Hate and Pity: My Relationship with TUF 8
By Josh Stein on Dec 04, 2008
If Dana White has any sense of decency, he will let every MMA fan line up and punch Junie Browning in the face. Hell, he could charge a buck and make killing.
Let's talk about douchebags.
The reality is, the fights on this season weren’t bad, but it only takes one kick in the proverbial crotch to ruin the experience, and Browning supplied enough to sterilize the Iron Penis kung fu practitioners of China (for all of you Mind, Body and Kickass Moves junkies). Apart from spoiling his entire future in the sport by making himself a laughingstock (retiring after 2 pro fights? really?), while he could have a long and fruitful career as the guy everyone wants to see get the crap kicked out of him, Browning ruined the reputation of the show.
Dana White has said openly that he’s frustrated with the Spike Producers running the show, and while it’s hard to gauge how much influence they have from just watching, if I were Dana, I’d want Spike to fire the jackasses who put that show together. Still, Dana should have thrown Junie off of the show, instead of pussyfooting around the issue, but producers should be aware that fans of the sport watch the show to see the sport, not to see the pranks.
The real problem, though, was that Dana failed to do what the preliminaries were intend to: remove the pussies. Weed out the guys who didn’t want to be there, but it seemed that nobody wanted to be there less than Junie Browning. How come Dana did see his ego in the interview and say “wow, this guy is going to be a problem?” I saw that in the first episode, with all credit to his talent.
You’d think that Dana learned from the JT Money fiasco.
Bringing in talentless wastes of time like Jules Bruchez, who are years removed from a debut in the top MMA organization, just tries my patience with regards to the quality of MMA. If I wanted to watch brawls, I’d pay strippers to flirt with two guys at the bar at the same time, but that’s not why I watch the show. I watch because I want to see the next Kenny Florian and the next Diego Sanchez and the next Forrest Griffin. I want to see fighters who want to push their skills, not who want to get drunk and put plates on the tennis court.
The show has devolved, going from fighters with five or ten career fights and respectable skill sets, legitimate talent (if that’s not audacious to ask for) to fighters who want to be personalities. Some fighters are eccentric, like Forrest, but the Gabe Rudigers and Andy Wangs of the world shouldn’t be allowed in the TUF gym.
In the third season and fourth seasons we saw the infestation of this idea that you can get a career long gig purely by being a personality on a reality show. While I hope that, in the future, fighters who have no intent of learning to fight will stick to posting their street brawls on youtube, it pisses me off that Dana is letting them on the show, that he would even invite Kimbo Slice on the show. Junie Browning was a skinny, white Kimbo Slice; all talk and no talent.
Perhaps I’m a snob, but if wanting to see great fights and up-and-coming talent makes me a snob than I’ll suffer happily under the burden of snobbishness, because there are worse things in life than having high expectations, like watching this last season of the Ultimate Fighter.
Filed Under: Opinion
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me… All I can say is that Dana and the UFC deserve all of the drama and problems they get for not seeing the signs. I guess they couldn’t see the forest for the trees…
I enjoyed your opening sentence, haha.
Some people watch American Idol just to see the opening rounds, the train wrecks, Paula Abdul’s shenanigans or how harsh Simon Cowell will behave. Then some fans are interested in hearing the next great young singers.
The Spike people are definitely interested appealing to the pedestrian fight fan. The 24/7 Mayweather/De La Hoya and Mayweather/Hatton series were successful because the Mayweather (uncle, father and son) family are freaking characters.
Everybody watching the show are not necessarily die-hard MMA fans. The fact that Dana decided to invite Kimbo on TUF says a whole lot considering his earlier Kimbo statements. You gotta remember Dana is really good at talking sh*t. F*ck AKA, F*ck Fitch, F*ck Tito, and Fedor is not the best f*ckin fighter.
Am I the only one that would love to see Kimbo locked in a house with fifteen 20 year old fighters that are all better than him?
Kimbo is a hardworking dude who has already seen the other side of the tracks. I think he would work extremely hard, abstain from drinking, and just stay away from drama. We need another TUF with guys who have been in big orgs and are looking to make a comeback…not another season of newbies.
Curtis, I’d love to see that, but not on TUF. Just put him on an MTV show where he goes to train at ATT. (so he can get tapped 100 times a day by Marcelinho)
I watch 24/7 to see how the guys train. Again, maybe that makes me a snob, but I’d rather watch them train then watch them talk about De La Hoya making Mayweather wear pink gloves.
Kimbo would be better behaved that the TUF guys, that’s for damn sure. But I’d rather see guys like Thomas Denny on TUF.
Brandt, you’re not lying . . . I thought the 2nd chance-come back would be a good look, except instead of a title shot they should fight a top contender for winning the tournament.
Or maybe they should throw in current fighters with losing records like Karo Parisyan or Houston Alexander?? That would be crazy.
Karo would murder everyone in the house…I think he’d be worse than Junie!
Karo would beat everybody, if they keep signing morons like Junie and the guys who drink pee, but if they had Karo and Joe Diesel and Babalu and other guys looking to make comebacks, that would be a fascinating show.
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Starring Houston Alexander, Tito Ortiz, Babalu, Tim Sylvia , and Kevin Randleman!!
Brandt set this up, I am sure we can throw it on some 2nd tier television channel.
Hell yeah. We can hold it in the gym at Fresno State and I can shoot it on my hand-cam.
How much does Randleman cost now? I’m sure he’d fight Kimbo for free, just to put that asswhup on.
I got Icey’s email… Someone call Discovery, this would be much better than the Greatest Warrior or whatever it was…
[...] Posted by Mikev2.0 This guy’s thoughts pretty much sum up what I think about The Ultimate Fighter. I have to agree with you there…I [...]
Hell yeah. Antwain would go on and beat the crap out of Randleman in the first episode! Then we’d have Babalu vs. Fat Joe Riggs from the early days of his career, and Karo could come up to lightheavyweight to fight Sokoudjou.
Andy Wang could be ref…
Andy Wang could ref, and Gabe Rudiger could handle the weigh in… oh, and Danni Abbadi and Noah what’s-his-name could commentate.
Can I get Executive Producer credits? or least work on editing the fight action.
Who knows, it may occur to the UFC one day, that this would be truly great.
Vee, you’re welcome to Production credits. I’d love to see the UFC produce something like this, though.
All jokes aside I would love to set up a and run a promotion one day if you guys were interested at all.
Curtis, I’d love to do it too (I’ve always thought I could do a good job as a matchmaker and a promoter). I’d just need a financial backer.
[...] thoughts on Junie and the season of the show are up already, and worth checking out, in my [...]
That would be great! Brandt put out the word! Lets get a backer and make this happen.