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« | Home | »

TUF clone in Germany?

By Stephan | October 19, 2006

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By Stephan Marceau

This post is more of a question to the Fight Opinion readers than really informative.

While travelling through Austria/Germany last week and flipping through channels at night, I did come across a few boxing and kickboxing matches on prime tv, but I also came across this show which I believe is called Martial Arts Xtreme in german (my german is not good beyond prost). Well the show looked like a total clone of TUF, two teams, similar to the first TUF season with actual physical challenges. That night the teams raced each other while pulling a truck to the finish line. There were actually two elimination fights that night, it looked early in the season with each team almost having 8 members or so. The fights were in an actual octagon, which does seem slightly smaller than the UFC’s.

My search through Google really didnt turn up anything useful on it… Perhaps some reader could fill us more about it? Did it come before TUF or is it a clone? Generally, from what I have gathered, the MMA excitement in Germany/Austria and Italy seems to be where we were just before TUF1.

Maybe I’m wrong… It would be nice to hear from our Europeans conterparts!

Topics: All Topics, MMA, Stephan Marceau | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

4 Responses to “TUF clone in Germany?”

  1. Pierre-Luc Allie says:

    TKO will do a french-canadian version of TUF too.

  2. CVillar says:

    The Philippines also has a TUF clone show called Real Pinoy Fighter. But it’s fought in a ring and under URCC rules which is a promotion in the Philippines. The rules are pretty much pre Pride 13 rules. The first episode aired internationally on TFC on Mondays at 5pmEST in the US. The fighters seem more green than some of the TUF. The show introduces the fighters and the styles. Then they did some MMA related conditioning training. The first challenge was a group grappling session where the RPF contestants were broken up into 2 teams. Both teams grapple in one big group to score a submission. One round consisted of a double armbar where 2 guy each had an armbar on one guy. The elimiation bout had one fighter scoring a KO by spiking his opponent into the ring. The sad part is during the pre fight package where they show the fighter’s family life they actually had each fighters whole family attend the fight. When the one fighter got spiked KO’d the family was hysterical. I’ll tune in again next week but the show is wearing on me with the bad competition and the stupid challenges.

  3. Preach says:

    Hmm, i haven’t even heard of that show before today. The next episode runs on saturday, so i’ll be giving it a look and you guys a review.

    The show runs on DSF (Deutsches Sport Fernsehen), which is more or less our version of ESPN, which is available in around 90% of german households.

    MAX started on October 7th and will have it’s series finale at the Philipshalle in Duesseldorf (which can hold a capacity of 8000 people). I haven’t found any information who’s on the show yet (but i’m digging), but i’ve heard that Power Academys Daniel Weichel and Mario Stapel (both veterans of King of the Cage, European Vale Tudo, Cage Warriors and Shooto) and German Top Teams Peter Angerer and Franco Leonardis (both Cage Warriors and Shido veterans) will be on it – as well as members of Chute Boxe and BTT!
    So it seems that they’re doing the finale like TUF, featuring the finals and fights between better known fighters.

  4. Preach says:

    Oh brother, these people don’t seem to know too much about properly organizing anything…

    The website for the series is http://www.martial-arts-xtreme.com but there is absolutely no information about the contenders or the rules to be found. Profiles on the hosts (a former VJ and a Model!), but not on the fighters, just great. But after digging long enough i finally found a list of all the contestants:

    -Daniel Weichel (Team Stapel, Germany)
    -Sebastian Baron (Team Stapel, Germany)
    -Andreas Bengez (Team Stapel, Germany)
    -Fabrizio Manzo
    -David Adam (German Top Team, Germany)
    -Baki Rahmani (MAAP Switzerland)
    -Alexander Gerber
    -Erkan Cinasoglu
    -Gianluigi DeRonzo
    -Dominique Burkhard
    -Marcelo Lopez
    -Ivan Musardo Gracco (Team Frota/BTT, Switzerland)
    -Amir Lekaj
    -Hugo Blatter
    -Roland Stocker
    -Igor Dimoski (Team Frota/BTT, Switzerland)
    -Guiseppe Catuogno
    -Martin Minder
    -Naim Llugagjija (Frota Team/BTT, Switzerland)

    But it also seems that a few fighters already left the show, as Mario Stapel posted on another site that two more fighters from his team joined the show:

    – Robin Hesselmann
    – Taner Yildiz

    And i’ve also found two clips from the first episode on youtube, and to be honest – it doesn’t look good. A fighter talking about how much he loves to hurt people, to break noses, not exactly the best way to promote the sport. And he’s not the only one, as there seem to be a few knuckleheads on the show. And don’t get me started on that Dana White-clone in the first vid, he talks and behaves like a mix between a south-american dictator and a retarded drill instructor…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BYlT9ygmL4
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOTQAzbTyps

    But like i said, i’ll be posting an extensive review after i’ve watched the next episode on saturday.

  5. We have covered the MAX “phenomenon” since the beginning, so there are a couple of articles including episode reviews and ratings breakdowns on our site (www.groundandpound.de). Here are the direct links:

    * MAX is looking for Germany’s toughest fighter:
    http://www.groundandpound.de/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=713&Itemid=2

    * Episode 1 Review:
    http://www.groundandpound.de/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=733&Itemid=2

    * Rumored season finale card:
    http://www.groundandpound.de/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=734&Itemid=2

    * Episode 1 Ratings:
    http://www.groundandpound.de/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=740&Itemid=2

    * Episode 2 Review:
    http://www.groundandpound.de/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=790&Itemid=2

    * Episode 2 Ratings:
    http://www.groundandpound.de/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=800&Itemid=2

    Beware that the articles are in German but I’m sure that Babelfish will do the trick.

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