One hell of a TUF journey!

Ogata

Ogata

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20 years ago was the debut of TUF 1 with Diego Sanchez, Forrest Griffin, Kenny Florian, Josh Koscheck, Jason Thacker, Bobby Southworth, Stephan Bonnar and of course the Cat Smasher Chris Leben as well as other fighters like Nate Quarry just to a name a few. Sadly we lost Lodune Sincaid and Stephan Bonnar.

Cant believe it, one hell of a journey. Two decades ago, MMA went mainstream. From there, we were introduced to Matt Hughes, Frank Trigg, BJ Penn, GSP, Karo Parisyan, Joe Riggs, Nick Diaz, and Matt Serra who were active in the welterweight division which was considered one of the hottest divisions at the time since Lightweight was defunct at the time.

At that time, welterweight and light heavyweight were superstar divisions.



It felt like not too long ago that I was a TUF Noob!


Man where did the time go...

EDIT:

It was Nate Quarry on Tuf not Marquardt
 
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I remember vividly watching the Griffin Bonnar finals on TV. As a fan of MMA for yrs before when mainstream media had no respect for this thing of ours....seeing them succeed in showing up like that for such a huge audience gave me all of the feels.
 
also RIP Kincaid, and Bonnar.
 
This next TUF is primed to be the worst ever
Coach’s Corner, Senile Chael vs Obeast DC
 
It was great. I remember every weds night waiting for it to come on.. (I think it was weds)
 
Gatti111 said:
Marquardt was not on TUF, that was Nate Quarry.
Click to expand...
You are correct, I edited it out. Quarry was great. He was a really solid human being. Called out even his own buddies and always stood up for fairness.
 
Ogata said:
20 years ago was the debut of TUF 1 with Diego Sanchez, Forrest Griffin, Kenny Florian, Josh Koscheck, Jason Thacker, Bobby Southworth, Stephan Bonnar and of course the Cat Smasher Chris Leben as well as other fighters like Nate Quarry just to a name a few. Sadly we lost Lodune Sincaid and Stephan Bonnar.

Cant believe it, one hell of a journey. Two decades ago, MMA went mainstream. From there, we were introduced to Matt Hughes, Frank Trigg, BJ Penn, GSP, Karo Parisyan, Joe Riggs, Nick Diaz, and Matt Serra who were active in the welterweight division which was considered one of the hottest divisions at the time since Lightweight was defunct at the time.

At that time, welterweight and light heavyweight were superstar divisions.



It felt like not too long ago that I was a TUF Noob!


Man where did the time go...

EDIT:

It was Nate Quarry on Tuf not Marquardt
Click to expand...
Forgot it was 20 years. I’ve just been watching it with my son. Back when tuf was interesting.
 
I came on here just to ask, how is the site worse again ? I just can't anymore. Half the shit is off the damn page, I'm done until it gets fixed.
 
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I remember thinking the UFC ripped off WWE and MTV on the reality show deal (apparently been 20 years, fml, but I believe Vince's show was Tough Enough, and, obviously, The Real World influenced them, also). Then TUF came on like immediately after WWE Raw, on Spike. I already wasn't a fan of Dana by that point, especially bc I knew what he looked like prior to TUF, and knew they gave him a makeover bc they didn't think the man tying everything together on a cable show should be an obviously spineless dork in a cheap suit, balding with bad teeth, it just doesn’t sell that well. He tweaked some things with his appearance not long before TUF, but that is the point where Dana truly became Dana. I didn't watch early on (though, I did ultimately watch that season in entirety), bc too busy being critical and missing SEG (and still do).

They legitimately got a top flight group for the first season, though. We didn't really know it at the time, but most of those guys would go on to have great careers, and we got a brief champ from that season. It all turned out well for them, and for Spike, the UFC and Dana.

I do sometimes wonder what it would all be like now if they hadn't hit with TUF. Maybe the UFC goes under, but MMA was already entrenched enough on the world scene that things would have turned out OK for a guy like me, bc my fandom was never really dependent on the UFC succeeding. Could have been that Zuffa sold it off the same way Semaphore did, to make a return at all, and who knows how that may have turned out. Dana overstates the importance of TUF often (I do realize its importance, relative to where we are today), like it saved the sport of MMA, but it really just saved the UFC. The sport was growing in other places at the time and would have continued existing with or without TUF, or the UFC, who still wasn't even the top MMA org when TUF blew up. Whether it saved the sport or not, it changed the landscape dramatically, and was certainly the linchpin to the UFC's ultimate successes that they enjoy today, and we might owe it to TUF that we have some of the fighters we do now, in the present, who may have watched it as kids.
 
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