5 TUF winners who shocked the world in the UFC

#2. Michael Bisping vs. Luke Rockhold – UFC 199

TUF 3 winner Michael Bisping stunned everyone by taking the UFC middleweight title from Luke Rockhold

Perhaps no TUF winner faced as much doubt from UFC fans as Michael Bisping. ‘The Count’ won the third season of the reality show at 205 pounds, but immediately faced criticism that the UFC were protecting him in order to make him into their UK poster boy.

Bisping was able to prove those doubters wrong with his impressive wins over fighters like Denis Kang, Chris Leben and Yoshihiro Akiyama. Despite that, he still faced plenty of questions from the fans.

‘The Count’ was largely written off as a fighter who simply couldn’t win the big one, with his losses to Wanderlei Silva, Chael Sonnen and Vitor Belfort used as evidence. He also came under fire for a supposed lack of knockout power and also because of his abrasive personality.

However, Bisping kept plugging away, and as the years ticked by, he continued to win fights to keep himself afloat in the UFC’s middleweight rankings. By 2016, though, ‘The Count’ was 38 years old and with injuries racking up, it seemed like he’d never achieve his dream of becoming a UFC champion.

Incredibly, that was about to change. After edging a win over UFC legend Anderson Silva, Bisping stepped in on late notice to face off with reigning middleweight champion Luke Rockhold, a fighter who’d defeated him just months earlier.

Nobody was really giving Bisping a chance, but Rockhold had made the mistake of underestimating him too. When he dropped his hands a little, ‘The Count’ came through with a crushing left hook and ended up knocking the champion senseless.

Not only had Bisping become one of the most unlikely UFC champions in the promotion’s history, he’d also proven all of his doubters, dating all the way back to his TUF days, absolutely wrong.

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#1. Matt Serra vs. Georges St-Pierre – UFC 69

Matt Serra's KO of Georges St-Pierre remains the gold standard for upsets in the UFC

Widely recognized as the greatest upset in UFC history by many fans, Matt Serra’s knockout of Georges St-Pierre remains the gold standard for TUF winners shocking the world inside the octagon.

Serra won the welterweight section of TUF 4, an odd season of the reality show that brought back veteran fighters rather than introducing new ones and promised an instant title shot to the winners.

However, it was easy to doubt ‘The Terror’, as not only had he washed out of the UFC off the back of some disappointing losses prior to his TUF run, but he also didn’t really impress that heavily during the reality show, particularly in the final bout against Chris Lytle.

More to the point, UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre had been running through every fighter he’d faced, from tough veterans like Sean Sherk and Frank Trigg, all the way through to legendary former champion Matt Hughes.

Essentially, nobody was giving Serra a chance of dethroning ‘Rush’ and many fans felt like the fight was practically a waste of St-Pierre’s time.

However, Serra proved everyone wrong with a stunning first-round knockout. He caught GSP with a wild punch behind the ear that wrecked the champion’s equilibrium and then didn’t let up until the Canadian was forced to tap out to strikes.

To say this was a shocking result would be an understatement and while Serra didn’t make a single title defense before dropping the title back to St-Pierre a year later, the victory turned him into a genuine star for a time. Not bad for a written-off TUF winner!