The 25 Tuffest Moments of all Time
The Ultimate Fighter, UFC's reality show, has been a boon to the organization, and also to Mixed Martial Arts as a whole. I'm not a huge fan of reality shows, although I gotta admit, sometimes they're like a train wreck, you just have to look. Also, I've only seen maybe one full season of TUF, but for all you readers out there, I figured I'd watch "The 25 Tuffest Moments of all Time," or, if you're Dana White, it would be "of all times," like he said when hyping the Matt Hughes-Royce Gracie fight.
The Ultimate Fighter seems to follow the formula of other reality shows - stick a bunch of people from diverse backgrounds in one house and make them compete against each other. The result is insanity and profanity -- oh, and booze too -- probably the root cause of the first two. The catch is, unlike most reality shows, these guys can kick ass.
Anyway, The 25 Tuffest Moments opens with the comedy team of Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar, finalists in the LHW division of the first TUF season, who will host the countdown.
25 - TUF 1 - Chris Leben gets drunk and pees on "some Canadian's" pillow. Leben clarifies: "spritzed and rubbed it all over."
24 - TUF 4 - Shonie Carter telling Jorge Rivera over and over and over that he doesn't give a f---. It started because Carter was fighting someone from his own camp and didn't want to be around him, so he hitched a ride with the opposing team, which they had a problem with.
Bonnar comments, "I didn't really get the gist of his speech. Did Shonie give a f---?"
23 - TUF 3 - Mikey Burnett busts several huge holes in a wall by running into it repeatedly. The wall hits back, as soon Burnett has a good-sized gash on his nose.
22 - TUF 3 - Michael Bisping goes on a drunken rant, crying about Tito Ortiz showing favoritism to matt Hammil over him.
21 - TUF 3 - Hammil finds out a doctor has said he can't fight. He's heartbroken and pleads with Tito to let him fight. The guy's a warrior.
20 - TUF 4 - Edwin Dewees vs. Gideon Ray, known as the bloodiest fight on TUF. Dewees gets a cut on his forehead and pours blood. The thing is, he's on top of Ray, and his blood is getting in Ray's eyes and mouth. Despite the blood, Dewees pushes the fight and ends up winning the decision. "I think that fight should've been stopped," Ray says afterwards. Well, of course you do, you would've won then. But the thing is, by the end of the fight, the cut on Dewees' forehead had closed up. Go figure.
19 - TUF 3 - More drinking fun. Bisping and Mike Nickels decide they're going to shave off the eyebrows of a passed-out fighter. Didn't catch the guy's name, sorry ...
18 - TUF 3 - Tait Fletcher complains to coach Ken Shamrock about light sparring turning into hard-hitting, worried that people are getting beat up in practice and that it might hurt their performances in fights. Shamrock takes offense and yells at Fletcher.
17 - TUF 4 - Marc Laimon, one of the best jiu-jitsu guys around, but not an MMA fighter, disses Royce Gracie in front of Matt Serra, who used to train with the Gracies. Serra says Laimon shouldn't say anything about Gracie because he has never fought MMA. "You're like an expert swimmer who never got in the pool." Laimon was owned and looked dejected after that one.
16 - TUF 5 - Nate Diaz and Karo Parysian nearly have a brawl. Over what, I'm not sure. It seemed like it started out as a playful thing, but they got serious quick and had to be broken up.
15 - TUF 2 - As part of a challenge, Joe Stevenson crawls around Mike Whitehead as the bigger fighter just stands there. Joe Daddy makes 204 revolutions, taunting the opposition in Jorge Gurgel, who is waiting to go next, all the while. When Stevenson and Whitehead finish, coach Rich Franklin forfeits, deciding to keep his fighters fresh. Gurgel is pisssssed.
14 - TUF 3 - With Hammil hurt, Dana White needs to call back an eliminated fighter. He calls two guys back, but they turn him down. Then he calls Ross Pointon, who jumps at it.
13 - TUF 5 - Gabe Rudiger trying to cut weight. He packs on the clothes while pedaling on a bike inside a sauna, whining all the while. He ends up naked poolside, and later gets carted off by EMTs. Castmates call him a "douche bag" and a "pain in the ass."
12 - TUF 1 - More weight cutting fun. Bobby Southworth rolls around on the ground while Chuck Liddell and Josh Koscheck try to motivate him. Leben says later: "He sure was a wussy going through with it."
11 - TUF 3 - Noah Inhofer is threatening to leave if he can't make a phone call to his girlfriend. Dana White says no, and shows Inhofer the door. "When I watch that clip today, it makes me sick to my stomach," White said. "I seriously have never seen anything so pathetic in my life."
10 - TUF 2 - Sammy Morgan and Luke Cummo fight. They were teammates, so most believe it made for a better fight, since they knew each other's games. Cummo wins by TKO, Morgan cries afterwards, but White defends him, saying that most people don't understand the sacrifices these guys make.
9 - TUF 5 - Coaches Jens Pulver vs. BJ Penn in a ping-pong match. Winner takes home a brick of money, $10,000, plus each team member gets $1,000. Pulver wins.
Forrest comments, "I want to always be paid in bricks of cash."
8 - TUF 2 - Matt Hughes criticizes Rashad Evans for doing a goofy dance while fighting Tom Murphy. Hughes calls it "being an idiot" and "showboating."
7 - TUF 3 - Tito pushes Shamrock's buttons, prompting Ken to call Tito "a monkey."
6 - TUF 4 - In the finale, Pete Sell and Scott Smith go at it toe-to-toe, slapping each other high-five in the middle of the fight. In the finish, Sell hits Smith with a liver shot that doubles him over, but then Smith cracks a right cross that sends Sell to the canvas.
5 - TUF 5 - Marlon Sims and Noah Thomas get mad at each other and have what is known as the most-technical brawl ever.
4 - TUF 5 - Penn tries to stage a coup. He can only choose one team member, but calls for a show of hands of all the guys who want to be with him and reject Pulver. White has none of it.
3 - TUF 1 - Southworth and Koscheck use a garden hose on Leben after he decided to sleep outside. Leben gets mad, breaks down a door, throws stuff around. Leben holds back, even though he wanted to punch Southworth. "Where's Bobby at nowadays? Anybody know?" Leben says.
2 - TUF 1 - White's now infamous line: "Do you want to be a f------ fighter?"
1 - TUF 1 - In the finale, Griffin and Bonnar have a war that White calls "the single most important fight in UFC history." It ended the first season with a gigantic exclamation point and scored huge ratings, which picked up halfway through the fight as news of a barn-burner on TV spread, White said.
