The Ultimate Fighter 5 – Episode One Recap

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By Thomas Gerbasi

CAUTION: SPOILERS INCLUDED – For the fifth season of any television series, sometimes it’s necessary to shake things up a bit. Spike TV’s The Ultimate Fighter series is no exception, and within minutes of the start of the season premiere, one of the two coaches for TUF5, BJ Penn, decided to take matters into his own hands.

After a recap of the history between Pulver, the UFC’s first lightweight champion, and Penn, the man Pulver beat in a memorable bout in 2002, as well as fighter evaluations by both, UFC President Dana White brought the two together to pick teams from amongst 16 up and coming lightweights competing for a UFC contract.

Pulver won the opening coin toss and opted to select the first fight of the competition, leaving Penn to make the first pick from the fighter pool. Pretty cut and dried, but nothing’s cut and dried with ‘The Prodigy’.

“If any of you here know for a complete fact that you want to be on my team and you don’t want nothing to do with Jens Pulver’s team, raise your hand,” said Penn, immediately throwing the fighter selection phase into disarray as 10 of the 16 fighters rose their hands. It was a move that visibly irritated Pulver, who agreed to go with this orthodox method of picking teams, much to the chagrin of White, who, after repeated insistences to Penn, finally got him to make one pick, Gray Maynard. Pulver selected 6 foot 4 Corey Hill, and the race was on.

Team Penn
Gray Maynard
Matt Wiman
Gabe Ruediger
Joe Lauzon
Rob Emerson
Andy Wang
Allen Berube
Noah Thomas

Team Pulver
Corey Hill
Nate Diaz
Brandon Melendez
Marlon Sims
Manny Gamburyan
Cole Miller
Brian Geraghty
Wayne Weems

Once back at the house, the fighters started to develop their team personality, with Team Pulver’s Hill immediately getting in the face of Team Penn’s Ruediger.

“I got it out for you,” said Hill. “I hope first round we go head to head, toe to toe, and #$%$ each other up.”

And while the tension was obvious, cooler heads prevailed. The prevailing wisdom though, was that Ruediger was going to get chosen for the first fight of the season due to his troubles in making the 155 pound weight limit. “Godzilla” checked in at 175 pounds, five pounds over the welterweight limit, and was getting progressively frustrated by his inability to shed the pounds.

But the first fight of the season wouldn’t involve Ruediger, but instead was a battle between Cole Miller and fairly inexperienced Allen Berube, who was game and held his own before being submitted with a triangle choke midway through the first round.

One down, 13 to go until the finals are determined.

For weekly recaps of The Ultimate Fighter, as well as fighter profiles, stay tuned to UFC.com.

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