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#3: The backyard brawl (Season 5)
It's pretty obvious from the title of the show that The Ultimate Fighter is a reality show about fighting. However, the UFC has always prided itself on being an ultra-professional set-up, and the only fights on TUF are supposed to take place in the Octagon. That's why it was so outrageous when, during Season 5, contestants Marlon Sims and Noah Thomas brawled in the backyard of the house.
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The whole incident started innocuously, with Sims talking some trash towards Thomas for tapping out rather than passing out in his fight with Manny Gamburyan – despite Thomas pointing out that a kimura doesn’t force you to pass out, it breaks your arm and shoulder apart. Eventually, Thomas responded by challenging Sims to a fight on the finale, and that should’ve been that.
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Except Sims wanted to throw down there and then, and fellow contestant Allen Berube, who wasn’t really involved in the conversation, suddenly decided to do his best impression of ‘Big’ John McCarthy and referee the whole thing. And from there, Thomas landed a wild sucker-punch and the two began to grapple, with the sequence ending with Sims dumping Thomas head-first onto a concrete flowerbed when he tried an armbar.
Somehow the pair still weren’t done, brawling again outside the house before Sims again dumped Thomas head-first onto concrete to defend another armbar attempt. They promised to continue the fight at the Finale, but of course, Dana White showed up the next day to send all three men who’d been involved packing.
White's reasoning was that he and the UFC brass had been working for years to show that MMA wasn't about brawls and street fights and by being involved in a backyard scrap, Sims, Thomas and Berube had basically brought the sport into disrepute. While the incident was undoubtedly outrageous, it remains a hugely memorable moment in the history of TUF over a decade later.
