FACEBOOK TWITTER RSS APP PODCAST Opinion & Analysis : Penick's Take PENICK: The Ultimate Fighter heavyweight finals will be set tonight, but does anyone care?

Dec 2, 2009 - 7:15:16 AM

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

The Ultimate Fighter's tenth season comes to an end this week, but as we come to tonight's two episode quarterfinal and semifinal matchups to set up Saturday's final fight, the question that comes into my mind becomes "is there anyone out there that cares?"

This has been the highest rated season of the reality show by a large margin, due almost entirely to the Kimbo Slice factor bringing in gigantic numbers for the early episodes and the show holding on to an average third to half of the season high viewership for Kimbo's fight against Roy Nelson. But while there are a lot of people watching, the program they've been given has not been quite as advertised.

The heavyweight fights in the ten episodes that have aired have in large part ranged from terrible to "why would they even put this on TV?" There have been a few exceptions, and a couple of notable performances, but with the entire crop of 16 fighters no one has been established as someone that a majority of MMA fans would believe belongs inside of the Octagon, even in this lacking and injury/illness ravaged division; at least through the first ten episodes.

Now we come down to the final two quarter final bouts and the semifinals, and it will give us Saturday's final two competitors just three days before the event. At this point, it doesn't matter who wins this season, and it really doesn't matter who is fighting in the finale on Saturday. Kimbo Slice was the guy people tuned in for, and he'll be fighting Houston Alexander in what is sure to be nothing but a brawl, but he was never going to win this whole thing.

There are a couple of fighters that have some promise this season, but they come in the form of Brenden Schaub and Marcus Jones, two former NFL players who still have a ways to go as fighters. Schaub, win or lose the rest of the way, will likely be the ultimate success story from this entire season as he already trains with Greg Jackson's camp in New Mexico, as well as Nate Marquardt's camp in Colorado, and is still relatively young coming into the sport. Jones, while an extremely gifted athlete, is 36 years old and has put a lot of mileage on his body after eight seasons in the NFL.

That brings us to the ultimate "it doesn't matter" piece in this TUF puzzle, and it's been the only thing to get more camera time than Kimbo Slice, the "feud" between Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Rashad Evans as coaches.

It was only a few episodes into this season that Quinton Jackson pulled out of the scheduled coaches bout with Evans at UFC 107 to film the A-Team movie, subsequently "quitting" the UFC after getting his feelings hurt. It has made the remaining confrontations, which had been billed as legitimate hatred and heat between the two, just a bunch of hot air that will have no resolution. It's made investing time into watching the two of them butt heads a completely futile and unnecessary exercise; and has turned what could have been interesting and exciting build up for a fight between the two of them into nothing more than a waste of time.

No, the winner of this season won't turn heads in the heavyweight division, and on Saturday they won't have the fight people will tune in for. Based on the way this season's been promoted, Kimbo Slice's bout against Alexander will be more likely to receive the UFC's backing in heavy promotion the rest of the week than their fight will, and the night's main event between Matt Hammill and Jon Jones remains the most intriguing on the card.

The best case scenario to salvage what has been simply an awful season of fights is for Brendan Schaub to run the table. He's marketable and with continued training in the camps he is with can continue to improve to turn into a viably competitive heavyweight down the road. If it's him against Roy Nelson for the title of "Ultimate Fighter" on Saturday night, a win by Schaub would give him some more legitimacy to the hardcore sect as well.

All in all, after putting together what has looked like a highly underwhelming crop of talent for this season's heavyweights, it just does not matter who emerges with their hand raised in Las Vegas. They've already been relegated to the level of non-descript fight and we don't even know who they are yet.

Well, if anyone cares, they'll find out tonight after two more episodes and four more fights on Spike TV. Let's just hope it's better than the first ten.

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