www.latimes.com/sports/boxing/la-mmacol27aug27,1,7872443.story
eh, not signing up - can you just copy and paste?
Matt Arroyo - The 24-year-old Arroyo is a former baseball player at the University of Tampa, who left the sport in favor of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.He now teaches at the Gracie Academy in Tampa, and came in worried about not seeing his family for six weeks and not being able to go on MySpace. He has a 2-1 record.
Daniel Barrera - A farm boy from Rupert, Idaho, he wrestled in high school and boxed in the Air Force, once losing to gold medalist Andre Ward. He's 26, has a 1-0 record and currently works for the local fire department. He's working on getting a degree in criminology.
Blake Bowman - Bowman is friends with Cole Miller, from season five of the Ultimate Fighter. They met when Bowman was out of shape at 240 pounds in college. He has a psychology degree from West Georgia University. Now 70 pounds lighter, the 25-year-old has a 4-3 record.
Mac Danzig - The 27-year-old Pittsburgh native is the closest thing to a name fighter on the cast, with a 17-4-1 record and six years experience. He moved to Los Angeles to pursue his fighting career.
Paul Georgieff - Originally from St. Paul, he first went to college at the University of Vermont, and debuted in MMA in 2002. The 24-year-old transferred to Wisconsin, where he's working on a masters degree in Structural Engineering. He's now 7-1, and considers wrestling as his weakness.
Richie Hightower - Hightower had a solid high school sports background including being Arizona state high school champion in the discus in 2000, as well as a football star. He went into mortgage brokering, and by the age of 21, he was 5-8, 265 pounds, and was suffering health problems. He gave up smoking and drinking, and began training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with UFC fighter Eddie Sanchez. After dropping 95 pounds, the 25-year-old has a 7-1 record.
John Kolosci - The oldest fighter in the house at 32, he began training in 2002 and has an 8-4 record. He lives in Portage, Ind., and competed in three sports in high school.
Troy Mandaloniz - A native if Hilo, Hawaii, who grew up as a friend of B.J. Penn, he began training as a teenager. He moved to Las Vegas at the age of 21, working at the airport and as a bartender to pay the bills while training under Mark Laimon. Now 27, he has a 3-1 record.
Billy Miles - A former high school and college wrestler, the 29-year-old Miles is a Youth Correctional Officer in Loomis, Calif. He was an Academic All-American at Sacramento State University and has a Masters Degree. He has a 2-1 record.
Roman Mitchyan - A former actor who is a native of Armenia, he trains with fellow Armenians Karo Parisyan and Manny Gamburyan. He grew up in Armenia, moved to Moscow, and then ended up in Los Angeles to pursue acting. Now 28, he has an 8-1 record.
Dorian Price - The 29-year-old got his Masters in Business Administration from Ohio State in 2005, and has an 8-2 MMA record.
Jared Rollins - A Carlson Gracie student starting at the age of 22 in 1999, J-Roc has a 9-3 record. He's a former football player at Chapman College.
Ben Saunders - A 24-year-old member of the American Top Team based in Orlando, Fla. He has been a UFC fan since it started in 1993. He has a 4-0-2 record.
Joe Scarola - A protege of Serra, the 28-year-old Scarola took up BJJ under Serra after graduating high school in 1997. He was Serra's first black belt in 2005, and now teaches at his gym. He has a 6-0 record.
George Sotiropoulis - A native of Australia who lives in San Diego, Sotiropoulis competed in Australian Rules Football, cricket and karate , he moved to the U.S. to achieve his goal to be an MMA fighter. He has a 7-2 record.
Tommy Speer - An all-state cornerback at Melville High School in Elgin, Minn., Speer went to nationals in wrestling as a senior. He made his pro debut in 2005 and has a 9-1 record. He lives on a dairy farm, hence his nickname, "Farm Boy."
Hughes and Serra are bound by secrecy agreements not to discuss anything of significance about the current season. Serra said there were some great fights. Hughes said he emphasized team values and work ethic. He said there are people on the show he expects will become top stars. Both hinted that the fighters were there for different reasons and not all were serious, but many showed great improvement in a short period of time. An interesting part of the show is Hughes brought Robbie Lawler, the middleweight champion for Icon Sports, to be one of his assistant coaches.
