If you wanted to draw a line in the past to separate the modern era of the UFC from its primordial early phase, you could do a lot worse than to plant that barrier on April 9, 2005. That’s the night the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter” officially wrapped up with a finale event at Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas. More importantly, it’s the night Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar went three wild rounds for the honor of being the light heavyweight winner of that first TUF season, and in so doing maybe saved the UFC or even all of MMA. It’s hard to be sure now. The further we get from the actual event, the more the myth threatens to overtake the reality. The story gets told and retold until it finally coalesces into an agreed-upon version that may or may not be grounded in pure fact.
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