Fronted by Luke Thomas.

Good morning from the Aloha State (may be afternoon where you are, but not here).  I just read through Luke Thomas' post, "Why Any Mature or Reasonable Person  Doesn't Enjoy "The Ultimate Fighter 8" and its subsequent comments.  Personally, I stopped watching TUF this season precisely because of the in-house antics.  I was on the fence in season 5 after the two contestants got into a legitimate fight by the campfire and the other bystanders either encouraged it or did nothing to stop it. Now, I simply read the TUF blogs across the internet and shake my head when I read about behavior that aired last night.

First off, what follows is long, way too long for a typical internet blog entry, so if you don't want to read the whole thing, I completely understand.  It's a portion from a chapter in my book which addresses media portrayals on MMA fighters with a major focus on TUF.  The contents obviously have my own spin, but are also heavily influenced by my interviews with TUF contestants like Chris Leben, Anthony Torres, Travis Lutter, and coach Randy Couture, as well as interviews with non-TUF MMA fighters (e.g., Guy Mezger, Dan Henderson, Tony Fryklund) and hobbyists about TUF. Bottom line, I argue TUF - the single most important media outreach source for MMA that introduced the sport to the mainstream - simultaneously perpetuates deletereous stereotypes of MMA fighters and in the end stymies the sport's growth. Enjoy or hate...

----

From Fighting for Acceptance: Mixed Martial Artists and Violence in American Society (pgs. 219-227)

Something Robert Otani seemed particularly adamant about conveying was that mixed martial artists are a very misunderstood group and that the media did an excellent job in perpetuating this societal misunderstanding: 

You gotta do some research before you plaque something, because you see the cage and the way they promote it to the American audience is that’s just what they want, and that’s just entertainment.  But when you scratch beneath the surface and look into it, you know these guys…these MMA athletes, a lot of them are great guys, and they’re nice people…. I think it’s just, it’s entertainment.  It’s to promote.  You see the cage.  You see the blood.  You see the little gloves and the violence and the brutality of it, but when you look at it, it’s an art, and it’s a sport, and it’s, I really don’t think it’s what it’s cracked up to be as far as that image that’s portrayed by the media.

Like Otani, many of the other men we interviewed felt that the dominant MMA media forces created an inaccurate perception of mixed martial artists.  Because the UFC’s reality show The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) was such an instrumental catalyst in sparking MMA’s recent popularity in the United States, we asked interviewees if they felt the reality show was good for the sport.  Interviewees generally felt the reality show was great for the sport, because if it was not for TUF, the sport would not have grown as much as it has in the past two years.  As Dan Henderson mentioned, "…that’s probably the one biggest thing that has helped the sport the most.  You know, obviously there’s been a lot of steady growth along the way, but that pretty much catapulted it into the mainstream."  At the same time, a good portion of interviewees had reservations about how the reality show cemented poor images of MMA competitors. 

Very quickly, TUF is a UFC-produced reality show in which sixteen aspiring mixed martial artists are divided into two teams, each of which is coached or guided by a premier UFC star.  In the first season, the opposing coaches were Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell, men who have competed against each other three times in MMA, but hold no animosity towards one another.  In some seasons, coaches have been chosen who have personal grudges.  In season three, rivals Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz were opposing coaches.  In season five, B.J. Penn and Jens Pulver were the two coaches, and in season six, coaches Matt Hughes and Matt Serra opposed one another.  In each of these latter three examples, the season culminated with the coaches facing off in an individual MMA match (the Hughes-Serra match is currently pending).  In these cases where the two opposing coaches already have a rivalry, drama is clearly constructed into the "reality" show. 

TUF takes place each season in Las Vegas.  The sixteen participants face off in periodic individual MMA matches, aired weekly on Spike TV.  A member of one team faces off against another team member until only two participants remain.  Those two finalists face off on a bigger UFC fight card, with the winner earning a lucrative UFC contract.  During the competition, all sixteen participants must live in one house.  They are not allowed to communicate with their friends or loved ones; neither internet access nor cell phones are allowed.  They cannot have reading material other than The Bible.  They essentially live MMA day in and day out, only leaving the house to workout at the UFC training facility.  We were fortunate to interview Anthony "The Crush" Torres, a participant on season two of TUF.  Torres appreciated being on TUF immensely and felt he learned a great deal from it.  However, he said the experience also made him appreciate what he had back home, where he said he had more "balance" between training and the other critical facets in his life: 

When I was on TUF II, it wasn’t, you know, when you were over there away, cut off from the whole outside world, you realize that, wow we’re over here, we can’t watch TV, we can’t talk to our loved ones, we don’t have our loved ones by us.  We’re there for six weeks and when we come home, you appreciate your loved ones.  You appreciate everything you have.  Your close friends, your family, your training partners.  I’ve kept them closer to me since. 

