Ultimate Fighter, how I love thee

Those of you who enjoy watching UFC or mixed martial arts in general can stop reading this right now. Sorry, but I’m not writing this for you. You probably already know everything I’m going to say. Right now, I want to talk to everyone who has either never seen UFC or is pretty sure it’s not for them.

Listen, I used to be one of you. I had some marginal knowledge of mixed martial arts, mostly because Ken Shamrock was in WWE for a minute, back when it used to be WWF. But beyond that, it just didn’t seem like something I could get into. I always had a thing for pro wrestling, but that’s got characters and storylines, not to mention cool high flying moves and people hitting each other with chairs. MMA always struck me as random dudes I’d never heard of having fights with no backstory, most of which involved a lot of rolling around on the ground. Sure, I’d heard there was a good knockout here or there, but I really couldn’t imagine watching a three hour pay per view on the off chance that somebody might get punched in the face really hard.

Then came one fateful Saturday when I was bored and flipping channels. I stumbled onto Spike TV, which was showing a marathon of a program called The Ultimate Fighter. This turned out to be a reality show where guys that want to be in UFC all live and train together. They are divided into two opposing teams, and at the end of each episode one guy from each team fights another, with the loser going home, UFC dreams crushed. I started watching because there was nothing else on. I was still watching five hours later because it was the greatest thing I’d ever seen.

Suddenly, these weren’t just random dudes fighting – these were individual people with personalities that I could love or hate. These were people who had real issues with each other -- issues that they planned to solve through fighting. There was all sorts of drama in the house, and all sorts of crying when people lost...and when they won...and, well, there was a lot of crying, come to think of it. Regardless, this was the program that humanized MMA for me. This was the program that made me care.

And somewhere along the way, after watching all the training and fights, I came to legitimately appreciate MMA as a sport. I started to understand the finer points of what was previously just “rolling around” and found that I could even enjoy fights with guys that I didn’t know anything about, simply because I started to love the sport itself.

With the seventh season of The Ultimate Fighter beginning on April 2, I’ve long since become one of those people that watches every UFC pay per view. There’s no question where I’ll be on Wednesday at 10:00pm. I’d just like to invite everyone who believes they couldn’t possibly enjoy UFC to be there with me. Check it out because it’s a great show. I bet you’ll still be there in six weeks because it’s a great sport.

- Amirah


Check out this clip from the first season of Ultimate Fighter featuring one of this year's coaches, Forrest Griffin: