To be fair, a lot of people have gone off TUF completely.
True. Hopefully people keep an open mind about this season. Check it out and see what happens for a few episodes at least. Maybe they will change their minds after seeing it for themselves. Or not.
There are a lot of short/weak records on this one.
This is true to a degree too. Keep in mind that with the UFC bringing in first 135 and later 115 divisions many 125ers went to those divisions with and without success, or just mixed. Several fairly good 125ers are on TUF this season who took some losses having tried their hand without much success at 115, too big a weight cut. Other fighters are decent but don't have many fights.
Rose Namajunas was in a similar situation not all that long ago.
I was just thinking of this. Back when I kept up the Women's MMA by Weight Class thread the Flyweight Division was the largest division in Women's MMA. For a number of reasons Brazilians and Europeans made up the most upper level talent (Beyond top ten/fifteen). That has continued to a degree, more so with Brazilians as many good flyweights from Europe dropped down to strawweight for Invicta and the UFC. So many top flyweights, at the moment, are actually not native English speakers and don't normally get into TUF in the first place. (Edit)
Honchack wasn't fought for ages.
Agreed. Barb had some fairly tough, fence, grinding fights that people were giving her grief over. Plus with all of the people dropping off to different weight classes it was hard to find her fights. There are other reasons she went into semi-retirement but she is back and we will see where she is at this season.
Murphy has one win since 2013 and she looks big enough to be real bantamweight.
She won a fight last year. She has had some tough fights, did get a split with McMann. I thought she did fairly well against Carmouche but lost a UD. Chookagian is no slouch either. I had hoped Chookagain would be picked up by Invicta for their Flyweight Division before she was picked up for the UFC's Bantamweight Division.
Agreed she is more of a bantamweight as far as size goes. (Edit)
The whole "Crowning a Champion" is less believable than the straw weight effort.
I somewhat agree that this isn't the best method for finding a champion but it is a tough tournament and finding a champion at the end of it is a nice reward for the people fighting in it. Best of luck to all the participants.
And nice to see the Happy Warrior on Sherdog again. Thanks for stopping in Roxy.