Originally Posted by IronMan @ MMAOpinion

Upon rewatching the ninth episode of The Ultimate Fighter, I realized that the story, as it often is, was in the underdog. But it’s not in the upset of Bisping’s protege: Dave “The Gagmeister” Faulkner. It’s the way he was upset.

There are so many ways I could joke about the failure of Faulkner and his hypnotist, and how irritating the juvenile Bisping can be. There are endless quips about the monotone of Dan Henderson, win or lose.

But as someone who’s been getting more and more frustrated with the Ultimate Fighter as the series has gone on, especially after a certain toe-headed Team Mir fighter from last season, there was something incredibly cathartic about watching Frank Lester, something that reminded me what I liked about the show.

There are a lot of technical guys on TUF, though less now than there were at the shows inception (in the first two seasons, we’ve seen some of the best fighters in the sport, and the talent pool now is much smaller), but what made the show was not the technical ability of the fighters, as we had nothing to compare it to.

It was the willingness to fight.