Wednesday night saw the final episode of the twentieth season of The Ultimate Fighter aired, finishing up with two solid women's strawweight semi-final bouts, one featuring Invicta champ Carla Esparza taking on Jessica Penne, the other between two young upstarts in women's MMA, Rose Namajunas, who submitted Randa Markos. The finale went down Friday, and in the main event, Esparza tapped Namajunas in the third round, becoming the UFC's first ever strawweight champion. This was a different sort of season for TUF. It's one where the UFC really took a look at what was wrong with the show, and tried to right at least some of it, introducing new ideas, making the show mean something again, and really, doing what it could to right the ship. Was it a perfect effort? No. The show still fell into some of the same traps earlier seasons did. It was, however, an improvement, and arguably the best season since TUF 17 (Jones vs. Sonnen). So in that sense, improvements were made, and the UFC can at least be happy with the quality of the product, although by all accounts, viewer reaction and ratings were hit and miss. What we really want to focus on, however, is what we learned from the twentieth instalment of the reality franchise. Why? Because we're not just seeing some new blood trickle into the promotion with this edition of the series. No, we're seeing a whole new division; a new crop of fighters but one that already had roots planted elsewhere, be it Invicta or Bellator or the regionals. So here are five things we learned from TUF 20.
Primarily covering the sport of MMA from Ontario, Canada, Jay Anderson has been writing for various publications covering sports, technology, and pop culture since 2001. Jay holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Guelph, and a Certificate in Leadership Skills from Humber College.
