20. Season 9: Team US vs. Team UK
Premiered April 1, 2009Top Alumni: Ross Pearson, DaMarques Johnson, Andre Winner
Fighters with 10 or More UFC Bouts: 2
It’s fitting that the first gimmicky country-versus-country season of “TUF” debuted on April Fools’ Day. Through the first 20 seasons of the show, it simply doesn’t get any worse. The episodes, the fights and above all, the talent, were lacking. Season 9 produced two fighters who managed 10 or more fights in the UFC, and none who ended their careers with a winning record in the Octagon. That’s slightly unfair to Pearson, who is below .500 in the UFC only because of an all-time robbery by the judges in his fight with Diego Sanchez. However, whether you think of Pearson as 12-13 or 13-12, we’re still talking about hanging an entire season of “TUF” on a…pretty good action fighter and fringe contender. Beyond Pearson, the Season 9 cast goes over a cliff quickly. In fact, you can argue that the second best success story from the season was Team US’ Santino Defranco, who never fought professionally again, but has gone on to become a highly respected coach. Even the coaches’ fight at UFC 100, where Dan Henderson put the “US vs. UK” question to bed for good, couldn’t redeem this stinker.
19. Season 12: Team GSP vs. Team Koscheck
Premiered Sept. 15, 2010Top Alumni: Michael Johnson, Alex Caceres, Jonathan Brookins
Fighters with 10 or More UFC Bouts: 2
The good news is that unlike Seasons 9 and 13, which are carried by a single fighter, Season 12 had two standouts. The bad news is that they are Johnson and Caceres; in other words, a chronically underachieving fighter with more losses than wins — even if some of those wins are super-elite — and a fun undercard guy with a gimmick who finally seems to be turning a corner in his 30s. Everything about Season 12 is dismal, from the awkward in-show banter to the horrible coaches’ fight, but above all, there’s the talent level. If it isn’t bad enough that Brookins and his 5-7 post-“TUF” record are the third most accomplished product of Season 12, consider that No. 4 is Cody McKenzie, and eight of the 10 guys behind him never won a single fight in the Octagon.
18. Season 6: Team Hughes vs. Team Serra
Premiered Sept. 19, 2007Top Alumni: George Sotiropoulos, Ben Saunders, Mac Danzig
Fighters with 10 or More UFC Bouts: 3
Season 6 was an aberration, the first truly awful batch of the bunch after a largely triumphant first couple of years of “TUF.” It was the season so full of weirdness and whining that Dana White changed the show's format so that fighters would have to win their way into the house on subsequent seasons. There were bright spots: Sotiropoulos was the most accomplished fighter from the cast, entering the Top 10 and becoming arguably Australia’s greatest mixed martial artist until Robert Whittaker came along. After that, there was muay Thai wrecking machine Saunders, there was MMA’s greatest vegan photographer Pride Fighting Championships veteran Danzig and…13 guys who accounted for a total of three UFC wins among them. It was absolutely hideous, and not helped by the fact that Season 6 also gave us the worst No. 1 draft pick in series history, Joe Scarola, and one of the worst people in MMA history, War Machine. Bury this season at the bottom of the ocean.
17. Season 18: Team Rousey vs. Team Tate
Premiered Sept. 4, 2013Top Alumni: Raquel Pennington, Julianna Pena, Roxanne Modafferi
Fighters with 10 or More UFC Bouts: 1
Things will change in a big way if Pena manages to dethrone Amanda Nunes at UFC 265 next month, a development that might catapult Season 18 all the way into the Top 10 of this list. Short of that, however, this season was absolutely awful from a standpoint of bringing quality talent to the UFC. The star of the class, Pennington, made it to a bantamweight title shot, where she received a “Beatdown of the Year” candidate from Nunes. The oddsmakers are calling for Pena to get the same treatment, if not worse, and the third-most accomplished alumna of the season, Modafferi, actually left the UFC and didn’t come back until after competing on Season 26. And that’s the women’s side, which was by far the stronger, relatively speaking. Much like Season 8, Season 18 is a tale of two casts, and the eight men who made up the other half of the “TUF 18” house combined for seven UFC wins between them. In terms of helping the men’s bantamweight division, it was a near-total waste.
16. Season 16: Team Carwin vs. Team Nelson
Premiered Sept. 14, 2012Top Alumni: Neil Magny, Sam Alvey, Igor Araujo
Fighters with 10 or More UFC Bouts: 2
Among the bottom four seasons on this list, Season 16 at least has a fringe contender who still appears to be in his prime in Magny. For that reason, it may move up a bit in the coming years, and is at least unlikely to fall any further. Beyond Magny, who may still assault the Top 10 as he assaults the UFC record books, there’s Alvey, a quirky cult favorite who appears to be on his last legs competitively, and…Araujo, whose 3-4 post-“TUF” record (2-2 in the UFC) is good enough for third best. That’s how bad the rest of Season 16’s cast was. Some few bonus points are awarded for Julian Lane’s unforgettable “Let me bang, bro” rant, one of the few truly memorable “TUF” moments of the 2010s.
