Was the TUF 1 Finale that Important

[The Bard]

TUF 1 was a shot in the dark. Will it work? Will it be canceled after one season?

It was UFC's first foray into the mainstream. Prior to that time, the UFC was a $2 million company (e.g. pretty much any successful doctor or lawyer in the country could have gotten together with a friend and bought it just for fun). Had it failed, it may have been UFC's last and only foray. It didn't fail. It succeeded spectacularly.

UFC sold for $4 billion dollars this month. A lot of things have happened since TUF 1, but nothing bigger and better-timed than Griffin v. Bonnar. That fight was the big push that got the snowball rolling downhill.

 

[thetruth2709]

I think I heard Dana saying once that he was agreeing to do TUF2 with Spyke's executives at the arena right BEFORE the Bonnar/Griffin fight, the first season had been a success too, so regardless of the fight TUF 2 was going to happen and the sport was going to march on, I agree that the fight "accelerated" the rise of the UFC but the UFC was still going to be sucessful.

By the way, remember the first show on FOX, where Junior KOd Cain in mere seconds... well imagine what would have happened if Junior and Cain had put a spectacular fight on network TV similar to what Bonnar and Griffin did, where it was all over news, media, on newspapers the next day and so on.... maybe the sport now would have been 3 or 4 years of what it will be in the future. I think its a similar effect of what happened with that fight, only on the Junior/Cain case, it just "didnt happen"

 

[Lanx]

I go through Youtube and watch old fights, and tonight I revisited the Forrest vs. Stephan TUF 1 Finale, and it has commentation from Rogan, the Ferttitas, Dana and other notables, and they go on to say that this was exactly the fight that the UFC needed to get on the map. If that is the case, what would have happened if Forrest or Stephan knocked the other guy out in the first round, and we didn't get the barnburner for three rounds? I still think the UFC would get where it is at today, but maybe would take a little longer to draw in mainstream crowds. It sure was not a technical BJJ, Wrestling, Muay Thai fight, but it was entertaining!

Just think of TUF 1 as the ipod/imac of apple.

Some of you might not know, but before the imac was released in 99, Apple was on it's way out, about to be swallowed up by the PC's.

Or the iPod, Apple at this point was doing great... but launching itself into the portable digital media realm paved the way for literally world domination. (itunes, iphones, etc)

 

[JohnBergman85]

Because gsp would have made quick work out of his opponent?

Exactly! GSP was a killer back then, a far cry from what he was recently.

 

[akc814ilv]

It was very important and the ufc was brilliant in their execution.

At the time TUF came on after wwe raw. This is when raw was the #1 rated show on tv. The wrestling fans would stick around and watch TUF.

The brilliant part was that in the tuf finale they had Ken Shamrock vs Rich Franklin. Ken was still somewhat relevant then with mma fans, but with wwe fans he was still very relevant. He was coming off of a win vs Kimo, but the real mma fans knew that Rich Franklin would probably win.

So these wrestling fans follow Tuf. Even more of them tune in to see former wwe star ken shamrock in the main event of the finale.

We all know what happens. Forrest and Bonnar become stars because they have a good solid brawl that people are invested in from following them on tuf. Diego Sanchez becomes a star. Chuck and Randy become stars with the casual fans because they were the coaches. Rich Franklin beats Ken and he becomes a star.

That one season and the finale made stars of SIX different guys. Rich coached in season 2 coming off of him beating ken and then Evan Tanner for the title. The ufc still gets a few more miles out of Ken by having him coach opposite Tito in tuf 3 and having a few very profitable fights. Randy and Chuck become their two most popular fighters by a mile and set new records with some of their fights. Forrest and Diego go on to really good careers as well, with Forrest in particular becoming a very good draw for the ufc. Guys like Josh Koschek and Kenny Florian would also headline ppv's for the ufc down the road as well. Hell even Dana becomes a star.

At the time I hated TUF because I was a snobby older fan lol. In hindsight though that first season of TUF took the sport to the mainstream and the public counsciousness.

To think. It all started by the ufc piggybacking on the wwe's success, using the reality show format to get people interested in the fighters, picking the right two coaches, having legit good fighters on the show, and the digging up old Ken Shamrock to put in the main event and sacrificing him to Rich Franklin who he stood no chance against at that point in time.

They got a bit lucky but they also were pretty fuckin brilliant.