If you asked a longtime UFC fan what he — or she! — thinks of The Ultimate Fighter, they would likely tell you that the series has gotten stale. (Damn, have we really been complaining about this for over three years now? Time flies when you’re bitching.) It’s not that we won’t tune in to watch up-and-coming fighters slug it out for a spot in the UFC — although that Friday night time-slot is still a pain in the ass — but all the “house drama” officially got old around the Junie Browning era, and highlighting the contestants’ dumb frat-boy behavior makes the sport look worse.
So it’s unfortunate when you watch this new teaser for “Ultimate Fighter Fridays” (known to regular folk as TUF 16), and you realize that the show is actually doubling down on the stupid. Let’s run through the checklist…
– A dude getting up in another dude’s face in the kitchen. (check)
– A prank involving flour. (check)
– A prank involving a bed being moved outdoors. (check)
– An idiotic piece of trash-talk, made worse due to silly delivery. (“You got more stories than Dr. Seuss, ho-mee.” –> check)
– An obviously intoxicated dude trying to destroy the house. (check)
– At least one dyed mohawk. (check, see above)
– Dana White unable to believe what he’s hearing/seeing. (check)
Meanwhile, footage of coaches Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin is kept to a minimum, except for brief moments when Roy is swearing and Shane is telling one of his fighters to “BREAK IT!” — in other words, the moments that make two of the UFC’s brightest heavyweights look like meatheads. So either this is the most lunkheaded season of TUF yet, or FX thinks that making their show look like a Jackass out-take reel will help them bounce back. Whatever. Let me know who wins, I guess.