5 best seasons in the history of The Ultimate Fighter

#1 Season 5: Team Penn vs. Team Pulver

2007's TUF 5 was undoubtedly the peak of the series

After 4 up-and-down seasons previously, everything fell perfectly for 2007’s TUF 5. The show was built around the recently re-introduced UFC Lightweight division, and featured 16 fighters – a mix of genuine talent and reality show fodder – competing in the biggest tournament to that point. The coaches had a heated rivalry, too – BJ Penn and Jens Pulver had fought 5 years earlier with Pulver winning, and Penn was gunning for revenge.

So much drama happened in this season that it’s almost difficult to put it in words. Do you start with the infamous backyard brawl between Marlon Sims and Noah Thomas – refereed by Allen Berubie – that led to all three men being booted from the house? Or Gabe Ruediger’s ludicrous weight-cutting exploits that saw him use a colonic before failing to make weight while begging Penn to put him back into the sauna? How about Andy Wang sobbing in disbelief after losing his lone fight in miserable fashion, and Penn then kicking him off his team?

All of this would’ve been for naught, of course, had the fights been bad, but they were simply incredible – the likes of eventual winner Nate Diaz and future UFC stars Joe Lauzon, Gray Maynard, Matt Wiman, Cole Miller and Manny Gamburyan put on the best set of brawls on TUF to that point.

Every single episode of this season seemed to have some kind of crazy reality show drama going on – and every single episode seemed to feature an amazing fight, too. And with Penn and Pulver’s rivalry providing a great backdrop – and Dana White perfectly cast as the incredulous guy in the background – TUF simply didn’t get any better than this, even after another 21 seasons.