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After six seasons of The Ultimate Fighter, I am pretty much at the end of my tether with these fucking meatheads. I blame no one but myself for this, of course: I am unbound; I am free. There is no reason to come back for more. But habit is, as Beckett said in that essay about Proust, the ballast that keeps the dog chained to his vomit, so here I am with the first episode of a new season of largely ridiculous young men — though theirs is a tragic, rather than comic, ridiculousness — going through the motions about about the extent to which they will break their opponent’s will, take their opponent’s heart (and related concepts) for, what, thirteen weeks? Periodically they will compete in mixed martial arts matches, which should be good fun. Also good fun, potentially: Quinton Jackson and Forrest Griffin hanging out and carrying on and cracking wise. I love those guys. It’s as though Dana White knew he was about to lose me as a viewer, and decided “the only way to keep this one guy who never buys any of our PPVs to stay on board for this TV show on a network that advertises things he will never buy (like Scions, lol) is to get Jackson and Griffin involved — and I say we do it.” Let’s see if it was the right move.

WEEK ONE

The concept here seems to be twice the fighters, half the nonsense, at least for the first couple of episodes. This has to be seen as a good thing. I know Dana White needs to connect with his audience and be perceived as part of it, generationally, but he is simply too old a dude to be wearing an unconventional, fashion-forward hoodie such as the one he is wearing to welcome the fighters to the gym. I’m not suggesting that there is an age after which there should be no hoodies, as the hoodie is an enormously functional garment, but this particular hoodie, this is a young man’s hoodie. And Dana White is not a young man. What drives him crazy, you might ask? “The pussies, and the posers.” Every season they make him “sick to his stomach.” So everyone fights, and presumably this eliminates “the pussies, and the posers.” Let’s separate the 6-5 men from the 4-5 boys.

Four minutes into the first episode I have laughed at Rampage’s bathroom humour. Not for the last time, I suspect. Seven minutes in, Forrest Griffin expresses a kind of homosocial anxiety about this “bunch of naked dudes . . . fantastic,” and follows that up by talking about his strategy of only picking unattractive fighters, which of course suggest he’ll be evaluating their looks throughout. As always, the line between the macho and the homoerotic is blurry at best.

The idea of picture-in-picture commentary from Jackson and Griffin and White is first-rate. And there we have it: Rampage Jackson talking about another man’s funky smell. He might never equal the masterstroke of calling Matt Lindland “a smelly, smelly skunk,” but I admire Jackson’s willingness to stay in that game, constantly trying to better himself, and push the game forward, even if he never succeeds.

Prince MacLean is the first to go home, losing fast to a big right from Mike Dolce, and has the aspect of The Wire’s Duquan “Dukie” Weems in his emotional post-fight interview. He’s right: things don’t always work out like you expect them to; it does hurt to lose. Just don’t go out like Duquan, Prince. Don’t lie to Mr. Presbo. Don’t take up with the junkie with the horse-drawn scrap cart.

Next is Griffin’s pal Cale Yarbrough against John Clarke, who has cut 17 pounds in a day, taking his last shot at this sport. He’s getting too old for this nonsense (me too?). Clarke out-wrestles Cale pretty thoroughly throughout the opening minutes, taking Yarbrough’s back on more than one occasion, and laying in a surprising number of strikes to the back of the head. Far be it from me to argue against the awesomeness of the suplex as a technique, but Clarke costs himself his good position by attempting one. Clarke attempts a jujigatame but can’t finish and is slow to his feet in the aftermath. He’s just hanging out on his knees eating shots, which has got to be — yes, it is, the end of the fight. The read from Griffin is that Clarke cut too much weight and ran out of steam after the failed armbar attempt, and that seems exactly right.

Next up is Amir Sadollah, in his pro debut. It must be way harder to get quality fighters to agree to do this show than you’d think; it must be that bad to live in that house. I guess the other relevant issue is simply the competitive depth of the sport which, though much expanded, is still pretty tiny. Steve Byrnes, who I assume is hard as hell because he is a Marine from Hawaii, has Sadollah on his back early. Not a whole lot going on here: guard, half-guard, guard, half-guard, and not because it is an epic battle of technical groundwork. I’m not complaining. I am a camera. Sweep! This is pretty intense low-level grappling going on: very basic technique on display here, but both Sadollah and Byrnes are impressively, well, intense. Also note that I am not hating on the basics: the basics are what work. But aesthetically you can’t help but want more. Sadollah comes fairly close with a triangle choke from guard but Byrnes holds on and escapes as the round ends. In the second round, Byrnes and Sadollah exchange arm bar attempts, short elbows and knees from the clinch, and then a baffling position on the ground which has Rampage wondering, “What the hell is that?” Dana thinks an omoplata (or sankaku garami) attempt, but it isn’t really; it’s just weird. Sadollah finishes, eventually, which a fairly slick little armbar. Definitely an entertaining fight, with a good pace and back and forth submission attempts.

We move into fight highlights, as brought to us by The Ruins (from the trailer, I would suggest people not go into the ruins). First up, Baggety vs. Dolloway (who decided he would buy the flowers himself, lol — who else likes Virginia Woolf?), with Dolloway moving on via strikes; then Rivera vs. Wood, which Rivera took by kimura; the quite likable Klein got the best of Griffin’s friend Mewborn with a kata gatame; and Bradley and Orr put on something of a dud, with Bradley hanging out on top of the striker Orr for ten minutes, doing not much of anything at all (Dana: “oh my fucking god”).

Rampage’s old friend Dave Roberts (they met when they were fifteen, and would tell people they were brothers with different fathers) takes on Jeremy May in the next of the featured matches. Roberts is an instantly sympathetic soft-spoken man, homely as houses. And he looks to be completely at sea here (making him a houseboat of some kind). He is triangled and armbarred in short order. You know who Roberts puts me in mind of? That guy from Hot Fuzz who would say “Yarp.” I do not mean that as a dis. “Just doing my job, my job happens to be to beat people’s faces in,” Mayweather smugly tells us by way of explaining what happened — not that what he describes happened in any way at all. He is a tool. Rampage is proud of Roberts’ effort but disappointed in the outcome.

OK, that was a perfectly enjoyable first week. One assumes there will be more Rampage and Griffin as things go on, but there was enough of them in this first episode to leave me with no complaints. I generally come out of the first episode of every season thinking the season looks to be now worse than pretty good, though, and I have been wrong more than once, so who can say? At least they seem to have dropped the theme song. As long as nobody asks me to BEAR WITNESS TO THE FITNESS OF THE MODERN WARRIUH I think I can handle anything.

Until next week –

KS