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Some initial thoughts on The Ultimate Fighter: Kimbo Slice series debut
By Zach Arnold | September 17, 2009
Nate Quarry, former TUF contestant, gets the win in Oklahoma City against Tim Credeur (image courtesy UFC.com video)
As I’m finishing up a recap of gathering quotes from the winners of last night’s Oklahoma City show for a new article…
The Very Good
The interaction between Rashad Evans and Rampage Jackson is tremendous. It has the potential for A-grade level television in terms of creating hype for their upcoming fight. The differences between the two men make the time fly by when watching the show, which is a feat considering how many times I’ve watched The Ultimate Fighter and absolutely dreaded doing so.
The Good
It’s clear that Kimbo Slice and Roy Nelson will end up being the two ‘legitimate’ fighters in the eyes of fans after this show. The first 30 minutes was all about rehabilitating Slice’s image as someone who is legitimate and Jackson did a great job in the promos to try to erase the memories of Seth Petruzelli out of the brains of fans. It is kind of amusing to see UFC in the first 30 minutes make Slice out to be this incredibly dangerous monster despite the fact that Slice was entirely exposed on CBS. It’s a real stretch what they’re doing here, but it’s also the only promotional move they could do. The right course in terms of marketing. As for Nelson, it was interesting to see that Nelson got picked ‘in the middle’ of the team selection process and that the storyline for him on the show is that Rashad Evans and Greg Jackson are going to get on Nelson for not ‘being serious enough’ and too much of a jokester. Will the public buy into it? Who knows.
The Bad
Watching The Very Good and realizing that after making the commitment for the Memphis fight that Jackson decided to do the A-Team movie instead. I realize that Dana White & Lorenzo Fertitta play good cop, bad cop all the time with talent, but White has every right to be pissed off about Jackson — especially seeing the dynamic between Jackson and Evans on this show last night. White is entirely right in saying that the Memphis fight would have drawn huge money for Jackson and instead he went to the movies. Irritating.
The Ugly
The roster of heavyweights. Outside of Kimbo Slice (the superstar) and Roy Nelson (the professional), it feels like Spike TV decided to take a page out of the WWE talent playbook and recruit people who look like fighters (but really aren’t) instead of actually bringing in raw talent for the show. Outside of the excessive blood on display by Abe Wagner in the opening fight, it seems pretty obvious that Rampage picked the bigger fighters but Evans recruited the better fighters. That doesn’t exactly predicate good fights to come, but we’ll see. The first fight was not a good harbinger of things to come.
Sidenote: Season 9 of TUF just launched on WOWOW in Japan.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 61 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
There’s a difference between hoping Strikeforce fails and just being ambivalent towards any success. There’s a whole lot of people posting on forums that seem to want that first thing and project all sorts of madness onto it. My favorite is that the promotion for Cyborg/Gina was a failure, in spite of huge ratings, so this too will fail. Somehow.
Anyways, I tend to look on the positive side. While Brock Lesnar fights a top 10 heavyweight on PPV, Fedor fights a top 10 heavyweight on CBS. I, for one, prefer watching fights on CBS to watching fights that cost $55, require a trip to BW3 in a college town full of drunk frat boys, or a mediocre internet stream. Some people, of course, will give the UFC money for anything. UFC 103 is a good arbiter of that.
Anyhow, as for the analysis, my thoughts are this:
-The UFC network thing I don’t care about and I think its never happening. I’ve said that for a long time. Even 5.0s aren’t enough to justify millions per show, which is what the UFC wants for a UFC PPV level card. I’ve also never once heard Dana say that he would have fewer PPVs if they had a network deal. 3 cards a month always includes one PPV. In other words; sounds like he’s trying to get someone to pay Strikeforce money (high 6 figures) for UFNs. Won’t happen.
-Strikeforce has spent far less than EXC and already gotten bigger gains back for the networks supporting. For all the chatter that Fedor costs a ton, EXC spent what Strikeforce will on him for this fight several times over on buying SpiritMC and KOTC. And *then* they paid fighters.
-Mohegan Sun packed the house twice for the UFC in the dark days. Then the UFC came with the worst card of the modern era and 2/3 of the place was sold. Not their fault. They were also the strongest arena in sales for the IFL by an appreciable margin.
If TUF 10 can do a 4.1 with Kimbo, a UFC Network show will do above 7 million.
I find it funny how Alan wouldn’t be excited for a UFC Network show.
Lastly, everybody I know spends $45 for HD PPV. Yet everytime somebody talks about the price online, they say $50 or $55. You people either fib or need a new cable company.
As for Fedor, there are so many things working against him. His look. His language. His weird name. Not being in the UFC. All of these things pretty much guarantee he will never be a big draw ever.
Lemme rephrase what I said about a UFC network deal. I’d like one like everyone else would, but until there is one, I’m sick of hearing about it. Its a long ways off.
Lastly, everybody I know spends $45 for HD PPV. Yet everytime somebody talks about the price online, they say $50 or $55. You people either fib or need a new cable company.
Got DirecTV. When Comcast gets Sunday Ticket, maybe I’ll care about switching back to cable.
If TUF 10 can do a 4.1 with Kimbo, a UFC Network show will do above 7 million.
If it has big stars on it, otherwise it does Smith/Lawler II numbers. The problem is that 7.5 million people isn’t worth $5-6 million a show (or more), and that’s what the UFC is after. So, no network show. Either it would have to be the UFC will take less money (not happening) or the networks will take worse fights (not happening) to get the UFC on network TV.
