The Ultimate Fighter Season 1 Participant Assessments
Now that all the fighters from “The Ultimate Fighter” season 1 have fought someone outside the show (Diego Sanchez made his UFC debut last Saturday, defeating Brian Gassoway by brutal second round knockout), it’s time to evaluate each one’s prospects at succeeding in the world of mixed martial arts.
While I believe that only two contestants have a realistic shot at winning a championship and two others have the potential to be top contenders, expect to see practically every fighter on this list hovering around MMA for at least another year or two.
I will start from the bottom (worst) and work my way up, including only the fighters that displayed some degree of merit during the series and subsequent UFC shows;
Chris Leben:
For whatever reason, I wanted to see this dyed red hair bed wetter succeed in all his matches.
With the exception of the Jason Thacker pasting, Leben disappointed me each and every single time, demonstrating a thorough inability to defeat even the most one-dimensional and limited of opponents.
In Josh Koschek, he fought a wrestler with horrible standup and mediocre submissions, a foe that was looking to take his opponent down and nothing else. I thought Chris would expose Josh’s laughable defensive stance standing up or catch him with a blow on a leg shoot.
Nope.
Against Kenny Florian, Leben faced a passive, inexperienced MMA (record of 1-1 before entering the show!) practitioner mediocre in every aspect of fighting; submissions, wrestling, and striking. However, Florian did have a tough chin and a very good elbow shot.
That was enough to open up a geyser of blood over Leben’s entire face.
In Patrick Cote, Chris fought a guy tailor-made for even the Crippler’s limited, crude attack. (Congratulations to Joe Silva, Zuffa’s matchmaker, for finding such a guy after weeks of searching) Cote had no wrestling and submission skills to speak of, standup technique and skills of the negative variety, but impressive punching power. Surely Chris would dominate such a guy, right?
Well, Chris proved he was exactly the same as Cote, and will certainly be destroyed against any half-respectable grappler or striker in the future.
Kenny Florian:
While he isn’t horrible at any part of fighting, the Boston native isn’t proficient in anything either. He can neither box, grapple, nor submit anyone who he will be fighting henceforth in the UFC. Florian is passive and seems to fight in a state of suspended animation; wait until Diego rushes me and has me on the ground before attempting any resistance.
Much of this can be attributed to his very late start in mixed martial arts and his small number of matches, all against limited competition before being on TUF. However, I doubt Kenny will get the necessary time to slowly progress, and will be thrown to the sharks much too soon.
Stephan Bonnar:
Why do I have this guy here?
Well, for one, he is one of the easiest possible fighters to sweep on the ground; Sam Hoger survived against Bonnar and even had him in serious trouble, all because of the American Psycho’s inability to do anything against the sweep.
By itself, this problem wouldn’t be so bad. However, despite being a Golden Gloves champ, Bonnar’s standup striking is shockingly poor. It’s questionable if he even beat Bobby Southworth in this regard.
While Bonnar is one tough son-of-a-bitch with an iron chin and demonstrated impressive ability to escape submission against both Swick and Hoger, he excels in neither standup nor the ground.
Expect him to beat a lot more guys via decision before finally running into either a dangerous striker or wrestler that beats him to a pulp.
Forrest Griffin:
Griffin has some of the most polished, clean punches and knees of any fighter on The Ultimate Fighter 1 in addition to good wrestling prowess.
Griffin’s problem is that he gets hit far too easily. Even against Hoger, Forrest was absorbing high kicks that would well have knocked him out had they been thrown properly. Griffin’s fights are entertaining as hell, but that’s because he gives opponents a chance at victory through Forrest’s reckless abandonment of any semblance of defense.
Raise your hands higher, cover your chin, cover your ribs, and move around a little more!
Unlike the previous fighters, Griffin has the most correctable flaws, although I still don’t think he ever becomes a top contender.
Expect to see him in a lot of exciting, close fights against second-rate competition….like Stephen Bonnar!
Mike Swick
How could I possibly rate this guy so high? Losing to Bonnar AND Leben by stoppage?!
While I haven’t seen the Leben KO, the fight against Stephen was completely one-sided in favor of Swick, who almost got a choke and landed some flush shots before putting himself in a bad position where Bonnar executed an armbar.
However, his dismantling of the previously undefeated Alex S. and Gideon Ray was extremely impressive, as Swick showed excellent, fast, combination punching in both affairs, a quality that will carry him far against the grappler-saturated UFC middleweight division.
His failings in terms of submission defense are very correctable. Expect to see this fighter contending in the Middleweight division before too long.
Josh Koschek:
As mentioned earlier, Koschek is an excellent wrestler and little else. Were he to fight at Middleweight, he would be below Bonnar in my rankings. However, fighting in the weaker UFC Welterweight class, which has just seen the departure of Frank Trigg, and has the world’s best (BJ Penn) fighting in Pride, Josh’s future looks bright.
