The Ultimate Fighter: Team Rampage vs. Team Forrest

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Contents

Background

The Ultimate Fighter: Team Rampage vs. Team Forrest (aka The Ultimate Fighter 7 or TUF 7) is the seventh season of the reality TV show, "The Ultimate Fighter". It premiered on Spike TV on April 2nd, 2008 at the conclusion of UFC Fight Night 13.

The show featured 32 middleweight (185 lbs.) mixed martial artists who were situated in a mansion outside of Las Vegas and forced to train and fight against one another as a part of two teams coached by top UFC fighters Quinton Jackson and Forrest Griffin.

The finale was broadcast live on Spike TV on June 21st, 2008 and featured the finalists facing off for the six figure UFC contract. The card was headlined by a middleweight bout between Evan Tanner and Kendall Grove.

The show consisted of 12 taped episodes and the live finale.

Cast

Fighters

Team Rampage:

Team Griffin:

Round of 32 Losers

Coaches and Trainers

Team Rampage:

Team Griffin:

  • Forrest Griffin (Head Coach), Gray Maynard (Wrestling Coach), Cameron Diffley (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Coach), Matt Pena (Muay Thai Coach)

Host

Format

Choosing Teams

Choosing teams changed from previous seasons in TUF 7 with fighters having to fight before they were eligible for team selection. The contestants' fights doubled as a skills evaluation for the coaches before they had to choose teams.

Apart from that, teams were selected one by one by the coaches in order of preference as per usual.

Picking the Fights

The way fights were chosen in TUF 7 reverted back to the system utilized in the third, fourth and fifth seasons of the Ultimate Fighter. A coin flip before team selections enabled the winner to either choose the first fight, or the first fighter. From there control of matchmaking duties went to the team who won the last fight.

Tournament Structure

TUF 7 was the first season of The Ultimate Fighter to feature a 32 man tournament. Fights were chosen before teams were picked with fighters having to fight their way into the round of 16. From there the same structure that was in place for The Ultimate Fighter Season 5 and The Ultimate Fighter: Team Hughes vs. Team Serra was utilized.

Fight Results

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

  • Rampage wins the coin toss and selects the first fighter, giving Forrest the oppurtunity to pick the first fight. Both coaches choose their teams.
  • Paul Bradley is found to have a contagious skin condition and is forced to leave the house. Patrick Schultz is brought in as his replacement.
  • Team Forrest chooses Jesse Taylor to fight Mike Dolce. Taylor submits Dolce with a rear naked choke in round 2.

Episode 4

  • Still in control, Forrest selects Tim Credeur to fight Matt Riddle. Credeur defeats Riddle via arm bar after nearly two rounds of solid action.

Episode 5

  • Dante Rivera is selected by Team Forrest to face Brandon Sene. Rivera defeats Sene via unanimous decision.
  • At the end of the episode Griffin selects Matt Brown to face Jeremy May. A grudge match, due to the fact Jeremy May was being a shit and put lemon juice in Brown's dip.

Episode 6

  • In one of the best knockouts in TUF history, Matt Brown knocks Jeremy May out with a head kick in round 1.
  • Team Griffin chooses Luke Zachrich to face Daniel Cramer. Cramer surprises Zachrich and the rest of the house when he scores a 2nd round TKO to earn Team Rampage control for the first time in the series.

Episode 7

  • Team Rampage select Gerald Harris to fight Amir Sadollah. After controlling the early going with slam takedowns, Harris is hit with a knee by Sadollah in the second round and then stopped with punches on the ground, much to the protest of Harris.
  • Forrest once again regains control and selects Cale Yarbrough to face Patrick Schultz. In a sloppy fight, Cale Yarbrough prevails via majority decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-29) after two rounds.

Episode 8

  • In the final preliminary match, CB Dollaway defeats Nick Klein via guillotine choke in round 2.
  • Quarter final match-ups are decided by the coaches with Taylor to fight Rivera, Brown to fight Sadollah, Credeur to fight Cramer and Dollaway to fight Yarbrough.

Episode 9

  • In the first quarter final fight, Jesse Taylor defeats Dante Rivera via unanimous decision after two rounds of easy takedowns and ground and pound from inside Rivera's guard.
  • The second quarter final featured a great fight between Sadollah and Brown with Sadollah prevailing via triangle choke submission in the second round.

Episode 10

Episode 11

  • In the first semi-final match up, Jesse Taylor defeats Tim Credeur via unanimous decision after three rounds of ground action.

Episode 12

  • In the biggest upset of the season, Amir Sadollah submits pre-tournament favourite, CB Dollaway with an arm bar in the third round to move into the final.
  • After the fighters leave the house, Dana White is alerted to some security footage of Jesse Taylor kicking out a limousine window when out partying in Vegas. He then reportedly went around terrorizing some women folk in a casino while proclaiming to anyone who would listen that he was a "UFC fighter". Taylor is kicked off the show and out of the finale by Dana White.
  • Dollaway and Credeur are brought back to fight for a spot in the finale against Amir. Dollaway wins by unanimous decision after arguably the best fight of the season.

The Ultimate Fighter 7 Finale

  • In the final of the Ultimate Fighter 7 middleweight tournament, Amir Sadollah once again arm bars CB Dollaway except this time in the first round to become the Ultimate Fighter 7 tournament champion. In addition to the title he also receives the six figure UFC contract.

Ratings

Ratings for TUF 7 were slightly up from season 6 with the show scoring an overall rating of 1.1 while scoring a 1.6 in the male 18-34 demographic.

The live finale scored an average rating of 1.4.

TUF Chronology

Preceded by: The Ultimate Fighter: Team Hughes vs. Team Serra

Followed by: The Ultimate Fighter: Team Nogueira vs. Team Mir

External Links

--Sam Cupitt 17:38, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://wiki.cagepotato.com/index.php/The_Ultimate_Fighter:_Team_Rampage_vs._Team_Forrest"