In short, like all reality shows, TUF is by no means absolute reality.  It was and is reality in some ways (e.g., showing some of the laborious and intricate training approaches mixed martial artists utilize).  In other ways, it does not depict the men’s realistic lives, as they are separated from the outside world.  Moreover, because the participants are separated from others, they are forced to live during the contest in a bachelor society—a constructed "reality" that historically has never yielded positive outcomes.  Interviewee Terrance said of his own experience working on a fishing boat with seven other men for six weeks: 

I was on a boat for like six weeks, and tensions were so high with the people in close quarters like that.  You have no outlet…. tensions on the boat were really high.  There were several cases where guys were close to goin’ like this (knocks his fists together). 

On the TUF show, not only were contestants expected to knock fists in formal competition, they were also driven to knock heads in isolated, confined quarters.  Still, there is no denying the show’s impact on the MMA industry. 

Interviewees knew that TUF (just finishing its sixth season) gripped the minds of young men, women, and children across America and vaulted MMA into conventional, middle-class households.  TUF IV winner Travis Lutter said to us, "…it’s bringing in the mainstream public to the sport."  Talk about mainstream public—Paul Halme mentioned how his mother still has reservations of MMA, but nonetheless became somewhat of a fan as a result of watching Lutter progress on TUF IV: "My mom doesn’t like it, thinks it’s too violent, but she’s a huge fan of Travis’s and watches him, you know, all the time on TV." 

Other interviewees also noticed that because of TUF, the most unlikely MMA fans are now surfacing.  Chris Onzuka explained how TUF has completely revamped MMA’s demographic fan-base. 

…The Ultimate Fighter show is just a perfect example of how huge this can get.  [In the past, MMA] was kind of a very clicky thing, where you had to be kind of a freak to get into it, almost a bloodlust kind of thing…. Now you have housewives talking about…all these guys.  And people are really getting to know these fighters. 

As will be detailed later, the TUF reality show episodes are dripping with drama.  This has drawn in a more diverse viewership and fan-base (male and female) that is attracted to drama-driven reality shows in general, along with those fans who are interested in the more athletic dimensions of MMA. 

A coach on the first season of TUF, Randy Couture explained to us how the reality show has dispelled some myths of MMA, showcasing for viewers the multifaceted training regiments that one must go through to become a successful mixed martial artist: 

I think the TV show, the first season of The Ultimate Fighter really changed the landscape for everybody.  A lot of the misconceptions that the general public had about who we are and what we do kind of went out the window when they got to see a reality TV version of what goes into being an ultimate fighter.  And in a lot of ways it was the perfect vehicle for getting that message across. 

By watching the reality show, viewers witnessed how hard the athletes had to work.  Viewers saw the physical and emotional struggles MMA practitioners endured during their training.  They learned MMA moves, and simply learned about MMA in general.  The show opened up new viewers’ eyes to the rules enforced in MMA, how much power the referee had in ending competitions, and how most competitors displayed gracious sportsmanship before and after competitions.  Nolan Hong also felt TUF helped to educate new fans about some of the details involved in MMA.  Hong noted that by propelling MMA into America’s sporting mainstream, TUF could help to decrease street violence: 

…when (fans) see The Ultimate Fighter, the reality show, and they explain what goes into being a fighter, what goes into the strategy of fighting, what goes into the different training techniques and stuff.  Then they can respect it as a sport, and then realize that they…either want to train, and keep it out of the street, or they don’t want to get into altercation in the street because they know how tough it is. 

Hence, interviewees felt the TUF show helped immensely in defining MMA as a structured sport, rather than a brutish fight where two unprepared men who despised each other were thrown into a ring or octagon to duke it out.  And by further classifying MMA strictly within a sporting context, interviewees hoped TUF would discourage viewers from associating MMA with street violence and other negative social connotations. 

