Date Posted: April 13, 2011
Print Edition: April 8, 2011
By Trevor Fik (Staff Writer) – Email
Reality television at its best is able to encompass the art of the human drama to its full extent. The trials and tribulations of day to day living typically provide enough content to fill hours of television programming, and while most of it is of poorer quality, when captured correctly the raw and visceral emotion of people can be an experience that is unsurpassed.
Surprisingly a program which utilizes the best of the above criteria is held in a show that puts on display the increasingly mainstream world of mixed martial arts (MMA). Where better to get your fix of gladiatorial-eque combat, while seeing grown men break down in front of the camera, then on a show which features amateur fighters vying for a coveted spot on the UFC roster?
For those unfamiliar with the format of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF), the program takes 14 MMA competitors relatively new to the sport and gives them the chance to train under the tutelage of a current MMA star and his team of professional coaches. The competitors are divided up into two teams, whose members take turns competing against each other on a weekly basis in a one on one MMA fight. After each fighter has gotten a chance to compete, the winners go on to a single-elimination tournament style bout which sees somebody eliminated on a weekly basis. The finals are held at The Palms Hotel in Las Vegas, accompanied by a host of other fights from UFC competitors already on the roster. The winner gets a guaranteed six-figure contract with the UFC, and the chance to fight on a pay-per view bout.
Both from a mixed martial-arts perspective, as well as from an entertainment point of view, TUF is a program that shines a light on the world of MMA from the vantage point that few are ever able to experience, that of the physical and mental implications of enduring a gruelling six week training program, all of which is done under the impending knowledge that any fight could be a competitors last.
Many are hurt, several are seriously injured, blood is spilled, and tears are poured, but only one is crowned the ultimate fighter.
This season (the series 13th) features two heavyweights in Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos coaching a team of welterweight competitors. Lesnar and Dos Santos will then meet after the season’s conclusion at UFC 131 on June 11 in Vancouver.
In the past the coaches have been almost as entertaining as the competitors themselves, with pranks being pulled and rivalries formed. The most notable of which was the coaching duo of Rashad Evans and Rampage Jackson in a season which saw both coaches nearly come to blows on more than one occasion.
Past winners of TUF include former light-heavyweight champions Forrest Griffin and Rashad Evans, heavyweight Roy Nelson, and middleweight Michael Bisping.
While much of the show focuses on the training regimen of each fighter leading up to their bout, which is held at the end of the episode, the program also dedicates a fair amount of time to going inside the TUF house where all the competitors are roomed together. With any connection to the outside world cut, several fighters often come to the brink of complete physical and mental collapse. Competitors brawl, bully, hurl names, and pull pranks as a means of surviving the competition, and each other, as they endure the unforgiving world of MMA. The matches are so good because of how bad the fighters want to be in the UFC, and the result is a show that is entertaining not only from an MMA perspective but from a human perspective.
