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The last season of The Ultimate Fighter was pretty bad. It wasn't the worst season ever, but it was far from what the series once was. The main problem for the show is one that can't be easily fixed. There's a dearth of talent compared to the earlier seasons. That's to be expected, there's only so many great fighters out there. That can't be fixed, but a few of the other problems on the show can.
1. There needs to be at least two weight divisions represented per season. This isn't a guaranteed fix, but trying to fill out a roster of 16 Middleweights and still reach an acceptable level of talent is much harder than it is to find 8 Middleweights and 8 Lightweights. The 13th Middleweight is almost assuredly not as good as the 5th Lightweight. Two weight classes per season is definitely the way to go.
2. I love the idea of the fighters having to win their way onto the show. This is the easiest way to quickly weed out the guys who are there to fight from those just wanting to be on television. I'm sick of the Gabe Ruedigers and Junie Brownings of the world that just want to get famous. I want the guys on the show to be there to fight and get better. I understand that there may not be that much to do in the house, and the fighters are stuck there for six weeks, but there's often a line that gets crossed where the focus is too much on silly pranks.
Fighters that show personality are going to be shown more on camera, that's natural. However, they need to be able to fight, or nobody will care. If Junie Browning could fight, he would have made a compelling figure on the show. Instead, he was just a loudmouth, unlikeable fool who was afraid to fail. A lot of people dislike Brock Lesnar and think he's an arrogant jerk, but he's backed it up in the Octagon (other than that mistake he made in his first fight with Frank Mir).
3. No more pointless arguments between the coaches. Season 10, The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights, featured a pointless argument between coaches Rashad Evans and Quinton Jackson in basically every episode. It got so tiresome to hear them badmouth each other that I would often turn the volume down just so I wouldn't have to listen to them. Everyone watching knew that absolutely nothing was going to come out of these arguments, yet we were subjected to them on a weekly basis.
It made both guys look like little kids. If they argued like that all the time, and it wasn't due to prompting from outside forces, why didn't they edit that out? No one cared about their trashtalking. We can only hope that we don't have to listen to anything remotely resembling that from this season's coaches, Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell.
4. I've always been a big fan of the Coaches Challenge episodes. I like seeing the coaches trying something that they ordinarily wouldn't do. The easiest way to find out someone's true personality is to get them out of their element. That's when their real traits start shining through. I would like to see that extended to the fighters on the show as well. I wouldn't want too much time devoted to it, this is still a show about mixed martial arts, but I think it'd be fun to see the guys trying basketball or softball or something. It could also be funny in the same way that you can't help but laugh when you see NBA stars trying to throw punches at each other. I'd like to see the inverse of that, and watch MMA guys trying to shoot layups or jumpers.
All these suggestions are like minor tweaks that could help the show be more entertaining. The formula is sound, but the show has become a shell of itself. If you have any comments or suggestions of your own, e-mail me at hydenfrank@gmail.com
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