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I’ve been watching Spike TV’s The Ultimate Fighter for a couple months now and damn what a great marketing idea. The show put 16 wannabe UFC fighters in a house without radio or TV for a couple months while they competed as teams in challenges and then fought in order to send someone home until they evenutally narrowed it down to 4 fighters, 2 Middleweights and 2 Light Heavyweights.

During the course of the show, we were re-introduced to the UFC, now much more “mixed martial arts” than the “grappler vs. striker” sport it was a decade ago. We were also introduced to Dana White, President of UFC and a great face to put on the sport. A real guy and a real cool guy.

We also got to know the 16 potential Ultimate Fighters and grew to like or hate them. Some were good guys but not very good fighters. Some were great fighters but worthless otherwise. Some where just worthless. It was fun to see Josh’s purpled forehead after Diego sent him home. It was great to see Forest send Sam home, finally. It put tonight’s live final episode in the perfect marketing situation: a free introduction to UFC for those who have never seen it and for those of us who have, it was a bright-light spectacle of a finale.

The first fight was about the way everyone expected it to turn out: Diego Sanchez with a quickness. The second fight was the more interesting and one of the best fights I’ve seen. The 2 contenders for the 6-figure UFC contract were Forrest Griffin (now with hair!) and Stephan Bonnar, 2 great guys and great fighters. It was pretty stressful watching them pummle each other because of the fact that I’m a fan of both now, thanks to the last few weeks of The Ultimate Fighter. And DAMN what a fight. Those guys were pounding each other and, at times, holding each other up from exhaustion before taking a step back and pounding again. It was closer to a Rocky movie than anything I’ve seen before. The fight was almost stopped once but Forest’s faceful of blood was coming from his nose, not over his eye, so it wasn’t a danger. There were several times when either fighter could have been knocked the fuck out but instead kept swinging just as hard as the bricks they were getting hit with. About halfway through the second round, I realized how sad it was that one of them had to lose. I was pulling for Forrest, especially after he started bleeding in the second round, but Stephan deserves to be in the UFC just as much.

And now they both are in the UFC. Forrest won a unanimous decision (all 3 judges gave him 2 of the 3 rounds) but the fight was so great that the powers that be at the UFC immediately made the right decision and gave both Forrest and Stephan a contract. How could they let the chance of a rematch slip through their fingers?

Next season of The Ultimate Fighter will feature Welterweight and Heavyweight fighters, if it’s as good as this season, you shouldn’t miss it. It is apparent from this season that Dana White and the UFC are great business people and, unlike veteran shark jumpist Donal Trump, next season will have more real contenders and not just clowns for the sake of bad entertainment like The Apprentice has turned into.

Another reason The Ultimate Fighter was such a great idea for the UFC? It was a season of advertising for next weekend’s PPV special. The 2 coaches on the show were 5 time UFC champion Randy “The Natural” Couture and Chuck “the Iceman” Liddell. These guys have fought before and next weekend they are the main event ( in the UFC’s PayPerView special UFC 52: Couture v. Liddell 2.

In the course of the show, those guys gained a lot of new fans and I’m sure a lot of them will be new PPV customers next weekend. (Anyone in Charlotte watching them next weekend? Let me know, I’ll bring beer.)

So, congratulations Forrest, Stephan, Diego, and congratulations on a great show Dana. I’m looking forward to next season.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 9th, 2005 at 10:15 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.