The Ultimate Fighter, Running On Fumes.

Is it just me or has the overall talent on The Ultimate Fighter really started to drop off? I recall the first season, which was a cast filled with familiar names to those who were paying attention before Spike TV got in the mix. That season boasts the largest number of fighters who are still active within the UFC. But let’s be real. Koscheck, Diego, Swick, Leben, Griffin, Bonnar and even Quarry were all UFC bound with or without the show.

Ever since that first season we’ve seen the talent pool on the show dwindle and continue to dwindle. I’m not much into the drama aspect of the show, and often times have found myself fast forwarding my TiVo straight to the actual fight.

What I saw last week almost turned my stomach. Has it come to this? Blake Bowman? Seriously? Pardon any implied disrespect, but Blake Bowman looked like a high school kid in his first fist fight, ever. If the goal was to make the dude with the purple hair look far better than he is, well mission accomplished. After that fight was over I called a friend of mine up, and the first thing he said? “That Hightower kid throws bombs!”.

BOMBS? I paused for a minute to think about that. Then I remembered something. The friend I was talking to still thinks bicep size plays a big role in how hard someone can throw punches. He always forgets the times my little arms have dropped him like a bad habit, but what can I say? By his definition, I too throw “bombs”. (And the reality here is that what I throw would probably be somewhere between those little snapper things kids throw at the ground and a small firecracker.)

So I let it go. I thought I was just being a technique snob. Then I got to watch the fight from this week, and was again reminded how much further the talent pool in the United States has to go before we start seeing well rounded fighters as the norm.

Paul Georgieff looked to have a pretty strong guard with a credible ground game behind it. When he was on the ground, he looked comfortable and quite capable of getting something done. But when standing up? Those punches were slower than molasses traveling up hill. If only Paul had as much stand up experience as he had on the ground, that fight would have looked a lot better, and probably lasted a lot longer.

Being the optomist I never tend to be, I will say that the boom we’ve experienced should lead us to “the promised land” within the next decade. That promised land is a place where the guys fighting at the top of the game are all very well rounded and capable of giving us beautiful fights, rather than these rather ugly brawls that have come to be common on the show.

I mean, when there is an eight year old out there that looks to have better technique than the full grown men in the game, you know there is still a lot of room for improvement. Are you as frustrated with the lack of talent as I am? If so, take solace in Nainoa Dung. Ten years from now this kid just might be making a run that makes Vitor Belfort’s rise in his late teens look like a side show.

I’m hopeful that the next season of TUF, which will be focusing on the Middleweight division, brings some new talent in that will remain in that division. It needs it, if for nothing more than cannon fodder for Anderson.

Check Nainoa out.