Luke Thomas stands six-foot-thirteen and is a former US Marine. He’s got me on height, but I have about forty pounds on him. If we ever met in the cage it’s a sure bet I’d take him down, provided I could get past his freakishly long reach. Fortunately we duel literary style, so in this month’s debate we look at the old days of MMA when Ken Shamrock, Big John McCarthy, and Team Quest were the heavy hitters of the octagon. Though the pre-TUF 1 era is long gone, their legacy is undetermined and their relevance still hangs in the balance. Read on to see what I mean.

Issue #1 - What happened to Team Quest?

Kelly - When I first stepped into Team Quest’s training facility in February 2007, I was awed at the talent pool before me. Chris Leben was on a win streak, Nate Quarry was about to fight for the UFC middleweight title and Josh Haynes and Ed Herman had both taken second place in season three of The Ultimate Fighter. Matt Lindland was beating up guys in Bodog and his Wolfpack were having good success in the IFL, headlined by Matt Horwich winning the promotion’s middleweight belt. Team Quest’s potential seemed limitless. Two years later, Leben and Quarry have moved to new gyms, Haynes has dropped off the MMA radar, Herman has lost two of his last three in the UFC, Horwich and fellow IFL standout Ryan Schultz are on losing streaks, the uber-talented Chris Wilson has underwhelmed in the UFC, and Matt Lindland got brutally knocked out by Vitor Belfort. What gives? Is something in the Gresham, Oregon water supply? It’s gut wrenching to see a gym that was passionately built from a car dealership by Randy Couture, Matt Lindland, and Dan Henderson’s own hands fall out of the top five training camps in the country. But the simple fact is Jackson’s MMA, American Top Team, Sityodtong, American Kickboxing Academy, and Miletich Fighting System have all posted higher win percentages. Of course I’m only focusing on the original Team Quest and not Team Quest south in California where Dan Henderson, Mayhem Miller, Thierry Sokoudjou.html">Sokoudjou, and Krzysztof Soszynski train. They’ve enjoyed a modicum of success while their northern contemporaries try to figure out where all the wins went. Lindland and his crew in Oregon can only look to Chael Sonnen’s recent win over Dan Miller at UFC 98 and Ed Herman’s win over David Loiseau at UFC 97 as good recent memories. Every gym goes through slumps and Quest has a crop of young fighters who may rebuild the name, but when? What does your Magic 8-Ball tell you, Luke?

Luke - Kelly, let’s underscore that last point about the “crop of young fighters.” We need to talk about them, but first, it’s important to dispel the notion that we can even talk of the “original” Team Quest. The Team Quest that built it’s name on the backs of wrestling pedigrees from Randy Couture, Matt Lindland, and Dan Henderson that used their adapted wrestling for MMA styles to facilitate the growth of the next generation of fighters. The group has long since splintered into disparate and seemingly uncommunicative factions that have themselves taken on their own identity.  The team in Gresham, Oregon certainly has many talented fighters, but they seem relegated to larger regional shows as they are unable to push their skill sets...