‘The Ultimate Fighter house sucked, man’: Rewinding ‘TUF 5,’ the world’s introduction to Nate Diaz

“My brother, when I left, told me, ‘Don’t get your ass whooped by none of those Ultimate Fighters.’”

This was how Nate Diaz characterized the advice he got from his older brother, Nick, as he set off to appear on Season 5 of “The Ultimate Fighter” in early 2007. By the time Diaz uttered those words on Episode 12 of the show, he’d already punched his ticket to the live tournament final, where he would go on to defeat Manny Gamburyan and earn a spot on the UFC’s official roster.

With the exception of a few notable interruptions, Diaz would never really leave.

Over the course of the next dozen years and 24 fights, he would become one of the octagon’s best loved and most respected mainstays. He hasn’t won a conventional championship, but when Diaz (20-11) meets Jorge Masvidal (30-14) in one of the biggest fights of the year in Saturday’s UFC 244 headliner, it will be a testament to the quirky star power he has cultivated along the way.

Back in ’07, however, none of that had happened yet. Most fans were getting their first look at the younger Diaz brother when they tuned in to TUF 5. At just 21, Nate’s turn on the reality show not only represented the start of a long and successful UFC career, but also some of his first steps into independent adulthood. Those who knew Diaz best said TUF amounted to the first time he had spent extended time away from family, friends and teammates at Northern California’s tight-knit Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.

Still, they had an inkling he was going to do well.

“I had a lot of confidence in Nate, so it wasn’t really a surprise that he won it,” said longtime training partner Jake Shields. “You knew he was tough enough to go do it on his own. I know it’s a little different in that house without his brother and all of us. We all had confidence. Cesar, Nick, — we were all like, yeah, he should go out there and win that. He had the potential. He had the mental toughness. He wasn’t going to go out there and quit.”

Here’s a look back at Season 5 of The Ultimate Fighter and our introduction to what Nate Diaz was all about.

First impressions

“The Diaz brothers are both very emotional, tough street kids. The Diaz brothers are angry at everyone.” – Dana White, TUF 5

Nate Diaz came to TUF 5 ready to carry on a family tradition. Nick was already 10 fights into his own UFC career by the time the show hit airwaves on April 5, 2007. In some ways, that made Nate feel like a known commodity from Day One.

He was the spitting image of his brother: lanky, with close cropped dark hair and an expression that only occasionally broke away from its ever-present scowl to flash a surprisingly boyish grin. It was also clear from the beginning that the Diaz vibe wasn’t for everyone.

“He was then who he is now,” said Gabe Ruediger, another California native and TUF 5 cast member. “Nate hasn’t changed much. … He’s always been a fighter. He’s always had that mentality, and I respect him, but Nate’s not really someone that I’d hang out with.”

Diaz came to the show sporting a 5-2 record that included appearances in well-known organizations such as Pancrase, Strikeforce and WEC. In those appearances, he’d showed off the same high-volume pressure boxing style and slick submission skills that had rocketed brother Nick to MMA stardom.

Nate was one of the early favorites to win the TUF 5 contract, but he wasn’t the show’s top pick. After head coaches B.J. Penn and Jens Pulver clashed over the team selection process (an early indicator of how this season was going to go), Diaz became Team Pulver’s No. 2 pick and the fourth choice overall behind castmates Gray Maynard, Corey Hill and Matt Wiman.

Once in the house, Diaz didn’t necessarily jump off the screen as one of TUF 5’s initial breakout personalities. He got his share of airtime but mostly seemed content to loom in the background and let others have the spotlight. That quiet reticence would go on to become one of Diaz’s most enduring traits as a fighter. If you were looking for him to make an impact, you had to wait for the fights to start.

“I don’t think he really had that much of a presence (in the house), you know what I mean?” Ruediger said. “Nate was just there to fight.”

The cast

“These 155ers are crazy motherfuckers.” – Dana White, TUF 5

Season 5 was, in many ways, a seminal installment of the UFC’s long-running reality series. It occurred just as the show seemed to crest a wave of relevance and popularity. The format was well known enough to be familiar to fans and the fighters who appeared on it but hadn’t yet become stale after the relentless grind of season after season in the years to come.

The UFC was using TUF 5 to help reignite its lightweight division after a significant hiatus, and so it assembled a star-studded cast of some of MMA’s best up-and-coming 155-pound fighters. Diaz was there, along with future UFC regulars such as Gamburyan, Maynard and Cole Miller. The cast also included three fighters who had already fought in the UFC: Joe Lauzon, Wiman and Ruediger.

