Do you mean TUF?

You are probably thinking of The Ultimate Fighter reality show.

And yes, it's absolutely true. I know several guys who've been on the show. It's not universal, but a ton of these guys end up overtraining and that's why so many of them gas in their fights, imo. They have to fight potentially as many as 4 times in 6 weeks, which is bad enough. They only have a few days notice when they are fighting next when they get chosen to fight. And then the training sucks because the coach is trying to work out his team as a whole, and the guy who is fighting in 3 days is doing the same thing as the already eliminated guys.

yeah, sorry I meant to say "TUF", not "UFC"

Last TUF had some pretty good fighters imo and maybe the most polished fighter on TUF in awhile in Roy Nelson.

What are you going to do as an All-American wrestler these days? Plus, TUF gets you exposure so even if you don't get picked up by the UFC at the conclusion of the show you still have some name recognition that will interest other organizations.

TUF has gone through several stages including "underrated" (early seasons loaded with talent but nobody realized it). Then it was "overblown" (TUF stars becoming ubiquitous and getting heavy push was annoying for a while). I think it's now underrated again because it's hated on so much.

Roy Nelson is obv very, very good and is close to being a top ten HW. A couple other guys like Schaub, Madsen, etc have potential. Ross Pearson from the UK season is pretty talented and is 3-0 in the UFC. Ryan Bader from Nog vs Mir season is 4-0 in the UFC, just KO'd Jardine and has a big fight upcoming against Thiago Silva. Krystof from that season is 4-1 in the UFC. I think there's still a good amount of talent still coming through that system.

The contract for winning TUF sucks, the best route is to go the Jon Jones route, (win a few fights impressively, get a short term UFC deal, if you do well and get into the top 10 you can get a raise soon) or the Gegard Mousasi route (stay out of the UFC until you are very established, say top 5 or top 10 in your weight division, and when you're a free agent the UFC will make you a big money offer)

With the TUF contract the winner's pay is locked in for 9 fights (a very long time) and the UFC is allowed to cut the winner after a loss.

Pretty much nobody who is skilled enough to make it into the UFC the conventional way tries to get into TUF. That's why you don't see a guy like Gegard Mousasi (24 year old fighter, Ranked #5 @ LHW) even thinking about TUF.

I'm not sure why Roy Nelson did TUF 10, maybe because Dana was refusing to offer him a deal prior to that.

I thought the TUF contract was only 6 fights?

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cag...urn=mma,233702

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ult...igure_contract

Yeah, those contracts definitely suck if you're a legit fighter who has star power. But for an average joe who is working a normal job, making a minimum of $50K/year to do something you love really isn't the worst thing in the world.

What does everyone think about the state of contracts in general? I could be wrong, but UFC drastically underpays their athletes compared to most sports(boxing in particular), no?

Yep.

Exceptions are GSP, Lesnar, possibly Anderson.

There's a pretty big difference between paying $45 to watch the best guys who come out of TUF, as one of four or five good fights, and watching grown men piss and jizz on each other's food for a couple of months.

That said, I've liked what I've seen from the first few episodes of this season- seems like it's a deeper field than recent shows.

They aren't Mark Coleman, but c'mon.

Who's the favourite this season?

Danny, I notice you have a blue name on the UG, do you have to pay for that?

Phil Noke, Nick Ring and Kyle McCray.

I think you mixed up some names, it's Kyle Noke and Chris McCray. Noke seems like he should be the favorite he has 21 pro fights and is 16-4-1 and trains with American Top Team. His last fight was actually a win over a fellow TUFer, Kyacey Uscola.

I didn't realize any other 2p2ers also read the UG.

I won a romoshop contest and somebody bought me a name. I was a mudnamer until that happened. I think my blue name expires in a month or so.

Oops yeah you're right. Noke sucks though he won't win.

I don't, someone mentioned your UG posting in the sports betting UFC 112 thread.

UFC does alright I think.

Their stars make less than boxing stars. Mayweather and Pacman make 20M+ a fight. Other boxing stars make a few million a fight. But boxing is a viciously top heavy sport. Beyond the top 10-15 boxers, boxers get paid ****. If you are an up and coming guy fighting on undercards, you get paid ****.

The UFC is a little more democratic. The top guys like GSP and Brock are probably making a few million a fight considering PPV % cuts. But there's a whole range of undercard fighters who are paid better than undercard fighters in boxing. UFC 109, to pick a random example where the info is on wiki, showed the undercard fighters making an average of 16,250, which is way more than what a typical boxing undercard would be getting. The main card fighters earned an average of 98,900 (not counting any Couture PPV %), which I think is pretty good considering there weren't really any huge outliers with massive pay on this card. The UFC also has a 60-75K FOTN bonus, KO-OTN and SOTN bonus that any fighter is eligible for. Mark Munoz, Kendall Grove, Rafael Dos Anjos and DaMarques Johnson, none of whom sniffs the top 25 of their weight class, all just took home 75K from UFC 112 in bonus money in addition to their regular pay.

I think this works the way it does because MMA fans usually buy the card for more than just a single fighter. In boxing, you buy a card for one fight, and usually just for one fighter in the one fight. That guy will typically own his own promotion company, so he's really getting paid to fight and to promote. In the UFC, all promotion, advertising, and risk is handled centrally so that's a cut the fighters don't get. But since people want stacked cards for MMA, the UFC pays more democratically. The top stars get less but the undercard fighters do better.

Mir wants to fight Anderson at 235.

http://www.fightersonlymagazine.co.u...le.php?id=4289

God I hope Dana makes it happen, I want to see Mir get WTFpwned by a MW.

lol, 0% chance Dana does this

Chael, GSP, or Rua (if rua wins).

any truth in the rumour of silva dropping down to 170 and fighting gsp?