However, almost all interviewees who had watched the TUF show had mixed feelings about it.  Again, there were overwhelmingly positive feelings about how the show has made MMA so popular and subsequently increased business for MMA gyms.  On the other hand, like all reality shows, the TUF show constructed drama and in turn reaffirmed some of the violent stereotypes of mixed martial artists.  After asking Jason Miller, "Do you feel that The Ultimate Fighter is good for the sport?", he responded, "Yea, why not?  It gives a semi-realistic view of what we gotta go through aside from like the ass grabbin’…"  Miller’s viewpoint of the show being "semi-realistic" and cluttered with activities unrelated to MMA training was indicative of other interviewees’ feelings.  Michael Frison explained some of the pros and cons that he saw emanating from TUF, which painted an unfair and lopsided picture of most of the participants: 

I think pros, it’s definitely opened it up to a whole new audience.  There’s a lot more females, a lot more mainstream people.  But like any reality show, the cons are they only show the drama…. They do things specifically to capture moments that don’t really display the guys’ real attitude, or real demeanor. 

With sixteen young men confined to one house where there is virtually nothing to do, and with those sixteen men competing against each other in a combat sport for a lucrative contract, one can only expect drama to fly and be captured by the cameras. 

We were also fortunate to interview Chris Leben, one of the more unforgettable contestants on season one of TUF.  Though he appreciates his TUF experience immensely, Leben stated that the tension which builds in the TUF house is unbelievably high.  When mixed martial artists are prepping for competitions, they normally find it useful emotionally to get away from their training environments from time to time.  While filming TUF, the contestants cannot do this, and the drama that emits from this tension is utilized to build dramatic storylines that do not always paint the entire picture.  Said Leben of the collective tension that builds among the MMA fighters: 

There’s no escaping from it.  Normally if you got a fight coming up, you know you can hang out watch a movie with your girlfriend or whatever, something to get your mind off it…. if all you can do is sit in a house with a bunch of other guys who think they can kick your ass that you’re gonna have to fight, and that tension’s always there, I mean you can imagine the affect that plays on you after several weeks.  It’s just building and building and building.  You can’t watch TV.  You can’t read a book.  You can’t talk to your mom.  You can’t call your little sis, or you don’t know how anybody’s doing.  You know, you don’t know if the world’s gone to war.  I mean you got no clue in that house of what’s going on. 

Leben also mentioned that the storyline surrounding him cast him as "being immature and being an asshole to maturing more."  Leben further explained, "I’ve always also been loud, I’ve also liked to drink too much, I’ve also always liked to play practical jokes."  Still, Leben also noted that the TUF experience did not necessarily mature him: "I’ve always been, believe it or not, a nice guy.  I’ve always been a great guy to train with.  I’ve always been willing to help people out."  Thus if anything, the TUF experience inflated one part of Leben’s personality that was shown on television, while failing to show other sides that existed before the show even began. 

Notably, the TUF season that had the least amount of drama and participant conflict was season IV (dubbed "The Comeback"), in which older UFC veterans were selected as participants.  Aside from a few verbal quibbles and in-house pranks, there were essentially no major disputes between participants, certainly none that led to intense arguments or fights.  In the other seasons, not only did some of the coaches get into heated arguments, but participants fought and/or ridiculed each other in extremely demeaning ways.  Tony Fryklund also commented on the TUF production, stating that it encourages conflict and drama by creating an environment that is anything but reality: 

They’re showing this crap in the house.  That’s not a reality show cause they don’t have a TV…. They’re making it a difficult situation.  A reality show is to see, some days my girlfriend might come with me.  But on other days, she’s got a lot of other shit she’s doing.  But reality is, in a reality show, if you come over to a gym to watch people train, there is a TV.  They can go home and do what they want to do. 

Instead of portraying realism in the life of mixed martial artists, the TUF show followed the contemporary reality television approach, scripting competitive scenarios that would provoke problems between the show’s competitors—something most, if not all reality television shows attempt (Jagodozinki, 2003).  As Guy Mezger noted on the whole reality show craze, "…of course you have to understand reality shows really aren’t reality.  It’s just unscripted." 