Thats gonna have a lot of drama and might actually make for an exciting show to watch.
Participants in Ultimate Fighter season six are announced
The show, which was responsible for changing the sport, will feature 16 fighters, coached by Matt Serra and Matt Hughes.
A little over two-years ago, the Ultimate Fighting Championships were bleeding money and clinging to life, when owners Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta and President Dana White went even deeper into debt to fund production of a reality show called The Ultimate Fighter.
To say one television show was responsible for changing an entire sport would, if anything, be an understatement. Spike TV, in its aim to be a destination network for men, agreed to take on what was at the time a controversial sport that nobody would touch, with a few guidelines. Among them was UFC had to fund production. Second, Vince McMahon, whose World Wrestling Entertainment broadcasts were the top draws on the network, had to give his blessing and decree that he didn't consider UFC his competition. Had Spike turned down the show, or McMahon given the idea a thumbs down, would the UFC even exist today?
In the first season, Spike put the show on at 11:07 p.m. on Monday nights, right after its highly rated WWE Monday Night Raw show. It was an immediate hit, greatly increasing the popularity of UFC, making stars out of its top fighters, and giving Spike a franchise. It's hard to believe that three years ago no significant station wanted to touch it with a ten-foot-pole, and this year, MMA is all over the place on television.
The show not only served to show the public that the fighters weren't untalented street fighters, but very hard training, with often wacky personalities. The UFC reached a new audience that became regular viewers of its big fights. Coaches, like Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz, Ken Shamrock, Rich Franklin, Georges St. Pierre, B.J. Penn and Matt Hughes became the company's biggest drawing pay-per-view attractions. And fans made the fighters cultivated on the show, such as Forrest Griffin, Diego Sanchez, Josh Koscheck, Mike Swick, Kenny Florian, Stephan Bonnar, Rashad Evans, Joe Stevenson, Kendall Grove and Michael Bisping, become instant stars. Griffin became one of the most popular fighters in the game. Koshceck became one of the most unpopular, but either way, it pays the bills. Bisping became the star the company has built around when expanding outside North America, running regularly in England.
Fighters on the reality show carried grudge matches that were the brought to television. And even bigger, the formula often was to take the two coaches, who people had seen lead their fighters for a season, and then match them up in a big match.
The power of the show peaked in season three when Shamrock and Ortiz, coaching opposite teams, built up a grudge that led to one of the biggest pay-per-view events of any kind in recent years. A rematch on television opened the eyes of television producers. More males 18-34 watched the match than a baseball playoff game head-to-head, and more than several of the games in last year's World Series. Of course inside fans knew the real secret. Shamrock vs. Ortiz was a mismatch. Shamrock was 42 and long past his prime, but it was matches like that which took the UFC from bleeding money to almost printing it.
Last year, in just its second year with decent national television, UFC had already blown past both pro boxing and WWE when it came to pay-per-view. One wonders if McMahon had had a crystal ball, would he have made the same choice.
And on April 7 in Houston, a major Ultimate Fighter milestone was reached when Matt Serra came off the reality show and beat St. Pierre to win the welterweight title in one of the biggest upsets in UFC history.
Of course, sometimes there is bad news along with the good news. After UFC's success in 2006, TV has become cluttered with MMA. The team-oriented International Fight League is on MyNetworkTV and Fox Sports Net. Bodog is on Ion. Pride, which is actually owned by UFC and no longer produces new shows, has tapes of its classic matches from Japan on Fox Sports Net. World Extreme Cage Fighting, also owned by UFC, is on Versus. And Elite Xtreme Combat is on Showtime. While not many have been able to turn their dreams into profitability, nor make a dent in the UFC monopoly among the average fan, all have scoured the country and most reasonably talented fighters are at least able to struggle to make a living without holding down a traditional job.
In addition, with so much on television, while Ultimate Fighter is still by far the most popular of the weekly MMA television shows, its last two seasons haven't come close to season three in the ratings. Rather than face the competition of Thursday night football this fall, Spike has moved the show to Wednesday nights at 10 p.m.