Random UFC tweet: Found this pic I took at tryouts for The Ultimate Fighter 5 about 11 years ago. @danawhite giving instructions to the group.
— Denny Burkholder (@DennyBurkholder) November 4, 2017

Then there were complete unknowns, including Hill, the 6-foot-5 “lump of clay” who appeared to have sky-high potential but joined the cast with zero professional fights. Other guys such as Brandon Melendez, Rob Emerson and Andy Wang had been kicking around independent fight circles for years. Then there was a mixed-bag group that included Allen Berube, Noah Thomas, Marlon Sims, Brian Geraghty and Wayne Weems, whom TUF editors appeared to deem a kind of supporting cast.

To make matters ever stranger, two contestants on the show had already fought Pulver. Emerson had lost to the former UFC lightweight champ via unanimous decision in Emerson’s first pro fight in 2002. Lauzon had actually defeated Pulver via first-round KO at UFC 63, which was Lauzon’s last fight before reporting for duty on TUF 5.

To say the season drew a diverse cast is an understatement, as it contained a wide array of experience, talent and dedication. Guys such as Diaz seemed destined to become UFC fighters while others had different motivations for participation.

“At the time, I didn’t know how cool it really was,” said Berube, whose nickname “The Monstah Lobstah” was a nod to the seafood restaurant he owned in Tampa, Fla. “We didn’t know how it was going to go or how big the UFC was going to get. I really didn’t take it as seriously as I probably should have. My training was sporadic. I was a restaurant owner. I really just (went on the show) to advertise the restaurant.”

House hijinks

“The Ultimate Fighter house sucked, man. I don’t recommend it, to be honest with you.” – Nate Diaz, TUF 5 Finale

It’s strange to watch TUF 5 in 2019. So much of what seemed organic about it a dozen years ago now feels painfully contrived. From Penn’s power play during fighter selection to the team format itself and the mischief and squabbles that eventually broke out in the house, a lot of it plays as — if not staged, exactly — done specifically for the benefit of the cameras.

By way of example, Ruediger points to his now somewhat famous interaction with Hill during Episode 1, where Hill got in his face and literally barked like a dog. At the time, Ruediger was taken aback by the display, but said later Hill confided in him that it was all for show. “As soon as (cameras) left the room, he was like, ‘It’s just for TV, dog,’” Ruediger said.

It was as if fighters knew enough about the TUF format to understand what was expected of them, but not quite enough to know how it would all play on TV. Ruediger’s own unsuccessful weight cut to 155 pounds, which became one of the show’s dominant storylines during its first few episodes, also occurred differently in real life, he said. Ruediger admitted coming to the TUF house heavier than he should have — even admitting he thought at the time it might make for dramatic TV — but said he’d always made the weight successfully during 13 previous pro fights.

This time, the thing that actually doomed the cut didn’t even make it to air.

“How it was portrayed on TV and how it actually went down are two separate things,” Ruediger said. “How it was portrayed on TV was that I was just being lackadaisical and not training and nothing mattered to me. In reality, I contracted strep throat the week I was supposed to fight … and I got to within about two pounds (of making weight) and then my body just gave out.”

While Diaz kept a fairly low profile in the house, he didn’t totally avoid the reality TV drama machine. One thing that is real about the TUF format: Six weeks in a house cut off from the outside world and living with people you’re about to fight can make a man do some strange things.

Diaz butted heads early with Team Penn’s Emerson, after Emerson scrawled “suck it, Team Pulver” on the wall of the TUF house. The two almost came to blows, and Diaz showed off what would become another constant of his UFC persona: whipping off his shirt when trouble was about to jump off. He also rolled his eyes at Emerson and Thomas for strutting around the house in thongs — which Diaz deemed “gay shit” — and engaged in a minor prank war with Miller.

In retrospect, it seemed fitting that Diaz’s most significant static of the season came not against another member of the cast but an actual UFC fighter. He and 14-fight UFC vet Karo Parisyan (who is Gamburyan’s cousin) nearly came to blows after the TUF tournament semifinals. Parisyan’s horseplay with Diaz in the TUF locker rooms got a little out of hand, and then the two had to be separated.

Ultimately, nothing came of it, though it did prompt an irate Parisyan to cut one TUF’s all-time quotable rants in the aftermath of the near brawl.

“I swear to God, bro,” he told TUF cameras, “there’s so much stuff I could do to these fucking idiots. Have some respect. Who even are you? Do you even know me? Do you know who I am?”

The fights

“That’s probably the best fight we’ve ever had on this show.” – Dana White, TUF 5

If Diaz kept largely to himself in the house, he shined on fight days, winning all three of his bouts on TUF via submission. With him there was never any drama about weight or game plans or who coaches would match him up against. In fact, in an early show of how he was going to conduct the rest of his career, Diaz eschewed any sort of strategy in picking opponents. Instead, he said he wanted to fight whoever was the toughest.

Early on, he’d targeted Lauzon for his first fight but decided to take on the also-tough Emerson after the two clashed in the house. Their fight turned out to be a two-round brawl that ended when Diaz took Emerson’s back and locked up a rear-naked choke just 16 seconds before the final bell. It was the first time Emerson had ever been finished and prompted White to gush that their back-and-forth scrap was perhaps the best fight ever contested on TUF to that point.

