This season of The Ultimate Fighter begins with a twist. Instead of inviting 16 fighters, Dana White, President of UFC, invited 32 fighters. As he told them, he was tired of guys getting a free ride to the house and not having the heart to stay, so he was going to make them fight their way in. What he actually said to them I can't say here. If you've ever heard Dana's views on quitters, you can imagine the terms he used.

This season also has two dynamic coaches in Forrest Griffin and Quentin "Rampage" Jackson. Forrest is the beloved winner of TUF season one and Rampage is the former Pride Champion and current UFC Light Heavyweight Champion. Forrest is a known entity. He works hard, but is personable, and quite funny. Rampage is more of an unknown. In this episode, however, he did show his sense of humor.

The line of the night came from Rampage less than five minutes into the show. After Dana told the 32 fighters about the fight-in, Rampage notes that Dana made at least some of them crap their pants, because he smelled it. And that set the tone.

The 32 middleweights were paired up, given 24 hours to make weight, and then they had to fight for their spot in the house. It was obvious that some of them came unprepared. I guess they thought they would wait to train until they got there. They quickly realized what a bad idea that was. All 32 made weight, which kind of surprised me, but it was a pleasant surprise.

This first episode showed half of the bouts. There were a couple of rookies that were impressive. They came with no professional experience and took out their more experienced opponents. There was one fighter that had to shed 17 pounds to make weight, and he fought like it. He got gassed quickly and wasn't able to keep up with the other fighter. Forrest knew a couple of the fighters, one was impressive and one wasn't. Rampage's best friend showed up and really stunk, which was very surprising.

We didn't get to see too much of the fighters, but there were a couple that I'm going to keep my eye on. Cale Yarbrough and Amir Sadollah made good impressions and Jeremy May was very good, too. Jeremy May, however, was cocky and mouthy and I wonder if that will work for him or against him with the coaches. He already ticked off Rampage by talking smack after defeating Rampage's friend.

All through the eight bouts, we heard commentary from Rampage, Forrest and Dana. Very amusing. If this keeps up, I'll really enjoy the season. The last season lost something for me because it focused too much on the coaches, instead of the fighters. And the coaches got on my nerves with their constant sniping and bashing of each other. These two seem to be clowns and there's no bad blood in their history. Hopefully it'll stay that way and we can get back to focusing on the development of these young fighters.

Next week on The Ultimate Fighter 7 we'll see the final eight bouts for places in the house and the coaches will pick teams. It should be another good one. See y'all then.

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