How To Save The Ultimate Fighter:

How To Save The Ultimate Fighter:

By Alex Conway

So you want to save The Ultimate Fighter, then let’s turn it into The Hunger Games. Nobody in The Hunger Games really wanted to be there. But once they were, the only thing that mattered was winning. Most importantly, the audience was there to participate, cheer on and guide their champions to victory.

The Ultimate Fighter’s next coaches were announced this weekend and even though a middleweight title clash between champion Robert Whittaker and Kelvin Gastelum sounds appealing, another slog through the reality television doldrums does not.

The Ultimate Fighter has long since run its course, especially in its current form. It should probably be left for dead. But if it has any life left, and if the UFC truly wants to revive it, they should stop everything and read this article.

Here are a few ideas I have for saving The Ultimate Fighter. A little heads up, the last two points are my favourites.

Put it on ABC

Let’s get something out-of-the-way before we move onto this point. A lot of these suggestions will never, ever be taken seriously or implemented. I know this, you don’t need to remind me.

Alright, so here’s the deal. Nobody watches FS1 for its reality TV programming. But they do on ABC, the home for The Bachelor and Bachelorette, Shark Tank and Dancing with the Stars. The channel is destination viewing for people with really poor taste in entertainment combined with an amazing ability to suspend disbelief.

Because of this, if you’re going to get into bed with ESPN on a new TV deal and you have any interest in keeping this program alive, I would beg them to put it on network TV (ABC and ESPN are both owned by Disney).

My last suggestion here? Let ABC produce it. The UFC puts on a fine product when they are producing their fight broadcasts. But The Ultimate Fighter is stale and looks exactly the same as it has since 2005.

ABC knows what they are doing in this realm. Imagine a commercial for The Bachelor and how they dramatise that, but then imagine instead of roses we’re handing out fists and title shots.

Speaking of title shots.

Up the Stakes

You have to give people a reason to care, and point No. 3 will really hammer that home.
The participants have to matter and fans of the show will need to know who they are and what the stakes are.

At this point nobody cares if the current version of The Ultimate Fighter’s winner will make it into the UFC. There are almost 500 fighters on the roster, it really isn’t as hard as it used to be to get into the world’s premier MMA promotion.

So here’s a novel idea. Why don’t we take fighters in the 10-15 range of the rankings (or a little higher if you can convince them) and put them in the house for eight weeks?

The winner gets what every fighter wants and the one thing that might sway a real MMA fighter in the prime of their career to go on a reality TV show: a title shot.

We’ve done this before, we’ve even crowned champions using this show before. It’s not that far out there and it will make contenders who are just outside the real title picture to think about fast-tracking their careers by taking eight weeks of their lives to the small screen.

Make it live. Involve the viewers

I just happened to watch Big Brother with my fiancé the other night. I’ve also recently re-watched The Hunger Games. Big Brother is a show that airs while the contestants are still living in the house. Obviously the people trying not to die in The Hunger Games were broadcast to the sickos watching in real-time also.

Fans love to speculate about who should fight who. Now, let’s let them do just that.

If we make the show live then you can have the audience do what Big Brother does. At various points throughout the week the house guests receive a special power that affects how the game is played. This is given to them via a vote amongst viewers or based on which contestant is trending on social media.

The show gives some power and control to the viewer, which only further invests the viewer into the product.

Let’s twist that idea for an MMA show. Let’s give the power of matchmaking to the viewer/fan. Let the fans decide who will fight in the first round, then match up the second round based on who won the first round, and then obviously the title eliminator in the finale will be determined by the winners of the second round.

Fans love to play matchmaker. Let them do this as part of watching a television show featuring real contenders and real title implications and watch them lose their collective minds. It would be the greatest thing ever.

Let them bring in their own coaches and teams

Keep the fighters/contestants in the house, but as far as training goes, have the fighter’s own personal coaches be available to them. No more fighter coaches, which ends up side-lining those fighters for months on end.

You have the UFC Performance Institute sitting right there in Las Vegas. What a perfect way to showcase to the various world-renowned coaches at these super camps what that centre can do for them and their teams, and it’s the perfect set-up to get a lot of them in the same place at the same time to share best practices.

It would also be fun to see the potential rivalries grow and develop between teams as the participants rub shoulders for 8 weeks or so.

The Ultimate Fighter is probably dead no matter what. But maybe, just maybe, we can get a re-boot that would really bring back the nostalgia while looking to the future.