15. Season 11: Team Liddell vs. Team Ortiz
Premiered March 31, 2010Top Alumni: Brad Tavares, Court McGee, Chris Camozzi
Fighters with 10 or More UFC Bouts: 4
By objective standards, Season 11 wasn’t a complete disaster. In Tavares, the season has a signature fighter who has been around for over a decade, has scraped the lower reaches of the middleweight rankings a few times, and remains a tough out and viable gatekeeper and fringe contender even now. McGee is a great story and seemingly great guy who has carved a nearly 20-fight UFC career out of sheer heart and overachievement. Beyond those two, it gets dire pretty quickly, beginning with current Professional Fighters League placeholder Camozzi and promptly dropping off a cliff. On the intangibles front, Season 11 has to answer for Kyacey Uscola, probably the second worst person to show up on our television screens in 20 seasons, and Ortiz’s mid-season withdrawal gave us the makeshift Liddell vs. Rich Franklin coaches’ fight, which seemed to leave everyone involved depressed, including Franklin.
14. Season 10: The Heavyweights
Premiered Sept. 16, 2009Top Alumni: Roy Nelson, Matt Mitrione, Brendan Schaub
Fighters with 10 or More UFC Bouts: 3
This season, also known as “Team Rampage vs. Team Rashad,” is frankly a tough one to place in the rankings. On the one hand, it yielded three Top 10 fighters in Nelson, Mitrione and Schaub, which is far more than most other seasons can claim. On the other hand, it was all heavyweights, competing in a division in which almost any fighter was three wins away from the Top 10. Also, Nelson and Mitrione decamped for Bellator MMA, Schaub retired in order to pursue a career in intentional comedy, and outside of those three, the cast is largely a disaster. Ten of the 16 cast members never won a single fight in the UFC, which is unsurprising because so many of them weren’t fighters at all (Demico Rogers) or came out of semi-retirement for the show (Wes Sims). Nonetheless, the post-“TUF” achievements of Nelson and Mitrione in particular are enough to elevate the show’s weirdest and most gimmicky season to date.
13. Season 13: Team Lesnar vs. Team Dos Santos
Premiered March 30, 2011Top Alumni: Tony Ferguson, Myles Jury, Ramsey Nijem
Fighters with 10 or More UFC Bouts: 2
Notable Achievements: UFC interim lightweight title (Ferguson)
The bottom half of this list is heavy on “one-fighter” seasons, where a single standout cast member elevates the average for a couple of also-rans and about a dozen UFC washouts. Season 13 is one of the most extreme examples of that phenomenon, especially in light of the fact that Jury left the show early for medical reasons and returned on Season 15, so his subsequent accomplishments are more accurately counted with those of his Team Cruz compatriots. Without Jury, Season 13 consists of Ferguson — one of the greatest lightweights of his era — a likeable .500 fighter in Nijem, and 11 men who combined for three UFC wins among them. The difference between Season 13 and Season 9 is the gap in accomplishment between Ferguson and Pearson, and the entertainment value of Nijem’s hilarious “Stripper Ramsey” routine compared to the revolting spectacle of Winner running around the “TUF 9” house spitting mouthfuls of chewed-up food on people.
12. “The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil” Season 1
Premiered March 25, 2012Top Alumni: Francisco Trinaldo, Cezar Ferreira, Sergio Moraes
Fighters with 10 or More UFC Bouts: 4
The first season of “TUF Brazil” laid down the template for what we could expect from future Brazilian editions of the show: a contender or two, a couple of promising prodigies who would mysteriously fizzle out or disappear after the show, and a whole bunch of guys with nicknames. “TUF Brazil 1” served as the springboard for Trinaldo, an enduring and underrated lightweight, to begin his march on the UFC record books. “Mutante” put in a respectable 15 fights’ worth of work before moving on, and Moraes is still on roster, dangerous and inconsistent as ever. Beyond those top few names, the season is chiefly notable for the underwhelming performances by veterans such as Delson Heleno and Rodrigo Damm, and those like Rony Mariano Bezerra, who showed significant promise on the show only to regress upon entry in the UFC.
11. The Smashes: Team UK vs. Team Australia
Premiered Sept. 19, 2012Top Alumni: Robert Whittaker, Norman Parke, Bradley Scott
Fighters with 10 or More UFC Bouts: 1
Notable Achievements: UFC middleweight title (Whittaker)
Another nation-versus-nation gimmick, another one-fighter season. Fortunately for “The Smashes,” that one fighter is Whittaker, a former middleweight champion who is currently in the running for a shot at winning back the belt he lost to Israel Adesanya. While no middleweight is likely to be a favorite against Adesanya anytime soon — let alone Whittaker, given the lopsided nature of their first meeting — his youth and renewed focus mean that at the very least, he’s likely to pick up a few more big wins in the coming years. Outside of “Bobby Knuckles,” there’s Parke, who may yet make some noise in the KSW cage, and a whole lot of nothing. Considering how recent this season was compared to most others on this list, that’s a bit shocking.
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