The Ultimate Fighter - USA vs. UK

The new season of The Ultimate Fighter starts tomorrow (Wednesday), and it's proceeded by the usual Spike TV Ultimate Fight Night special.

I'll watch all of it, and I'll probably enjoy it as well. But there's nothing about this season of The Ultimate Fighter that I'm particularly looking forward to: I like Dan Henderson, and Michael Bisping is fine, but it's not like I'm chomping at the bit to see them fight each other. So the lure of the coaches fighting is "meh" at best. And the quality of the guys on TUF in recent seasons has declined dramatically, so there's little reason to emotionally invest in a bunch of fighters when there's little chance that any of them will actually leave a lasting impression in the UFC. The days of the UFC finding the next Forrest Griffin or Rashad Evans (or Michael Bisping, for that matter) from TUF are almost certainly over.

Not to mention, being Canadian, the whole USA vs. UK angle on this season is not exactly a patriotic lure.

But, as I said, I'll watch all of it. Because it's still going to be more compelling than the WWE has been of late.

The Ultimate Fighter returns

The new season of The Ultimate Fighter kicks off tonight. Unfortunately, I won't be around to watch it due to another commitment, but I'll DVR it and watch it eventually. My thoughts on the first show (if any) will be posted at a later date. I will say going into it that I don't have high hopes for this season, and I think that the TUF format has run its course.

There's also an Ultimate Fight Night show before the new TUF, of which I know almost nothing except that it's on. I don't expect it to do a very good rating.

The UFC Wednesday Night Marathon of Doom!

Sorry, but four hours for the two UFC shows last night was just too long, particularly after the kind of weekend the WWE just gave us.

I mean, it's one thing to make Mania four hours long, but last night was NOT Wrestlemania. While the Fight Night matches turned out to be (mostly) really good, the show had zero buzz going in. And after the star-studded Mania weekend, Fight Night came across as a bunch of UFC PPV opening match geeks fighting for free on TV.

It would be like the WWE giving us a three-hour Wednesday night broadcast of Heat - the workrate may be great, but there's so little star-power, why bother to watch?

I'll be really interested to see the rating for last night's show.

That said, Ultimate Fighter was really good. I like the new format of making 32 guys fight their way onto the show to become the 16 who make it into the house. However, now guys who go on the show will be expecting to fight right off the bat, so they may have to change it up again really soon. This should be the best season ever in terms of the coaches being entertaining. I suspect Forrest will completely out-coach Rampage ... and then get stomped by him at the PPV.

Ultimate Fight Night - Ultimate Fighter

UFC has a three-hour Ultimate Fight Night tonight, followed by the premier of the new Ultimate Fighter series featuring Rampage Jackson and Forrest Griffin as the two coaches, which should rule the Earth.

But that's FOUR HOURS of UFC programming tonight!

FOUR HOURS!

Seriously ... who has time on a Wednesday evening, the middle of the work week, to watch FOUR HOURS of MMA.

Sure, Wrestlemania was four hours long. But it was Sunday afternoon. And it was WRESTLEMANIA!

This is no Wrestlemania.