His wrestling style is tailor made for the vast majority of guys in this division, and I doubt anyone will expose Josh before the latter makes it to the upper echelons of the mountain.
He will be around for at least as long as Trigg, probably longer.
Nathan Quarry:
Were it not for Quarry’s advanced age (34), he would be number one on this list. Unlike every single other TUF contestant, “The Rock” has already fought very tough opposition…and won both times.
After absolutely slaughtering Lodune Sincaid in the finale of the Ultimate Fighter (lest you laugh at this, keep in mind Sincaid KO’d Trigg in auditions for the show), Quarry systematically destroyed the celebrated Shonie Carter, prior to blasting out undefeated Pete “Drago” Sell, a fighter had beaten Phil Baroni.
Quarry, while a good wrestler, (he trains for Team Quest, which has Olympic wrestling silver medallist Matt Lindland as well as Randy Couture heading its ranks) really excels standing up.
He has a stiff, solid jab, which he can back up with combinations at the appropriate moment. While Quarry’s punches are neither exceptionally fast nor as textbook as a pro boxer’s, they are still more than enough to decimate virtually anybody he will face.
Add to this Quarry’s iron chin, sterling ring movement, and footwork, which allowed Nate to dodge several murderous shots from Pete Sell and absorb a few others, and one sees a rare UFC fighter; one with excellent standup who is also immune to takedowns and submission from wrestler types.
It is worth noting that Quarry’s lone loss was via decision and occurred several years ago.
However, he is thirty-four, so he needs to make his championship push in the next few years.
Diego Sanchez:
While a little bit worse than Quarry right now, “The Nightmare” is extremely young and very capable of further improvement.
Diego is a very good wrestler, an excellent submission artist, and has an iron chin to back that up. While his punches and overall standup game are only average, that doesn’t make him a whole lot worse than many current welterweight contenders. His stamina and resilience against Josh Koschek was also very impressive, a good indicator for any tough fights Diego may have in the future.
Diego’s one problem, besides the so-so standup, are his rather risky shoots, ones that could potentially land him in trouble. Against Kenny Florian, there were several instances where if Florian had been able to kick at all from the ground, he would have knocked out Diego with a kick a la Ivan Salaverry against Joe Riggs.
Sanchez really has to watch out for this if and when he faces Georges St. Pierre, as the Canadian is absolutely lethal with his kicks and leg submissions, especially when someone attempts an over-aggressive shoot.
Nonetheless, if Diego isn’t thrown to the wolves too soon and develops his skills further, expect him to become welterweight champion, sans the return of BJ Penn to the UFC.
While I believe that only two contestants have a realistic shot at winning a championship and two others have the potential to be top contenders, expect to see practically every fighter on this list hovering around MMA for at least another year or two.
I will start from the bottom (worst) and work my way up, including only the fighters that displayed some degree of merit during the series and subsequent UFC shows;
Chris Leben:
For whatever reason, I wanted to see this dyed red hair bed wetter succeed in all his matches.
With the exception of the Jason Thacker pasting, Leben disappointed me each and every single time, demonstrating a thorough inability to defeat even the most one-dimensional and limited of opponents.
In Josh Koschek, he fought a wrestler with horrible standup and mediocre submissions, a foe that was looking to take his opponent down and nothing else. I thought Chris would expose Josh’s laughable defensive stance standing up or catch him with a blow on a leg shoot.
Nope.
Against Kenny Florian, Leben faced a passive, inexperienced MMA (record of 1-1 before entering the show!) practitioner mediocre in every aspect of fighting; submissions, wrestling, and striking. However, Florian did have a tough chin and a very good elbow shot.
That was enough to open up a geyser of blood over Leben’s entire face.
In Patrick Cote, Chris fought a guy tailor-made for even the Crippler’s limited, crude attack. (Congratulations to Joe Silva, Zuffa’s matchmaker, for finding such a guy after weeks of searching) Cote had no wrestling and submission skills to speak of, standup technique and skills of the negative variety, but impressive punching power. Surely Chris would dominate such a guy, right?
Well, Chris proved he was exactly the same as Cote, and will certainly be destroyed against any half-respectable grappler or striker in the future.
Kenny Florian:
While he isn’t horrible at any part of fighting, the Boston native isn’t proficient in anything either. He can neither box, grapple, nor submit anyone who he will be fighting henceforth in the UFC. Florian is passive and seems to fight in a state of suspended animation; wait until Diego rushes me and has me on the ground before attempting any resistance.
Much of this can be attributed to his very late start in mixed martial arts and his small number of matches, all against limited competition before being on TUF. However, I doubt Kenny will get the necessary time to slowly progress, and will be thrown to the sharks much too soon.
Stephan Bonnar:
Why do I have this guy here?
Well, for one, he is one of the easiest possible fighters to sweep on the ground; Sam Hoger survived against Bonnar and even had him in serious trouble, all because of the American Psycho’s inability to do anything against the sweep.
