shoulder. …For all that I accomplished, I didn’t get to wrestle my last Olympic Games. I left the sport that I love more than anything in a negative light. This guy went to the Olympics, doesn’t get to wrestle ‘cause he cut weight so horribly, he ends up on a hospital bed.
SI: What’s your chip?
CS: It was something like that, man. Yeah. I never got what I wanted, either.
I knew some guys, the guys that I like, looked up to, they’d be four time state champions, undefeated national champions. But they all had one thing in common, which is their athletic careers were over by 27 years old. They had enough. And I never had enough. I was hungry, wanted more or get so close, but not quite. Just gotta try one for one more season. And that did help too. My career got long because of that.
SI: What do you do when a guy loses?
DC: I scream at him. Chael’s very understanding.
SI: What do you say?
DC: Lot of bad stuff. Especially if, if they don’t give great effort, I let ‘em have it. Man, that’s the thing. If they don’t give great effort, I let ‘em have it because ultimately you gave away everything to be here, right? … It’s like you shouldn’t go home feeling like, man, what if I could have done more? That’s what pisses me off. You can lose and you know I couldn’t get him. I did everything I could and he was just a little better than me. I’ve had to face that fact so many times. Cael Sanderson. In college, I tried everything. Jon Jones. I tried everything.
If a person doesn’t do that, it’s hard to watch. When they go back and watch, they’re gonna realize how they didn’t give themself a chance. Yeah, that s--- sucks.
SI: I know no spoilers. But if you’re watching this season, what are some things you can wink for us to look for?
DC: Weight cutting is a big story in this season.
CS: High-level fights and rivalries. There’s a couple real rivalries in this season that get answered and they’re fun. And blood. Let me just tell you: blood.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as What to Expect From the New Season of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’.
