It has been a long time since a season of The Ultimate Fighter felt like a big deal.
I am not telling you anything you don’t know. This is not a revelation. The Ultimate Fighter has been stuck on “not interesting” for years. To tell you the truth, I long ago decided the show would continue sliding down into the pit where things that are no longer relevant go to die.
There, it would find itself in decent company, with the final two seasons of The Killing and every international variation of The Ultimate Fighter.
There are so many Ultimate Fighters that I can’t even keep track any more. I understand they are talent development tools used only to build up new international stars. But as with the North American version in recent seasons, the actual talent level on the show has been marginal at best for a long time.
Which is why I stopped caring about the show right about the time they made the ill-fated decision to do a live season. At its core, a live season of The Ultimate Fighter seemed like a cool thing to do. You’d get to watch everything play out in real time, and the fights would happen live instead of taped months before the broadcast. It felt like a great idea.
But then the actual broadcasts began, and we wondered: Where did all the stories go? Without the ability to create stories—often out of thin air and a bit of logic-bending string—the show fell flat. After that season, it was hard to care about The Ultimate Fighter again. The addition of 135-pound females couldn’t even create a sense of urgency for me.
But tonight, things are different.
What you’ll see if you tune into Fox Sports 1 is a revolution in The Ultimate Fighter. I do not know if it will last more than this season because much of the weight you experience when watching the first episode unfold is knowing that these 16 women moved into a house in Las Vegas with the hope of emerging as an actual UFC champion.
They were not vying for an eight-fight UFC contract that sounds great on paper but ended up shackling you to the low end of the UFC’s pay scale.
They were fighting to be the first UFC strawweight champion. That means something, and that meaning adds real heft to the proceedings you’ll see unfold tonight.
The marketing centered around this show has been a tad on the ludicrous side. The sex appeal of many of the ladies has been pushed to the forefront instead of the sporting aspect.
And you’ll see plenty of that tonight, along with the usual generated and non-generated drama created by producers after the fact. Don’t get me wrong; there is some real bad blood here, and there will be bad blood over the next few months.
But what strikes me in the first episode is the sport. You will see some cool changes in the format that pushes the show forward from the first episode. I can’t spoil these changes, of course, but they’re worth watching for.
And that, in and of itself, is a win for The Ultimate Fighter. Before the announcement that the 20th season would feature strawweights vying for a championship, I had no intention of watching. I haven’t watched a full season in years.
But now? I’ll watch every episode. I’ve already seen the first episode twice. Yes, it is that good.
And I think you’ll dig it, too, if only you’d give it a chance. So I urge you to do just that. Grab a snack, sit in front of your television and watch the first episode play out. After you’ve done that, if you’re still not into the whole deal, then tune out. If you aren’t hooked by the first episode, it is likely you won’t be hooked by anything else you see. And that’s okay.
But trust me on this one: If you miss out because you think this season will be like every other season, you’ll be wrong.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com