By itself, this problem wouldn’t be so bad. However, despite being a Golden Gloves champ, Bonnar’s standup striking is shockingly poor. It’s questionable if he even beat Bobby Southworth in this regard.
While Bonnar is one tough son-of-a-bitch with an iron chin and demonstrated impressive ability to escape submission against both Swick and Hoger, he excels in neither standup nor the ground.
Expect him to beat a lot more guys via decision before finally running into either a dangerous striker or wrestler that beats him to a pulp.
Forrest Griffin:
Griffin has some of the most polished, clean punches and knees of any fighter on The Ultimate Fighter 1 in addition to good wrestling prowess.
Griffin’s problem is that he gets hit far too easily. Even against Hoger, Forrest was absorbing high kicks that would well have knocked him out had they been thrown properly. Griffin’s fights are entertaining as hell, but that’s because he gives opponents a chance at victory through Forrest’s reckless abandonment of any semblance of defense.
Raise your hands higher, cover your chin, cover your ribs, and move around a little more!
Unlike the previous fighters, Griffin has the most correctable flaws, although I still don’t think he ever becomes a top contender.
Expect to see him in a lot of exciting, close fights against second-rate competition….like Stephen Bonnar!
Mike Swick
How could I possibly rate this guy so high? Losing to Bonnar AND Leben by stoppage?!
While I haven’t seen the Leben KO, the fight against Stephen was completely one-sided in favor of Swick, who almost got a choke and landed some flush shots before putting himself in a bad position where Bonnar executed an armbar.
However, his dismantling of the previously undefeated Alex S. and Gideon Ray was extremely impressive, as Swick showed excellent, fast, combination punching in both affairs, a quality that will carry him far against the grappler-saturated UFC middleweight division.
His failings in terms of submission defense are very correctable. Expect to see this fighter contending in the Middleweight division before too long.
Josh Koschek:
As mentioned earlier, Koschek is an excellent wrestler and little else. Were he to fight at Middleweight, he would be below Bonnar in my rankings. However, fighting in the weaker UFC Welterweight class, which has just seen the departure of Frank Trigg, and has the world’s best (BJ Penn) fighting in Pride, Josh’s future looks bright.
His wrestling style is tailor made for the vast majority of guys in this division, and I doubt anyone will expose Josh before the latter makes it to the upper echelons of the mountain.
He will be around for at least as long as Trigg, probably longer.
Nathan Quarry:
Were it not for Quarry’s advanced age (34), he would be number one on this list. Unlike every single other TUF contestant, “The Rock” has already fought very tough opposition…and won both times.
After absolutely slaughtering Lodune Sincaid in the finale of the Ultimate Fighter (lest you laugh at this, keep in mind Sincaid KO’d Trigg in auditions for the show), Quarry systematically destroyed the celebrated Shonie Carter, prior to blasting out undefeated Pete “Drago” Sell, a fighter had beaten Phil Baroni.
Quarry, while a good wrestler, (he trains for Team Quest, which has Olympic wrestling silver medallist Matt Lindland as well as Randy Couture heading its ranks) really excels standing up.
He has a stiff, solid jab, which he can back up with combinations at the appropriate moment. While Quarry’s punches are neither exceptionally fast nor as textbook as a pro boxer’s, they are still more than enough to decimate virtually anybody he will face.
Add to this Quarry’s iron chin, sterling ring movement, and footwork, which allowed Nate to dodge several murderous shots from Pete Sell and absorb a few others, and one sees a rare UFC fighter; one with excellent standup who is also immune to takedowns and submission from wrestler types.
It is worth noting that Quarry’s lone loss was via decision and occurred several years ago.
However, he is thirty-four, so he needs to make his championship push in the next few years.
Diego Sanchez:
While a little bit worse than Quarry right now, “The Nightmare” is extremely young and very capable of further improvement.
Diego is a very good wrestler, an excellent submission artist, and has an iron chin to back that up. While his punches and overall standup game are only average, that doesn’t make him a whole lot worse than many current welterweight contenders. His stamina and resilience against Josh Koschek was also very impressive, a good indicator for any tough fights Diego may have in the future.
Diego’s one problem, besides the so-so standup, are his rather risky shoots, ones that could potentially land him in trouble. Against Kenny Florian, there were several instances where if Florian had been able to kick at all from the ground, he would have knocked out Diego with a kick a la Ivan Salaverry against Joe Riggs.
Sanchez really has to watch out for this if and when he faces Georges St. Pierre, as the Canadian is absolutely lethal with his kicks and leg submissions, especially when someone attempts an over-aggressive shoot.
Nonetheless, if Diego isn’t thrown to the wolves too soon and develops his skills further, expect him to become welterweight champion, sans the return of BJ Penn to the UFC.
posted by KIMaster at
3:49 AM
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