While not training and with nothing to do in the TUF house, show participants frequently got into heated disputes, had food fights, ruined furniture, and verbally and physically demeaned one another.  Some participants, in extreme examples of "bravado," attempted to run through walls; others got drunk.  Then on season V, two participants got into a heated fight that was clearly far more dangerous than a competition in the ring or octagon.  To begin with, both of the men who fought had consumed a fair amount of alcohol just before fighting.  Moreover, they were fighting on concrete surfaces.  Both participants were kicked off the show by Dana White, along with a third participant who was egging on the fight.  Since then, none of those participants have been on UFC cards.  White also gave a verbal tongue lashing to the entire cast, stating that their behavior (including the bystanders who did nothing to stop the fight) reaffirmed the negative images of MMA that he has been attempting to dispel for years. 

Still, the TUF show in itself generates the broad notion that mixed martial artists are at best immature and at worst, impulsive hot-heads, who if they do not fight physically on the street, are prone to instigate verbal wars in a heartbeat and intimidate others with their physical capabilities.  Said Yoji Matuso in a laconic tone of the TUF reality show, "…watching the show, like The Ultimate Fighter, they present the fighters as somebody who’s immature.  You know I think it kind of reinforces that stereotype that I think people have about MMA as a sport."  Guy Mezger was able to reconcile the positive and negative outcomes of the TUF show, summarizing the mainstreamed attention it has brought about for the MMA industry, but wishing the presentation of MMA athletes was very different: 

They did a really good job to spark the big wave of mixed martial arts, but the problem with it is it showed these guys, a lot of immature guys, a lot of ridiculous stuff… And so I was a little disappointed in that because I think if you look at these guys, you think these guys are a bunch of malcontents, and there’s a part of us that sympathizes and thinks it’s funny.  You know what I mean?  It’s sort of like the show, Jackass.  There’s a part of us that can’t help but laugh at Jackass, but you wouldn’t want to invite any of those guys to your house…. that’s kind of what The Ultimate Fighter did, is it brought a tremendous amount of focus on it, but it didn’t really portray the guys for the most part as that great of guys, or that bright of guys. 

In short, the foremost media force that served as an outreach instrument for MMA ended up being a double-edged sword for the MMA industry as a whole.  The UFC has worked and continues to work vigorously to define MMA as a sport in which its athletes are professionals who act professionally.  TUF created literally millions of new MMA fans (including myself).  This massive increase in the fan-base enabled the MMA industry as a whole to grow.  New MMA organizations came forward and old ones became more popular.  Gyms were able to jump on the bang wagon, increasing their membership by teaching different disciplines within MMA and full fledged MMA classes.  And MMA athletes were able to make a little more money for their competitions. 

Unfortunately, as demonstrated in Chapter Seven, violence is what sells in American households.  Truth be told, violence sells globally, but in the United States there appears to be an especially strong hunger.  The TUF show capitalized off this cultural desire by constructing an environment in which young men would compete verbally for the spotlight and physically, for a contract with little else to occupy their time.  Given these conditions, the behaviors displayed on TUF cannot be too surprising.  Not all participants behaved in ways that perpetuated stereotypes.  In fact, two of the men we interviewed who were part of the TUF series, Travis Lutter and Anthony Torres, were two of the calmest and mature participants in any of the series (as shown on camera).  Lutter did have one verbal altercation with another participant, but relative to other occurrences on the show, it was extremely mild and never escalated. 

Torres talked with us about his mild demeanor on the show, mentioning that some of his friends said he should have made more waves and gotten more attention to help push his MMA career.  However, Torres felt it was more important to take the TUF experience as an opportunity to see how he measured up against other nationally-based talent, learn, and grow as a competitor.  Regrettably, even though Lutter won TUF IV, he and Torres are two of the least memorable TUF participants.  For example, Darin Goo was disappointed with Lutter’s lack of air time on TUF IV: 

I remember Travis Lutter won season IV, and I was disappointed cause you never got to see him!  I mean the guy was submitting or dominating all his opponents…all three matches, and he’d get a few words here and there.  But you really don’t get to know him because he wasn’t causing trouble.  It’s kind of unfortunate. 

Instead, Goo said the primary view audience’s saw of mixed martial artists was of "belligerent crazy people."  Thus, what interviewees were most concerned with was that the most memorable parts of TUF were not just the athletes who ended up becoming successful mixed martial artists, but also those moments that made audiences shake their heads and laugh, but ultimately think what Guy Mezger stated: "…you wouldn’t want to invite any of those guys to your house."