I hope some others caught tonight’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter, the in house street fight was pretty damn good (well more funny than “goodL”). This has to be the best episode of TUF considering things have been slumping lately.
Funny. I have to say I find it completely hypocritical that Dana White saw fit to kick off 3 cast members. Given the context and the fact that Dana said it was disgusting yet they played the fight in it
s entirety add to the the circumstances of the house (loads of alcohol), these guys were just giving the entertainment they wanted.
[quote]EmperialChina wrote:
Funny. I have to say I find it completely hypocritical that Dana White saw fit to kick off 3 cast members. Given the context and the fact that Dana said it was disgusting yet they played the fight in it
s entirety add to the the circumstances of the house (loads of alcohol), these guys were just giving the entertainment they wanted.[/quote]
Bullshit. When you’re a professional, you only fight in the ring unless your life is threatened. That’s the price you pay.
Were the guys played as fools by people who truly do not care about fighters or the sport and instead treat fighters like slabs of meat? Sure. But the guys need to be smart enough to realize this: Dana White does not give a shit about fighters. He cares only about lining his own pockets, and if fucking up the careers of a couple of young men will help him get ratings and thus sell ads; you’d better believe he will do it.
The sooner people realize that Tito Oritz has it figured out that Dana White is not anyone’s friend, the sooner fighters will stop risking their lives to live like paupers while making others rich enough to live like kings.
[quote]EmperialChina wrote:
Funny. I have to say I find it completely hypocritical that Dana White saw fit to kick off 3 cast members. Given the context and the fact that Dana said it was disgusting yet they played the fight in it
s entirety add to the the circumstances of the house (loads of alcohol), these guys were just giving the entertainment they wanted.[/quote]
Exactly. If Dana White was so ashamed he would have sat on that video instead of promoting it.
He still made the right call kicking them off the show but his act was phony.
Dana did what he had to do. For a sport trying to gain legitimacy, an MMA match on concrete is best left to youtube clips and underground fight videos. Yes, the sport is inherently violent, but under controlled conditions probably less worse than boxing. You let these guys get that shit off and you start looking real stupid, possibly even having NSAC trouble.
That bullshit being said, I thought it was the best ‘fight’ of the season. Props to Marlon for taking one on the chin before he retaliated. Yes, it was a total juvenile high school moment, cheering drunk dudes fighting around a campfire. It was fun then too…
One side of Dana’s mouth: WOWZA!!! Jens and BJ really hate each other! They almost threw down in the conference room! TUNE IN ON THE 23RD FOR THE EXCITING CONCLUSION. YOU’LL PAY FOR THE WHOLE SEAT BUT YOU’LL ONLY NEED THE EDGE!!!1
Other side of Dana’s mouth: Drunken trash talking and street fighting? How barbaric! You disgust me. I work long an hard to promote you as athletes, not as thugs looking to kick each other’s asses. Scrub 1 and Scrub 2, get your shit and leave. And you know what, Scrub 3 can gtfo too just because I’m cranky today.
More phony bullshit. Yes, promote the “street fight” all week, air it, and THEN get offended. Instead of Dana getting face time on air to wave his dick and give his “this is not the fucking image we’re fucking trying to fucking convey here” speech, why not just edit it out and not show it at all?
But I can see his point. We need to go back to the good old days of TUF when the fighters acted with honor and dignity – like, you know, in Season 1, episode 1 when Chris Leben pissed in the tomato can’s bed.
Is there a vid of this fight, I missed it last night.
Edit
I saw the vid. I love how after the guy tried the armbar he got his head smashed into the ground then ran back to his group of friends then started talking more shit. He started talking about how this was on concrete.
That whole thing was a disgusting play for ratings. Not only did he make a huge deal out of it just to be an ass, he showed the entire thing on TV so he couldn’t have been too upset by it. What does he think will happen anyways. Putting a bunch of drink fighters in the same house and keeping the eliminated ones around to get loaded and talk smack to the other guys about how they should have won.