Diaz next took on the upstart Hill and got a surprisingly tough challenge from the inexperienced opponent for all of about three minutes. Diaz eventually caught Hill in a triangle choke and deemed it “a shitty performance” on his part. Pulver preferred to see it a different way.

“Diaz, man, he’s crafty,” Pulver said. “He’s a warrior.”

That warrior spirit showed itself in Diaz’s semifinal bout against Maynard. As the top overall pick on TUF 5, Maynard had advanced to the semis after a first-round TKO win over Weems and a second-round submission of Melendez. The former Michigan State wrestler was still coming into his own as a mixed martial artist and had just two previous fights before going on TUF.

Maynard was able to control Diaz on the ground for the entirety of the first round, battering him with punches and causing a cut over the jiu-jitsu practitioner’s right eye. Diaz regrouped in the second, however, and swept Maynard after an early takedown. From there, he was able to elicit the submission with a guillotine.

“I’m rich,” Diaz quipped to White in the cage after it was over, since TUF was still giving out financial bonuses for stoppage victories.

If there were any letdown about how TUF 5’s lightweight tourney played out, it happened at the finale, where Diaz met up with Gamburyan with a UFC contract on the line. The 5-5 fireplug Gamburyan had largely powered his way through the TUF tournament, submitting Thomas in the first round before scoring unanimous decision wins over Wiman and Lauzon.

In the finale, Gamburyan looked to continue that strategy, and he stayed on top of Diaz for much of the first round, working some ground and pound as Diaz flirted with a series of submission attempts. We’ll never know if Diaz had another comeback submission victory in him or if Gamburyan’s heavy top game would have won the day. Unfortunately, Gamburyan dislocated his shoulder shooting for another takedown just 20 seconds into the second round.

Diaz was declared the TUF 5 champion due to injury submission. He was awarded a “six figure” contract with the UFC, a custom watch and a year of free DirecTV service.

He was on his way.

The aftermath

“I got a lot more respect now for the guys who did this. It’s hard work, dude. But I hung in there. I stayed.” – Nate Diaz, TUF 5

It took Diaz some time to fight his way out of his brother’s shadow, but he’s compiled a 20-11 overall record to date. His short notice victory over Conor McGregor at UFC 196 in March 2016 and the pair’s ensuing feud turned Diaz into a surprise draw for the UFC. Audiences responded to his authenticity and take-no-prisoners fighting style. Today, he’s become perhaps even better known than Nick, though Nate himself might balk at that distinction.

Many other TUF 5 alums had great UFC careers. Maynard (13-7-1) came within a breath of winning the lightweight title, fighting Frankie Edgar to a draw at UFC 125. Lauzon (28-15) also emerged as one of the octagon’s most likable competitors and most recently scored a first-round TKO over Jonathan Pierce in October. Gamburyan (15-10) fought 10 times in the UFC, competing in its featherweight and bantamweight divisions before retiring in 2016.

Wiman (16-8) compiled 16 octagon appearances and recently returned to the company after a four-and-a-half-year break. Miller (21-11) eventually dropped to 145 pounds and had a nine-year UFC career. Emerson (20-13) fought seven times in the UFC and three more times in Bellator. He’s scheduled for a bout next month in Poland.

Other contestants on the show went different ways. Ruediger (18-8) said he considered it a “huge mistake” to give up his existing UFC contract to appear on TUF. After missing weight and being kicked off the show, he didn’t fight again in the UFC until 2010. He went 0-2 in the organization and retired from MMA in 2013. Today, he owns Kaiju MMA & Fitness in Los Angeles.

After a promising start, Hill (6-9) suffered a gruesome leg injury his third UFC fight and never fought again in the octagon. He passed away in May 2015 after a weeks-long battle with pneumonia.

Berube (4-3) fought just three times after the TUF 5 Finale. Today, he’s married with six children and works as a realtor in his home state of Maine. He’s currently trying out for “The Amazing Race.”

Of the original TUF 5 cast, Diaz, Lauzon and Wiman remain active in the UFC. A win over Masvidal in their “BMF title” fight this weekend could put Diaz within striking distance of his first UFC championship, though he said he doesn’t care much about that. All these years later, Diaz seems true to the roots he put down on TUF. He cares more about making money and keeping it real.

At this point, big brother Nick can rest easy. Nate didn’t get his whooped by any of those Ultimate Fighters.

“It’s great to see Nate Diaz being the flag bearer for our season,” said Wang, who moved to China in the years following his appearance on TUF. “He was a cool guy that was very mature and disciplined for being quite young, and it’s great to see him get the big fights and paydays.”

(Top photo of Manny Gamburyan and Nate Diaz: Josh Hedges / Zuffa)