With UFC 306 coming and going, this year’s season of The Ultimate Fighter has officially come to an end.
While the last episode aired on August 20th and the finale fights occurred at UFC on ESPN 62, the true end to the whole show happened between coaches Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko for the UFC Women’s Flyweight Championship, with Shevchenko regaining the title.
There were some standard routines this season along with some unique events and a very sportsman first event this season.
These are some of the unique points of this season:
Unique Format
Host Dana White really hyped up the fact that this was the “most international season” of the show.
He isn’t wrong due to the fact that the cast featured 16 fights from 14 different nations.
This is definitely unique considering the nature of past seasons of the show. Most of the fighters in past main seasons of the show have been almost all, if not all, Americans. While the show started to feature international fighters starting in season 2, the cast has almost always been comprised of mainly US citizens.
It was for this reason that international spinoffs of the show were created to feature fighters from either specific nations or from multiple countries outside of the United States. However, with the international versions dropped in 2016, there was a void in the show featuring international fighters with the exception of specific main seasons where another nation was featured.
This season was a way to feature multiple top fighters from around the world, while still embodying the original nature of the show.
Most Sportsmanship Break in the Show’s History
This occurrence has to be not only a first, probably one of the most sportsman like moments in possibly the sport in general.
In episode 12 (the unofficial finale episode), Team Grasso member Mairon Santos came in overweight and even after being given time to lose weight, was just shy. Santos was about to resort to cutting his hair to shed the final .1 pounds (not a first in the show), when a surprise happened.
Opposing coach Valentina Shevchenko, pulled coach Alexa Grasso aside and told her they would accept a catchweight fight against Santos. While the fight wouldn’t happen because Team Shevchenko member Žygimantas Ramaška wasn’t cleared the morning of the fight, thus act of kindness cannot be understated.
Conclusion
The season definitely had ups and downs but none of them haven’t and it was another good season overall.
Looking forward to seeing what the show has to feature next year.
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