I vehemently disagree with the folks saying that the talent on TUF 10 is terrible.
Roy Nelson – his record speaks for itself
Darril Schoonover – fantastic prospect (despite his titties). He’s a 22 year old guy whose career is going nowhere but up. He has shown a varied arsenal in his 10 wins, taking his opponents out by arm triangle (twice), RNC (twice), and TKO (five times).
Brendan Schaub – Has been a human wrecking machine thus far in his career. Is tearing up the same circuit that Shane Carwin tore up in 2007. Also part of a great camp.
Justin Wren – Another great prospect with a fantastic wrestling pedigree and a 6-1 record.
Mike Wessell – Already a UFC veteran, he sports a 6-1 record with his only loss coming to Antoni Hardonk.
Scott Junk – Another UFC veteran, he is your prototypical Hawaiian brawler with a 6-2 record.
Wes Sims – A third UFC veteran, though I admit his personality probably got him the gig rather than his skills. Nonetheless, he is an experienced veteran of the sport.
Jon Madsen – A decorated collegiate wrestler who has some solid long-term potential. Turned pro less than a year before he got the call to join the cast of TUF. Obviously, he has a ton of rough edges, but his wrestling should allow him to be successful while rounding out his skills.
Demico Rogers – Supposed to be incredibly talented, despite not having a pro fight to his name (he is 4-0 as an amateur). A nice long-term project to develop, along the same lines as Corey Hill and Amir Sadollah.
Kimbo Slice – Not a great fighter by any stretch of the imagination, but not the completely incompetent fraud that some people make him out to be. Beating a UFC veteran in you second fight and a Pride veteran in your third fight is moderately impressive, even if those veterans where Tank Abbott and James Thompson. And let’s not forget his exhibition win over the Merciless Ray Mercer.
James McSweeney – A veteran filler type
Matt Mitrione, Marcus Jones, Wes Shivers – NFL jabroni’s who are probably on the show to serve as whipping boys for the better prospects.
Zak Jenson, Abe Wagner – Moderately capable MMA fighters with limited upside. Serve the same purpose as the NFL guys … making the better prospects look good.
IMO, the top four guys (Nelson, Schoonover, Scaub, Wren) should have solid UFC careers, and two or three other guys might surprise too. That is a pretty solid haul by TUF standards.
In NYC though the listed price is $45, the ‘franchise fee’ and several other taxes are inflated severely when you order a PPV (not just UFC). This puts it in the $50 range for me.
Who doesn’t have their hand in the cookie jar in NYC? You would think a city that has some many millionaires would have less taxes because those big earners can carry the majority of the income for the state….
Meanwhile, over on the boxing side of things, Mayweather just called Emanuel Steward an Uncle Tom.
I don’t have much hope for CBS promoting Strikeforce very well. They barely advertised the Elite Kimbo shows, and it really felt like they assumed MMA has a built-in fanbase who already knows when the event is happening so advertising it is pointless. That’s partially true, but the casual fanbase who don’t frequent MMA websites would have boosted the number. Or the people watching NFL on Sunday seeing an ad and thinking “Watching a fight sounds interesting!” I’m not saying they would have rivaled Survivor and American Idol ratings, but it would have been better than 4 million or whatever they got.
As for UFC on network TV, I doubt it. What the UFC wants and what network TV would give are worlds apart. The UFC would want the same special treatment Spike gives them and the network, having the same mindset as the rest of “old media” not realizing MMA is as big as it is, will only make a bare minimum offer like Elite and SF accepted. Plus for the amount of money UFC would want, a network would expect bigger fights than the International show star level UFC would give non-PPV.
Wessel and Junk might be vets, but they didn’t stick around long because they aren’t very good. Tittiesdude has competed at 205 and will only have success there (save this for future reference). There’s maybe 2 guys on this show that have a future and no one has ever seen them fight to determine if they have any discernable ability. Bringing up the spectre of Corey Hill is not a particularly reassuring notion. Dude’s career may actually be over.
“Wessel and Junk might be vets, but they didn’t stick around long because they aren’t very good.”
Uh, Wessel went straight from the UFC into TUF. Sort of like what Joe Lauzon did, but without the big win.
Junk was injured after fighting Wellisch. He had one fight after recovering from the injury and went into TUF.
Neither of them are great shakes, but they also aren’t guys who got chased out of the UFC after multiple poor performances.
“Tittiesdude has competed at 205 and will only have success there (save this for future reference).”
I agree. What does this have to do with the talent level? If Schoonover eventually goes the Jardine or maybe even the Evans route, that will reflect well on the quality of this season.
“There’s maybe 2 guys on this show that have a future and no one has ever seen them fight to determine if they have any discernable ability.”
In that, you are simply incorrect. No way to gloss it.
Sort of like what Joe Lauzon did, but without the big win.
What? LOL. Dude, Junk was released and so was Wessel. They got a chance to come back because the heavyweight division is devoid of talent. Big deal.
I agree. What does this have to do with the talent level?
I’m not even saying the guy has significant talent. How do you know? Sherdog results? His lone chance to make an impact isn’t at heavyweight. If he wins the show, that’s an indictment of the talent level of guys on it.
In that, you are simply incorrect. No way to gloss it.
You haven’t seen them, Steve hasn’t seen them, none of the talking heads have seen them. No one has seen these guys. No one knows what any of them actually have in talent until this show is over. Maybe they will look great? Maybe they won’t? I will tell you this though, Scott Junk ain’t gonna be a guy with a contract after the Finale unless the rest of these guys are terrible.