You may have noticed a lack of Ultimate Fighter content. To be honest, I started work on a preview of this season and then gave up. You know why? Because this season is bad. Listen, I get that there is resistance to calling this a bad season of the show from a lot of people on the internet, but the truth is this season sucks. I’ve barely bothered to keep up with it and neither have any of the other contributers here. Two guys look like the dominant forces early on: Jeff Lawson and Jason Dent. If you know anything about MMA beyond the UFC, or hell, if all you know is the UFC, you know that Jason Dent isn’t an elite level guy. And that makes the fact that there’s about 14 guys worse than him on this show so amazing.
The ugly truth is that guys like Mushin Corbbrey and John Gunderson (who tried out) were turned down for this show for Ray Elbe and Waylon Rowe. The only reason that you would turn down a guy who’s fought on Showtime for guys that lost to guys that lost on Showtime is obvious: You’re intentionally looking for weak fighters. TUF 9 is not about building new American talent. It is completely about building new talent for the UK. Its about finding another Bisping to sell tickets over there when the live gates have been dropping with each show put on. You don’t just have to believe me that these fighters suck: Look at the TUF 9 Finale! There’s already 7 non TUF fights booked; more than any other Finale in history. Mix that with a tired setup of house and riled up young fighters and we’re all finding something else to do with out Wednesday nights. Since the ratings were down to a 1.1 in week 2 and…well, I can’t find a rating for week 3. But I’m gonna go on a limb and say it wasn’t record breaking in a good way. But it doesn’t look like we’re alone either.
The show had already deteriorated to a weekly freak show feuturing drunks pissing on each other. Despite the damage this kind of nonsense does to the image of the MMA fighter at a time when the sport is still illegal in many areas, Komissar White only cares about lining his own pockets.
He cynically manipulates matchups, coddles those fighters (like Bisping) that he favors, puts on some hellaciously bad cards, like the last one while he continues to gouge fans with outrageous ticket prices and in general is truly bad for the sport.
Now he is cynically setting up the UK to beat the USA as he knows full well that the UK needs the pub. The author is quite right. White’s machinations are clearly evident. One would have to be a complete moron to figure that this is an accurate measure of the sport in the two countries.
I mean how low can you go?
That is very interesting that the US team was picked purposely to not have the best available fighters. I have watched the first 4 episodes although I fast forwarded through about 15 minutes of episode 4. I don’t enjoy the “house antics” and will not watch them. I don’t live in a part of the world that gets Spike so I have to rely on torrent technology. I always record the episodes first and then watch them a few hours later so I have the luxury of not having to watch everything.
It does look like the Team UK fighters are a notch above the US guys but I assumed that was just luck of the draw rather than contrived.
But what you say does make sense given the international direction the UFC is taking.
zuffa sucks, dana white sucks, and so do the feritty brothers.crooked punks, they have ruined what it is to be a great martialist.they have pretty much cornered the market in mma and are rapidly destorying any resemblance of good taste.they are pandering to the w.w.e type meathead crowd. they have a bunch of idiots taking trash to eachother and then the “mma fighters” have a terrible match because the spend more time jawein’ at eachother than actually trainig.it is all a waste in the hands of money hungry morons!
To pick out this season and say ‘It’s a set-up for one team to win’ is a little disengenuous when from the start the show has essentially been handicapped to make one or two chosen guys into stars. Look at season one’s ‘Middleweight Division’ - the chosen one Nate Quarry, his training partner Chris Leben, two welterweights (one of whom had been training MMA four months) and four lightweights. And when Quarry doesn’t win (or fight on) the show, he still gets a title shot before either of the actual winners do. Also, if you’ve got the season one DVD, look at the extras. The profile of Quarry makes him out to be the new Jesus.
If anything, the show has improved over time - abandoning the trails of early seasons, and the ‘winner has control’ policy that was later affected has allowed it to be more of a fight-based show, not less of one. The fact that they’re now doing two fights a show instead of one, and cutting down on the reality TV shenanigans to make time, means that of your 42 minute hour, twenty-ish consists of MMA fights. As opposed to the five or less minutes from when the show was new.