5 times that The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) finale was changed at the last minute

#2. TUF Brazil 2: Santiago Ponzinibbio breaks his hand

A broken hand cost Santiago Ponzinibbio his chance of winning TUF Brazil 2

While it didn’t feel quite as fresh as the inaugural season, the second season of TUF Brazil, which aired in 2013, was a wildly exciting one that was filled with high-end prospects.

The likes of Thiago Santos and Viscardi Andrade both went onto have fruitful careers with the UFC, but the season’s most outstanding fighters were clearly William Macario and Santiago Ponzinibbio.

Both men largely ran through their opponents en route to the final, and with both fighters having won four bouts in order to get that far, a clash between the two sounded like a genuinely fantastic battle of prospects.

However, disaster struck when it was announced during the final episode of the season that Ponzinibbio had broken his hand during his semi-final clash with Leonardo Santos – and the injury was enough to rule him out of the finale.

Macario instead fought replacement Santos and ended up falling to an arm triangle choke in the second round.

And while Ponzinibbio has since gone onto plenty of UFC success, establishing himself as one of the world’s best welterweights, he never did end up fighting Macario. Instead, ‘Patolino’ flamed out of the UFC in 2015 after losing two fights in a row via TKO.

Fight of the night? Month? Year? 😳👏 What a way to end this scrap! #UFCVegas28 pic.twitter.com/4eCJCePUHi

— UFC (@ufc) June 6, 2021

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#1. TUF 26: Sijara Eubanks misses her opportunity to become a UFC champion

A bad weight cut cost Sijara Eubanks her chance of becoming a UFC champion at the TUF 26 finale

While Jesse Taylor’s withdrawal from the TUF 7 finale was easily the most controversial last-minute change in TUF history, easily the most costly withdrawal came during the 26th season of the show.

The season centered on the newly-introduced UFC women’s flyweight title, and the fact that the final would be a fight to decide the inaugural champion meant that the stakes on TUF had arguably never been higher.

In the end, Nicco Montano and Sijara Eubanks made their way to the final in relatively impressive fashion, setting up what looked like a tremendous title fight on paper.

And unlike the previous seasons of TUF that’d seen changes to the final bout, it looked like this one would go ahead – right until the day of the weigh-ins, when Eubanks reportedly fell ill following a bad weight cut.

BREAKING: Sijara Eubanks will not weigh in and has been removed from the #TUFFinale. Roxanne Modafferi will step in to face Nicco Montaño for the inaugural flyweight title. #TUF26 #UFC

— Rob Tatum (@RobTatum303) November 30, 2017

‘SarJ’ was forced out of the bout, and instead, Roxanne Modafferi, who had been set to face Barb Honchak, stepped into what was an unlikely opportunity to become a UFC champion.

‘The Happy Warrior’ came up short, though, as Montano won a unanimous decision to claim the title. Unfortunately – seemingly affirming the curse on the season – Montano failed to make a single defense of the title after weight-cutting issues of her own, and was stripped in September 2018, rendering the entire TUF season somewhat pointless.