When season six of the Ultimate Fighter begins on Sept. 19, some things will be familiar. There will be 16 fighters, all competing at 170 pounds, in a tournament spread over three months on television. The winner gets a three-year contract with the organization. Once again, the finals will be on live television, set for Dec. 8 in Las Vegas.
Serra goes from a fighter in the house in season four to a coach and world champion after a whirlwind year. After winning the Ultimate Fighter show last fall, and the welterweight title, he bought a house on Long Island, moved in the day before he got married, went on a honeymoon to Aruba, and two days after that ended, was in Las Vegas coaching.
The other coach, the most decorated welterweight star in UFC history, Hughes, is on the comeback trail, looking to regain the title he's held on two occasions.
"Me and Matt Hughes, we don't get along," Serra said. "I was looking forward to fighting him anyway because I don't like him. I think he's an arrogant jerk. He's a very powerful fighter. He should be in the Hall of Fame for what he's accomplished. But he walks around with his nose up in the air. He's your typical bully."
The two didn't get along when Hughes came in for a few days as a guest coach when Serra was fighting on the show. After that season was taped, Hughes lost his championship on Nov. 18 in Sacramento to St. Pierre in a match were Hughes couldn't take down the man considered by some as the best all-around fighter in the company. Standing, Hughes was simply no match, and knocked out in a one-sided fight. St. Pierre figured to have an easy first defense of his title against Serra, leading to a Hughes rematch. When Serra caught St. Pierre with a right to the temple, and kept pounding on him until St. Pierre was done in just 3:25, the happiest man in the Toyota Center may not have been Serra, given the huge grin on Hughes' face that couldn't help but say Christmas came early.
Although whether that win over St. Pierre was his Christmas present or not won't be known for sure until a few days after, as after three months of seeing them coaching against each other (the whole season, with the exception of the finals has already been taped), it'll climax with a fight on Dec. 29 in Las Vegas.
The original idea was to fight in New Jersey, near Long Island, where Serra grew up and runs his Jiu Jitsu academy. But Serra is happy, because all four of his losses have been in the Northeast.
Serra, 32, thinks his big edge in the fight is that Hughes will be overconfident and will underestimate him.
"I think maybe he got a little lucky when he beat George," Hughes said. "I have more ways to beat him than he has to beat me. I didn't see anything [on the show] that gave me any doubt."
Hughes, 33 said whatever issues he has with Serra aren't going to be a major factor in the season.
Really looking forward to this season.
" From the previews it looks like they are a bunch of white trash wackos. Zuffa shouldnt make TUF like an episode of Jerry Springer. Definitely going after the lowest common denominator with that show. A lot of you TUF nuthuggers are pretty stupid though, so it makes sense. "
WOW you are one negative person. Do you like anything or do you just hate for the fun of it???
no shit! Lahey is bitching up a storm around here....
fuck if it's in a bad light, people will always like it or hate it no matter what. if this season is entertaining then i'm happy.
Hopefully the show is better than the Lightweights. God that sucked and nearly killed my appetite. But How can you hate! untill you watch the program and see how it appeals to you, o well you can't like everything. It really suck's how they have hardly any international talent except for the 1 or 2 Fighters not born in the United States. 
" The show is so corny and staged. You have to be pretty mentally worthless to enjoy it. The fights are the only good part. "
Then what you are saying is that you do like it, because of the fights right?. Then why not say that to begin with and I agree with you I only watch the last 10-15 minutes of the show just to watch the fights. Free MMA is a good thing.
J~ROC!!!
Bojangles-Paul trains with us at Twisted Fitness (Formerly Madison BJJ Academy)-Home of the Chosen Few fight team. Paul is a great athelete and is definitely always fun to watch when he fights.
Sotiropolous will win.
I thought War Machine was going to be a part of this season?
John Kolosci's first training was with my BJJ team for 1.5 years before going to another school.
Good luck John!!!
What the hell is Danzig doing there? This guy should go straight into the mix of top LWs...
George "Diablo" Sotiropoulos will win.
War George!!!