It’s recipe for this sort of thing and Dana knows it, especially combined with the jackass attitudes some of those guys have.
If he was really serious about it, the eliminated fighters would be outta there anyways, not hanging out starting shit. Fucking hypocrite.
what Dana White really was thinking when he watched the tape “wow this will be great for ratings”
[quote]baretta wrote:
…
If he was really serious about it, the eliminated fighters would be outta there anyways, not hanging out starting shit. Fucking hypocrite.
[/quote]
And why do they have access to alcohol? They cannot speak on the phone, watch TV, read books, get on the internet, but they can drink!
I thought they were supposed to avoid alcohol during training.
the show sucks its no better than american idol.
[quote]brunottfn wrote:
the show sucks its no better than american idol.[/quote]
I beg to differ.
While the 45 minutes of every show are nothing special, the last 15 minutes are the best thing on TV.
Regularly scheduled weekly MMA fights beats the ever-loving shit out of the scrambling around for three-month old VHS fight tapes that MMA fans had to go through 10 years ago. I’m certainly not going to complain about it.
[quote]Jack_Dempsey wrote:
Instead of Dana getting face time on air to wave his dick and give his “this is not the fucking image we’re fucking trying to fucking convey here” speech, why not just edit it out and not show it at all?
[/quote]
I agree with your general point, but I am not sure Dana has veto power over the editors &/or the SpikeTV executives.
An in-house fight is the holy grail of reality TV programming. I’m sure the folks at SpikeTV would have pitched a fit if Dana tried to bury this footage.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
And why do they have access to alcohol?
[/quote]
Because reality TV producers learned a long time ago that sober people are boring. Real World, Big Brother, etc. all made sure there was plenty of booze on hand.
I agree with everyone that it was an obvious play for ratings, but the way that everyone pins this on Dana is giving him way too much credit. SpikeTV owns the rights to all The Ultimate Fighter footage and has final control over what gets on TV and what doesn’t.
Dana might act like controls the world, but really he doesn’t. He’s the face of the UFC, but he does not yield power over everything that happens. Spike was obviously behind this, and Dana’s anger over the situation was real and necessary because in the back of his mind he knew they were defientely going to show this on national TV and it needed a response from him.
The fact that it would jack up the ratings probably made him smile when he sat back and thought about it though.
Anyways, that first round was awesome and it was probably the best fight I’ve seen on TUF. Incredible ground work from both of them, the elbow sucked but what are you going to do. I’m sure we will see them go at it again in the future.
[quote]brunottfn wrote:
the show sucks its no better than american idol.[/quote]
It mostly sucks but they have fights at the end. This makes it better than American Idol. (I assume AI sucks because I don’t watch it.)
[quote].
Regularly scheduled weekly MMA fights beats the ever-loving shit out of the scrambling around for three-month old VHS fight tapes that MMA fans had to go through 10 years ago. I’m certainly not going to complain about it.[/quote]
Damn right. I have been interested in MMA forever but it was such a pain to actually see the fights I always tried to put it out of my mind.
There’s two things about the fight that don’t make any sense (or do they?).
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The “street” fighting at the house was embarrasing, brutish, disgusting etc. It’s the kind of thing that the UFC is trying so hard to get away from. It’s exactly what makes this type of sport unappealing to the public. It could untimately hold back the growth of the industry etc. etc.
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That “fight” was the most hyped part of the entire season (all of them). If Spike or Dana White REALLY thought this was “bad for business” and potentially damaging to the legitimacy of the sport, it would never have been aired.
The truth is that that kind of thing would help ratings, not hurt them. Despite what the higher-ups say, they realize and act upon what they know is true. Controversy sells. The whole issue is so transparent that’s it’s laughable.
I say put the gladiators in the house. If they fight, they fight. They are FIGHTERS for God’s sake. They also have a video camera up thier asses 24/7.
I hated the whole “keep it in the ring” gentleman crap. Warriors are warriors, period. Not just when someone tells thm it’s OK.