Just how good are TUF coaches at selecting talent?

Some of the coaches were biased in their picks because they chose their team mates/
 
Lol what? She was already the Invicta champ and basically most of the division was on the show.

Number 1,number 2 and number 3 in the world weren't on the show...
 
Ok, here's round two of this analysis. This time, I'm going to go over the LAST picks of the coaches, to see if the coaches didn't know what they were working with until the guys proved themselves in the cage. Let's see how their last picks went. This should be exhausting, and I may not go into as much detail as before but we'll see what happens.


TUF 1
Team Couture - Jason Thacker - Cut before fighting, 0-1 in UFC
Team Liddell - Josh Rafferty - Lost in quarterfinal, 0-1 in UFC

TUF 2
Team Franklin - Brad Imes - Lost in HW finals, 3-4 in UFC
Team Hughes - Luke Cummo - Lost in WW finals, 0-3 in UFC

TUF 3
Team Ortiz - Danny Abedi - Lost elimination fight, 0-2 in UFC
Team Shamrock - Tait Fletcher - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights

TUF 4 - No Coach Picks

TUF 5
Team Pulver - Wayne Weems - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights
Team Penn - Noah Thomas - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights

TUF 6
Team Hughes - Blake Bowman - Lost elimination fight to Richie Hightower, No UFC Fights
Team Serra - Richie Hightower - Lost in quarterfinal, 0-1 in UFC

TUF 7
Team Rampage - Brandon Sene - Lost preliminary fight, No UFC Fights
Team Forrest - Luke Zachrich - Lost preliminary fight, Signed in 2014, 1-2 in UFC and still active

TUF 8
Team Nogueira:
LW - John Polakowski - Lost elimination fight, 0-1 in UFC (Nickname was Buckets of Blood)
LHW - Jules Bruchez - Lost elimination fight, 0-1 in UFC (Nickname was Cotton Mouth From The South)
Team Mir:
LW - George Roop - Lost in semifinal, 5-7 in UFC and still active
LHW - Tom Lawlor - Lost in elimination fight, 6-4 in UFC and still active

TUF 9 - No Coach Picks

TUF 10
Team Rampage - Zak Jensen - Lost preliminary fight, No UFC Fights
Team Rashad - Mike Wessel - Lost preliminary fight, 0-1 in UFC and possibly active in Bellator?

TUF 11
Team Liddell - Joseph Henle - Lost preliminary fight, No UFC Fights
Team Ortiz - Chris Camozzi - Injured and left show, 7-7 in UFC and signed and cut twice, still active in UFC

TUF 12
Team GSP - Dane Sayers - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights
Team Koscheck - Jeff Lentz - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights

TUF 13
Team Lesnar - Nordin Asrih - Lost preliminary fight, No UFC Fights
Team Dos Santos - Keon Caldwell - Left show before fighting, No UFC Fights, may be signed by WSOF?

TUF 14
Team Bisping:
BW - Josh Ferguson - Lost in quarterfinal, 0-2 in UFC
FW - Stephen Bass - Lost in quarterfinal, 0-1 in UFC
Team Miller:
BW - Roland Delorme - Lost in quarterfinal, 3-3 (1 NC) in UFC
FW - Steven Siler - Lost in quarterfinal, 5-4 in UFC

TUF 15
Team Faber - Chris Saunders - Lost in quarterfinal, 0-1 in UFC
Team Cruz - Jeremy Larsen - Lost preliminary fight, 0-3 in UFC

TUF Brazil
Team Vitor - Anistavio Medeiros - Lost elimination fight, 0-1 in UFC
Team Wanderlei - Leonardo Mafra - Lost elimination fight, Signed in 2014, 1-2 in UFC and still active

TUF 16
Team Carwin - Matt Secor - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights but signed by Bellator in 2015
Team Nelson - Julian Lane - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights, just let him bang, bro

TUF Smashes - No Coach Picks

TUF 17
Team Jones - Dylan Andrews - Lost in semifinal, 2-3 in UFC
Team Sonnen - Kelvin Gastelum - WON TUF 17, 6-1 in UFC and still active

TUF Brazil 2
Team Nogueira - Cleiton Duarte - Lost elimination fight, lost injury replacement fight, No UFC Fights
Team Werdum - Thiago Santos - Lost in quarterfinal, 3-2 in UFC and still active

