20 Seasons of 'The Ultimate Fighter': Part I

How do you determine the “greatest?” It becomes apparent what a sticky question that is when talking about products of “The Ultimate Fighter,” and the top half of this list is a photo finish. Each of the top five fighters can make a case for the No. 1 spot, yet all have arguments that can be made against them. Bisping wasn’t the first “TUF” alum to win a UFC title, but he was the first to defend one, and his 20 UFC wins put him first among series alumni. Evans won his season tournament like a light heavyweight David embarrassing some serious heavyweight Goliaths, and can point to head-to-head supremacy. Dillashaw and Whittaker’s records are frankly superior to those of their predecessors, but the show was old by the time they came along, a lot of the magic was gone, and Dillashaw didn’t even win his season.

1. Forrest Griffin

Season 1 (Team Liddell)
Pre-TUF Record: 9-2
Post-TUF Record: 10-5
Notable Achievements: Season 1 light heavyweight winner, UFC light heavyweight champion, member of UFC Hall of Fame (modern wing), member of UFC Hall of Fame (fight wing)

Over 15 years later, the co-winner of the inaugural season is still the greatest success story to come out of “TUF.” He was the first to complete the trifecta that his successors in Seasons 2 through 4 would repeat: Win your season, win a UFC belt, get into the UFC Hall of Fame. He also completed two additional bonus steps: Retire before racking up a string of bad losses and get a job with the UFC. While it’s a close race, intangibles matter, and Griffin is a walking, talking symbol of the show’s importance in MMA history.

2. T.J. Dillashaw

Season 14 (Team Bisping)
Pre-TUF Record: 4-0
Post-TUF Record: 12-4
Notable Achievements: UFC bantamweight champion (twice)

On straight achievement, Dillashaw would be No. 1 without question. His three bantamweight title defenses across two separate reigns, numerous top-shelf wins and lack of any losses to non-elite fighters make him by far the most accomplished fighter to come out of the UFC’s flagship reality show. The arguments against him are all in the intangibles and the optics. He is the first “TUF” alum to win a UFC title without having won his season tournament, and in fact was knocked silly by John Dodson in their final. And by the time Dillashaw’s season happened, “TUF” simply didn’t matter as much; the only real surprise around Season 14 is that it produced as many good fighters as it did. While he never lost his UFC belt in the Octagon, he lost it in the testing lab, which might actually be more damaging in terms of legacy and perception. Dillashaw will have opportunities to help — or hurt — his placement on this list when he returns to action this summer after a two-year suspension by USADA.

3. Michael Bisping

Season 3 (Team Ortiz)
Pre-TUF Record: 10-0
Post-TUF Record: 20-9
Notable Achievements: Season 3 light heavyweight winner, UFC middleweight champion, member of UFC Hall of Fame (modern wing), member of UFC Hall of Fame (fight wing)

Yes, it took a string of injury withdrawals and a one-in-a-million left hook for Bisping to win UFC gold, and yes, his successful title defense was facilitated at least in part by the selection of 46-year-old Dan Henderson as challenger. So what? Winning a UFC title is incredibly hard, and defending it is even harder, as evidenced by the fact that it took 12 years for “TUF” to produce a UFC champ with even a single defense. “The Count” appeared to have settled into a career track as one of the better fighters in “TUF” history before a late-career win streak and some serendipity conspired to put the UFC strap on his mantelpiece, which changed the whole story of his career. Like Griffin and Evans, Bisping went on to pick up a UFC Hall of Fame berth and a job with the promotion.

4. Rashad Evans

Season 2 (Team Franklin)
Pre-TUF Record: 5-0
Post-TUF Record: 14-8-1
Notable Achievements: Season 2 heavyweight winner, UFC light heavyweight champion, member of UFC Hall of Fame (modern wing)

Working in Evans’ favor are head-to-head wins over Griffin and Bisping. Working against him are the brevity of his title reign, the devastating way in which he lost the belt, and the five-fight skid on which he exited the sport. Before that ugly closing stretch, however, prime Evans may have had the best résumé of anyone on this list besides Dillashaw, taking strength of schedule into account.

