Holy cow! The season finale of The Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV was tonite, live from Las Vegas and the fight between Stephan Bonner and Forrest Griffin was easily the most exciting fight I’ve ever seen in the UFC. Absolutely incredible display of heart and technical skill. It was three full rounds of toe to toe bombs, thai clinches, knees, technical takedowns, escapes, everything that makes Mixed Martial Arts so much better than any other fight sport. Forrest Griffin sustained a huge gash on his nose but fortunately they let the fight continue despite it being a bloody mess. Bonner looked a little clumsy and had a habit of charging in or backing up with his head down which is usually a recipe for disaster (as Bas Rutten says, it’s the punch you don’t see coming that will knock you out), but he was able to withstand every exchange and even get the best of it on many occasions. Both fighters had no gas left after two rounds, but somehow they were still firing crisp hard jabs and furious hooks. Usually when fighters get tired, even in just boxing, they like to clinch and lean on each other to rest. In this fight, they only clinched to look for takedowns and opportunities to fire their knees, even when they were both staggering around from exhaustion. Simply incredible. Forrest Griffin ultimately won the unanimous decision which made sense based upon ring generalship and aggression, since he was constantly charging forward and got more takedowns. The standup was probably dead even. I would think that those who don’t know much about the sport might think the decision was shady because Forrest was the one gushing blood everywhere, but in my opinion the refs got it right. But really in this fight there shouldn’t have been a loser, and in the end, Dana White agreed- he offered both Forrest and Stephan six figure contracts with the UFC. Well deserved. And man, what a terrific fight to have aired on the first ever live UFC fight on free cable. I wonder how the Neilsen ratings will be. The first season was already a success, and I just know that SpikeTV is going to move the show to a better time slot next season (they were on 11:05pm Monday nights this season and still pulled decent ratings). As long as the viewing public weren’t mortified by the blood everywhere, I think this will have made a lot of new fans. I was literally on my feet as this fight was unfolding and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. What a kickass showing!