Bas Rutten poses with a future UFC women’s Gibraltarweight champion. Image via (COVER YOUR EYES!!) Rutten’s Facebook.
It’s a credit to reality television that it has managed to both continuously lower our expectations regarding what is an idea worthy of verbalizing (looking at you, everything on Bravo excluding Top Chef) while simultaneously redefining what we consider a “season” of television. Whereas in simpler times, a show like Seinfeld would operate at a one season per year pace, reality TV has somehow managed to dilute even the most basic of television truths, cramming upwards of four seasons into the average year. Not to mention all the spin offs. My God, all the spin offs.
The Ultimate Fighter is one of the more notable offenders of this trend, now 18 seasons deep despite being less than 10 years old. Another favorite of mine, Chopped, also requires a mention, now 14 seasons deep in just 4 years (!!). Yes, the cheap production costs and minimal staffing required for the average reality show has seen them churned out at near breakneck speed, which is why it makes sense that in the same week we received our first glimpse of TUF 18, the UFC is already putting out a casting call for TUF 19.
According to release sent out by UFC.com early today, next season’s tryouts will be open to MEN (their emphasis, not ours) competing in the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions. The requirements are as follows:
1. All applicants must between 21 and 34 years of age.
2. All applicants MUST have a WINNING RECORD of at least 3 PROFESSIONAL MMA fights. All records will be verified on sherdog.com and mixedmartialarts.com. If we cannot verify your record on either of these sites you will NOT be considered.
3. All applicants must have the legal ability to live and work in the United States
4. All applicants must complete and sign the application and bring the completed and signed forms to the tryouts. All applicants must attend the tryouts on Tuesday, August 27th 2013 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
If you recall, middleweights were the focus of last year’s season’s TUF 17, with current welterweight Kelvin Gastelum eventually securing that awesome glass plaque. Minus the upcoming season, the total number of middleweight classes to pass through the TUF household is at 7. The total number of middleweight title contenders to emerge from said classes: 2. One was Travis Lutter, who failed to make weight for his title fight against Anderson Silva at UFC 67. The other was Patrick Cote, whose knee imploded in the third round of his fight with Silva at UFC 90. That Paul Bradley, though, he could have really made some waves at 185.