The TUF 30 | Part 3

It’s been a unique career, to say the least, for season one TUF winner Diego Sanchez. From his early days at welterweight, where he went 4-0 before back-to-back losses to Jon Fitch and Josh Koscheck, to a run at lightweight where he challenged then-champion BJ Penn for the UFC crown, and then to his resurrection at 170, a return to 155, and a brief stint at featherweight, the man known as “Nightmare,” then “The Dream,” and back to “Nightmare” has always been exciting in the Octagon and just as compelling outside the cage. Needless to say, win or lose, odds are that we’ll be talking about Sanchez, who was inducted into the Fight Wing of the UFC Hall of Fame in 2019 for his 2009 bout with Clay Guida, for a long time.

9 - Nate Diaz

A hard-nosed battler from even before he entered the world’s consciousness when he won TUF 13, Tony Ferguson has paid his dues early on in his UFC stint by winning nine of his first 10 bouts in the Octagon. But it was his submission of Edson Barboza in 2015 that earned him Fight of the Night and Performance of the Night bonuses that took his career to a new level. In 2017, Ferguson submitted Kevin Lee to win the interim UFC lightweight belt, and while he never got his showdown with the now-retired Khabib Nurmagomedov and is in the midst of a three-fight losing skid, there’s no question that “El Cucuy” has been one of the best lightweights of this era.

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7 - TJ Dillashaw

One of mixed martial arts’ most compelling figures, Rose Namajunas may have lost in the TUF 20 finale against Carla Esparza in 2014, but in the subsequent years she has proven to be someone capable of spectacular things on fight night. In November 2017, Namajunas shocked the world with a first-round knockout of the seemingly unbeatable Joanna Jedrzejczyk, taking the strawweight crown in the process. Namajunas repeated her victory over the Polish star in their rematch before an upset loss to Jessica Andrade in May 2019. Last summer “Thug Rose” evened the score with Andrade in a non-title fight before regaining the 115-pound title with  a 78-second knockout of Zhang Weili in April of this year.

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5 - Robert Whittaker

There’s probably no one in the game who would want to avoid the spotlight more than Forrest Griffin, but that became an impossibility when the former police officer won season one of The Ultimate Fighter with a stirring three-round win over Stephan Bonnar that kicked off the MMA explosion in 2005. After that, it was a constant stream of interviews, appearances, and photo shoots for Griffin, who still found time to engage in a memorable war with Tito Ortiz, get upset by Keith Jardine, and rebound to shock Mauricio Rua and Quinton Jackson, the latter bout earning him the UFC light heavyweight crown in 2008. Griffin went on to lose the belt to Rashad Evans and get stopped in a single round by Anderson Silva, but consecutive wins over Ortiz and Rich Franklin put the ever-popular Griffin back on track before Rua got even with a TKO victory at UFC 134. Griffin bounced back in July of 2012, decisioning Ortiz in their rubber match. He retired after the bout and was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2013.

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3 - Rashad Evans

An undersized heavyweight with little reputation to precede him, former Michigan State wrestler Rashad Evans wasn’t expected to do much with the giants on TUF2, but four wins later (Keith Jardine, Mike Whitehead, Tom Murphy, and Brad Imes), the New York native had won the show’s title. Evans continued to surprise in his post-TUF career, and though he received a reputation for putting on less than compelling fights early on, by the time he was blasting out Jason Lambert and Sean Salmon, that rep changed. Evans would then engage in two close battles with Tito Ortiz and Michael Bisping, decisioning Bisping and fighting to a draw with Ortiz. Those fights were preludes to a spectacular knockout of Chuck Liddell and a decisive finish of Forrest Griffin that put the UFC light heavyweight championship belt around his waist. Evans lost the title to Lyoto Machida in his first defense, but rebound wins over Thiago Silva, Rampage Jackson, Ortiz (in a UFC 133 rematch), and Phil Davis earned him a shot at the title belt held by former teammate Jon “Bones” Jones in April of 2012. Evans lost that bout via decision but wins over Dan Henderson and Chael Sonnen kept “Suga” in the headlines. Evans retired in 2018 and he was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2019.

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2 - Michael Bisping

It’s hard to argue with success. But it takes more than wins to get to the place where fans are talking about a fighter as an all-time great. And Kamaru Usman is ticking all those boxes these days, just as he’s been doing it since he won season 21 of TUF in 2015. Just 6-1 as a pro at the time, Usman beat everyone in front of him in dominant fashion, even if some of those bouts weren’t as compelling as many wanted. But once the stakes rose, “The Nigerian Nightmare” lifted his game to go along with them, with a Performance of the Night win over Rafael Dos Anjos in 2018 a sign of things to come. In 2019, he shut out Tyron Woodley to win the UFC welterweight title, he stopped Colby Covington in a classic war later that year, he came back from some adversity to halt Gilbert Burns, and after a dominant win over Jorge Masvidal, he emphatically ended their rivalry in April with a devastating knockout. And he’s not done yet.

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