5. Robert Whittaker

“The Smashes” (Team Australia)
Pre-TUF Record: 9-2
Post-TUF Record: 14-3
Notable Achievements: “The Smashes” welterweight winner, UFC middleweight champion

If we’re splitting hairs — and the top five places here definitely require us to do so — Whittaker takes a tiny step back as the only one who won an interim belt, then was promoted to undisputed champ without a unification bout. Also, unfair as it may be, he has no official title defenses thanks to Yoel Romero missing weight for their rematch. The good news for “Bobby Knuckles” is that at 30, he has plenty of opportunity to rise up the list, as he is on the doorstep of a shot at regaining the title he once owned.

6. Tony Ferguson

Season 13 (Team Lesnar)
Pre-TUF Record: 10-2
Post-TUF Record: 15-4
Notable Achievements: Season 13 winner, UFC lightweight champion (interim)

Ferguson’s current three-fight slump has been tough to watch, but hasn’t actually affected his standing here too badly yet. Before his recent skid, “El Cucuy” mounted a 12-fight winning streak, characterized by complete savagery, during which it seemed the only things that could stop him were his own health, and the universe’s secret decree that we never see him fight Khabib Nurmagomedov. While his best days may be behind him at 37, he remains by far the most accomplished “TUF” alum not to have won an undisputed UFC title.

7. Diego Sanchez

Season 1 (Team Liddell)
Pre-TUF Record: 11-0
Post-TUF Record: 19-13
Notable Achievements: Season 1 middleweight winner

Like Ferguson, Sanchez’s current fortunes shouldn’t make us forget his former greatness. Some of his recent struggles have been about optics and intangibles, which is just as well, since those things form much of his legacy as well. It’s easy to forget, given Griffin’s position as the iconic face of the franchise, that Sanchez was technically the first “Ultimate Fighter,” pounding out Florian to garner that distinction fight before Griffin and Stephan Bonnar changed things forever.

8. Kenny Florian

Season 1 (Team Liddell)
Pre-TUF Record: 2-1
Post-TUF Record: 12-5
Only Florian’s head-to-head loss to Sanchez keeps him below “The Nightmare” here. One of the show’s — and the sport’s — great overachievers, he presented as a geeky non-athlete, but was one of the most lethal finishers the lightweight division had ever seen. He came up short in three attempts to win UFC gold, but his résumé might be even better than it is had he not retired for medical reasons in 2012, in or near his competitive prime.

9. Matt Serra

Season 4 (Team Mojo)
Pre-TUF Record: 8-4
Post-TUF Record: 3-3
Notable Achievements: Season 4 welterweight winner, UFC welterweight champion, member of UFC Hall of Fame

Like his immediate predecessors Griffin, Evans and Bisping, Season 4’s Serra won his season tournament, won a UFC title, made it into the UFC Hall of Fame, and went on to a job with the promotion. Competitively, however, the similarities end there. Serra had already racked up a 4-4 record in the UFC before his appearance on “TUF,” and his split decision win over Chris Lytle at the finale was contentious. Serra, of course, became immortal for his knockout of Georges St. Pierre to win the welterweight belt. While I hesitate to call it a fluke — Serra did exactly what he meant to do, and it won him the fight — the lopsided nature of the rematch seems to indicate that St. Pierre would have won the other nine times out of 10. Even with that one incredible, indelible moment, Serra was a .500 fighter after “TUF.”

10. Ryan Bader

Season 8 (Team Nogueira)
Pre-TUF Record: 7-0
Post-TUF Record: 20-6, 1 NC (15-5 UFC)
Notable Achievements: Season 8 light heavyweight winner, Bellator MMA heavyweight champion, Bellator MMA light heavyweight champion

Bader needed to buy a bigger trophy case once he landed in Bellator MMA, but he would have been on the brink of this list even if he had retired when the UFC let him go four years ago. After his dominant run through Season 8, Bader established himself as one of the top guys in what was at the time one of the toughest divisions in the UFC, and of his five Octagon losses, only the Tito Ortiz club n’ sub special was anything to be embarrassed about.

Honorable Mention: Nate Diaz, Gray Maynard, Raquel Pennington, Neil Magny, Kelvin Gastelum, Michael Chiesa, Francisco Trinaldo, Chris Lytle, Matt Hamill.

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