TUF 18
Team Rousey:
BW - Michael Wootten - Lost in semifinal, No UFC Fights (but keep an eye on him, he's 9-0 now)
WBW - Jessica Rakoczy - Lost in finals, 0-2 in UFC
Team Tate:
BW - Tim Gorman - Injured and left show before fighting, 0-2 in UFC
WBW - Roxanne Modafferi - Lost elimination fight, 0-1 in UFC and signed to Invicta fighting this weekend on 9/12

TUF China (again, names are from wikipedia)
Team Sky Dragons:
FW - He Jianwei - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights
WW - Li Jinying - Leaves show before fighting, No UFC Fights
Team Flying Lions:
FW - Shih Liang - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights (I can't even find the dude on fight finder)
WW - Dong Xin - Won elimination fight but injured and left show, No UFC Fights

TUF Nations Canada vs Australia - No Coach Picks

TUF Brazil 3
Team Wanderlei:
MW - Ismael de Jesus - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights
HW - Antonio Branjao - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights
Team Sonnen:
MW - Guilherme Vasconcelos - Lost elimination fight, 0-1 in UFC (Loss to Luke Zachrich, another last pick) and still active
HW - Job Kleber Melo - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights

TUF 19
Team Edgar:
MW - Hector Urbina - Lost elimination fight, 1-0 in UFC and still active
LHW - Todd Monaghan - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights
Team Penn:
MW - Roger Zapata - Lost semifinal after "winning" elimination fight by Majority Draw, Signed in 2015 and fighting at UFC Fight Night 75 in UFC Debut
LHW - Chris Fields - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights (Nickname was The Housewives' Choice)

TUF Latin America - No Coach Picks

TUF 20
Team Pettis - Justine Kish - Injured and left show before fighting, making UFC debut in 2015
Team Melendez - Angela Magana - Lost preliminary fight, 0-2 UFC record, only fighter in TUF 20 cast without wikipedia page

TUF Brazil 4
Team Anderson:
BW - Bruno Silva - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights
LW - Fernando Bruno - Lost in semifinal, 0-1 in UFC and still active
Team Shogun:
BW - Giovanni Santos - Injured and left show before fighting, No UFC Fights (but he's 15-1 on a 15 fight win streak so we could see him soon)
LW - Adilson Fernandes - Lost elimination fight, No UFC Fights

TUF 21 - No Coach Picks

TUF Latin America 2 - No Coach Picks, still ongoing as of 9/15

TUF 22 - Starting tomorrow, 9/9


This was a lot quicker than before, and I'm not entirely sure why it was so much faster. Anyways, here it is. All of the LAST picks from TUF seasons. As you can see, the last picks did not have nearly as much success as the top picks, by a staggering amount.

Before I get into the TLDR, there are a couple theories I've crafted after seeing the data (I know, that's not how you're supposed to do research, by gathering data and then making a theory around that data, but whatever). My theories are:

1) In every season of TUF, there is a limited amount of resources with coaches, and therefore coaches have to decide who to spend their time with. For instance, in Season 3, the other fighters complained that Tito was spending a disproportionate amount of time with his top pick, Matt Hamill. How often did we see Tito working with Danny Abbedi? Exactly. Therefore, these last picks can conceivably get less time with the coach and may resort to having to be a training partner for a "top guy".

2) There is a certain amount of stigma and de-motivation involving being the last pick, which could be coupled with general feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. There are psychological theories about the damage done by being the last pick, especially during the developmental stages of life during the time kids would go through elementary and middle school. A fighter getting picked last could theoretically lose motivation and the will to fight, because they feel that their coach or team doesn't have any confidence in them or any expectation for them to win. For example, on Season 1, Jason Thacker was bullied by other fighters for being picked last, until he was cut from the show.

3) Alternatively, the fighters who are picked last simply have less physical or mental tools to compete at the highest level compared to the other fighters picked earlier. Perhaps the coaches can observe when a fighter doesn't have the heart that other fighters have, or their work ethic, etc. We've seen that a few times across various seasons.

These are just theories, so I'm fine if I'm way off. I'm just trying to make observations. Ok, here you go, for the people who don't want to read long stuff, here's your TLDR section.

