TUF: As Real As It Gets?

There’s no denying that the UFC’s reality show The Ultimate Fighter is at least partially responsible for the promotion’s success. There’s also no denying that the show – the first two seasons especially – has provided the UFC with some extremely solid talent, with Season One and Two winners Forrest Griffin and Rashad Evans being consecutive light heavyweight champions – but there’s also no denying that as the show has progressed, it has become less and less about finding the next great fighter.

The talent on the show is clearly in decline, with the focus being far less about the sport itself and more about in-house drama and hyping the fight between the coaches.

Nowhere was this more prevalent than the eighth season of the show: many of the fighters had pro fights numbering in the single digits and it’s very difficult to imagine any of the competitors worrying the top 10 rankings, but the show really wasn’t about that anymore. It was about drama and in-house pranks, and trying to hype the heavyweight title bout between Antonio Noguiera and Frank Mir.

The show featured one of the most disgusting house ‘jokes’ I’ve ever witnessed (which I won’t relay) and plenty of aggression in the house, but the real star of the show was Junie Browning.

Sporting just two professional matches before the show, Browning would constantly tell anyone who would listen that he was the best and nary an episode went by that he wasn’t shown throwing a tantrum, destroying something or trying to instigate a fight in a drunken rage, before calming down and crying about how bad his life was. Clearly he was a young man with some issues – the kind of issues that audiences lap up and make stars out of reality TV show contestants.

With Browning’s suicide attempt and subsequent assault on hospital staff this week, followed by his release from his UFC contract, I have to think that The Ultimate Fighter is at least partially responsible. A young man with these kinds of issues should have been the last person that they would put in an enclosure with limited company and constant access to alcohol. Add a sprinkling of fame after the event and it seems that the familiar celebrity time bomb ensued.

As UFC President Dana White put it: ‘He was given an amazing opportunity, but he has some serious issues that are beyond me and what I can do… he needs more help than I can give him. I did what I could for him.’

Hopefully with the release from his contract, Browning can find the help he needs, and maybe The Ultimate Fighter producers will take a look in the mirror and a better look at their cast members.

Tags: Junie Browning, MMA, TUF, UFC, Ultimate Fighter

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.