Former heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar faced off against future UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos on The Ultimate Fighter 13 and came out with some pretty low ratings in what would be the second-to-last TUF on Spike.
Spike TV executive Kevin Kay spoke with Jack Encarnacao about the season of The Ultimate Fighter.
“Look, the Brock Lesnar season just wasn’t that good. Let’s be honest. It wasn’t the Brock that the audience expected,” said Kay. “The audience wanted Brock the bad guy, and Brock was more of a good guy, and I don’t think it was that great a season.”
Having Lesnar coach The Ultimate Fighter was expected to boost ratings of the reality MMA show. Unfortunately for Spike and the UFC, Lesnar wasn’t the guy everybody expected, and having him next to the insanely nice JDS did nothing to cause the fights that reality fans come to expect.
Add in the fact that the show didn’t really have any marketable stars and barely any great fight moments, and the show just couldn’t get ratings up, leading to speculation of how the UFC would make this last season of TUF better.
Lesnar was also supposed to fight JDS at UFC 131 in Vancouver, but due to a second bout with diverticulitis, Lesnar pulled himself from the card.
JDS went on to beat Shane Carwin by unanimous decision and get his shot against Cain Velasquez for the UFC title.
At UFC on Fox 1, JDS beat Velasquez by first-round knockout and claimed the title. JDS is now out with a knee injury, and Lesnar faces Alistair Overeem at UFC 141 on New Year’s Eve in his first fight since his knockout loss to Velasquez in October of 2010.
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