14 – Matt Brown
Once on the verge of being cut from the UFC roster after an 0-3 run in 2010, TUF 7’s Matt Brown went on to win eight of his next nine, with seven straight from 2012-14 being part of that run. It’s been a display of the talent, determination, and heart shown during his stay on TUF, where he made a name for himself with a head kick knockout of Jeremy May before being eliminated in the quarterfinals by eventual winner Amir Sadollah. At 40, “The Immortal” is still punching and knockouts of fellow TUF vets Diego Sanchez and Ben Saunders in 2017 and 2019, respectively, prove that he’s still got it.
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13 – Matt Serra
How does Matt Serra, a guy with a .500 record from the time of his win on The Ultimate Fighter 4 get to this point on this list? Well, first, one of those three wins saw him take the UFC welterweight crown with a knockout of Georges St-Pierre, a man many believe is the greatest welterweight of all-time, and two, one of the losses (a close three round decision) came to the man who has always been in that conversation as the greatest welterweight ever – Matt Hughes. Add in Serra’s TUF4 finale win over Chris Lytle (a loss Lytle avenged in 2010), his wins on the show over Shonie Carter and Pete Spratt, his UFC victories over Frank Trigg, Yves Edwards and Jeff Curran, and his memorable battles with Carter, BJ Penn, Din Thomas, and Karo Parisyan, and you’ve got a body of work that certainly warrants his place among the best fighters ever to appear on The Ultimate Fighter, as well as in the UFC Hall of Fame, which welcomed the popular New Yorker in 2018.