TLDR!
1) Only ONE last pick has WON in The Ultimate Fighter: Kelvin Gastelum of TUF 17. If you watched the season, do you remember how much they kept talking about how Kelvin was the last pick?
b) Seven of the 60 fighters were injured, left the show or were cut before fighting their first TUF bout
iii) Three last picks made it to the finals and lost their fight on the respective TUF Finale card
Four) Five last picks made it to the semifinals and lost
.....) Eight last picks fought and lost in the quarterfinals
VI) 35 last picks lost their first TUF fight
seven) 27 last picks never had a professional fight in the UFC (Justine Kish is getting a fight, right Sean Shelby?)
8) Seven last picks have a .500 UFC record or above in their UFC careers

Thanks for reading!
 
I've no idea why, but i found both of these analyses really interesting, thanks for sharing them!

Thinking about it, it's probably because thinking about it, thanks to the sheer number of seasons TUF is probably THE single TV show I've watched most consistently over the last few years.
 
Some of the coaches were biased in their picks because they chose their team mates/

Yup.

Quarry and Leben were both Team Quest guys so Randy went for them...

McSweeny and Schaub were training at Jackson's MMA with Rashad...

Jury trained with Cruz at Alliance before, and after the show he made it his permanent camp...

Matt Serra picked that guy first because he was one of his students and was even the best man at his wedding...

Vitor and Mutante were besties and training partners...

Things like that definitely factor in during the picks.

As far as making the picks based on the fights to get into the house and training sessions, unless you've seen the person fight before or have trained with him or her before, it's really hard to gauge talent level based on a single fight or training session.

I remember during the Chuck/Tito season of TUF, Ortiz picked all of the guys who won their fights in the first round, while Liddell picked the guys who he saw were capable in the stamina department. Liddell also said he did his homework on the fighters and Youtubed a couple of them. Noke was a pretty known fighter at that time, having fought in EliteXC, and was my favorite to win the season, so Liddell had to have known what he was doing in going after him first.
 
This topic was raised because of Dana's statement about last picks, so I'll bumping this thread for research's sake. It's as of September 2015, so it's missing some information. I'll get to it sometime maybe.
 
TUF 20
Team Pettis - Justine Kish - Injured and left show before fighting, making UFC debut in 2015
Team Melendez - Angela Magana - Lost preliminary fight, 0-2 UFC record, only fighter in TUF 20 cast without wikipedia page
This literally saved Magana's life. She was suspected of trolling the Joanna Champion threads as well as a few others. @Homeless Infant was going to fight Magana irl. But HI doesn't fight people without a wikipedia page. Lucky break for Your Majesty.
 
Ronda was a bad coach.
Her & Edmond did not do a good job
Duke & Baszler regressed under their guidance.

People bring up that Ronda was so invested. She was invested bc she hates losing. If she was a decent coach, she would have worked with Shayna on the possibility that she was under-estimating Pena.
Well-said-gif.gif
 
She was already the Invicta champ and basically most of the division was on the show.

It could be argued that Esparza's Invicta title didn't mean as much as an Invicta title normally would mean.

Carla did not defeat a champion to become the champion. She and Claudia Gadelha were supposed to fight over which one would become the first Invicta strawweight champion. Gadelha dropped out shortly before the scheduled fight. Invicta offered Jo Jo Calderwood the chance to step as a last minute replacement for Gadelha, but she (or her coaches, as she tells it) declined. Bec Rawlings (at that time Bec Hyatt) then stepped in as the short notice replacement for Gadelha. After defeating Rawlings, Esparza never defended her Invicta title (because Gadelha dropped out of that fight as well, if I remember correctly).
 
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Hey my boy maynard only has 1 title fight loss. He drew with frankie the second time. Got KO'd the third time.


Edit:
Also Chris Beal is 2-2.
 
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Hey my boy maynard only has 1 title fight loss. He drew with frankie the second time. Got KO'd the third time.


Edit:
Also Chris Beal is 2-2.
Yeah, the reason I placed Maynard with two title losses is because since Frankie kept the belt with a draw, it was a loss for Maynard in acquiring the title.

And Beal, like several other still active fighters, may have picked up more wins/losses since I broke this down in September 2015. Like I said above, I haven't updated it since I first posted it.

Edit: or it may have been a typo. Either way.
 
If I were a TUF coach I always figured I would put way more emphasis on heart and balance (grappling and striking) than I would on hype or records. On TUF it seems to 90% be about heart.

I cringe when the first pick gets another chance because they were favored or they are friends with the coach, etc. It sounds lame but it actually pisses me off.
 
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