The Ultimate Fighter Season 15 Discussion Thread

[No More Sorrow]

The upcoming season of The Ultimate Fighter has a whole new look and Urijah Faber could not be more excited. The bantamweight contender will coach alongside rival Dominick Cruz on a longer, live edition on FX starting March 9.

"I'm pumped. I mean this is going to be a huge opportunity," commented Faber. "Not only is it a little bit longer—actually twice as long, thirteen weeks—but it's on a new network. It's going to be live every week so people are going to be tuning in. It's going to be awesome."

Most of the 15th season will be edited the week of the broadcast, with each episode's fights airing live, starting at 9PM ET. The new format has got the attention of UFC fans everywhere, leading president Dana White to predict twice the viewership for this season.

Broadcast changes aside, Faber will have plenty of work to do before he takes on Cruz for the third time. "The California Kid" was able to get the better of him in their first matchup before dropping a five round championship bout this past July. But with plenty of time before the tilt, Faber can enjoy his time off.

"I've just basically been doing my thing, training hard and having fun. I'm still five months out from my fight so I'm not worried about the grind. I can practice multiple times a day if I want to, travel if I need to. Just living the good life," said Faber.

While TUF is known for trash talking and heated disputes, Faber does not expect too much of that come March. He plans on letting the calculating Cruz do a lot of that work for him instead.

"I think he's kind of playing some mind games with himself. So I might let him do his own thing and just observe."

Fightline.com

 

[Ben]

Don't see them doing huge numbers for the shows though. Casuals don't know who Faber or Cruz are and neither of them are really great at talking up a fight. Think at first the show will do good ratings wise, but there needs to be some interesting fighters on the show to carry big numbers the whole season.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Agreed.

And the Ultimate Fighter Brazil is going to do worse, It'll do good in Brazil but with it being on Fuel TV In the US, and only having English subtitles to it not likely very many people will tune into it.

 

[Troy]

The live fights each week will help the ratings but as you said they don't have any big name coaches this season. UFC has tried to push Urijah Faber as the poster boy of UFC but he isn't that widely known yet. If there are some entertaining fighters on the show then I am sure people will tune in regularly.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Here's the entire cast for the upcoming season of the show, this is only the American one the Brazilian cast has yet to be released.

The official "TUF 15" cast includes:

• Akbarh Arreloa (Chula Vista, Calif.)
• Al Iaquinta (Wantagh, N.Y.)
• Ali Maclean (Belfast, North Ireland)
• Andy Ogle (Tynemouth, England)
• Austin Lyons (Cordova, Tenn.)
• Brendan Weafer (New York, N.Y.)
• Chris Tickle (Bloomington, Ill.)
• Cody Pfister (Amarillo, Texas)
• Cristiano Marcello (Curitiba, Brazil)
• Chase Hackett (Littleton, Colo.)
• Chris Saunders (Long Beach, Calif.)
• Dakota Cochrane (Omaha, Neb.)
• Daron Cruickshank (Wayne, Mich.)
• Drew Dober (Omaha, Neb.)
• Erin Beach (San Diego, Calif.)
• James Krause (Blue Springs, Mich.)
• James Vick (Fort Worth, Texas)
• Jared Carlsten (Los Angeles, Calif.)
• Jeff Smith (Mechanicsburg, Penn.)
• Jeremy Larsen (Phoenix, Ariz.)
• Joe Proctor (Pembroke, Mass.)
• John Cofer (Hull, Ga.)
• Johnavan Vistante (Pearl City, Hawaii)
• Jon Tuck (Hagtna, Guam)
• Jordan Rinaldi (Matthews, N.C.)
• Justin Lawrence (Villa Ridge, Mo.)
• Mark Glover (Liverpool, England)
• Michael Chiesa (Spokane Valley, Wash.)
• Myles Jury (San Diego, Calif.)
• Mike Rio (Miami, Fla.)
• Sam Sicilia (Spokane Valley, Wash.)
• Vinc Pichel (Sherman Oaks, Calif.)

 

[No More Sorrow]

Oh and here's a video preview for The Ultimate Fighter: Brasil

[video=youtube;Yfxf0N_XrZE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Yfxf0N_XrZE[/video]

 

[No More Sorrow]

A half-hour show previewing the upcoming live season of "The Ultimate Fighter" debuts tonight on FUEL TV.

"The Ultimate Fighter 15," which is the first season on FX and the first to feature live fights, begins next Friday, March 9.

Tonight's preview shows kicks off at 11:30 p.m. ET (8: 30 p.m. PT).

It features UFC president Dana White, host/broadcaster Jon Anik, and "The Ultimate Fighter 15" coaches Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber. In addition to the coaches, the show focuses on the 32 lightweight fighters who recently were unveiled for the season.

"What we are doing this season with 'The Ultimate Fighter Live' – it's never been done with television, with sports, with anything," White stated. "Basically, the reality portions of the show that you're going to see will have been shot in the last two days, so everything is real time. The most incredible part of all this is that these fights are live, every Friday night. This is revolutionary television."

As with past seasons of the show, UFC hopefuls have to win an elimination-round fight to become an official cast member. All 16 elimination-round fights will be shown live during next week's two-and-a-half-hour debut.

The tournament concludes with a live finale on June 1 in Las Vegas. FX carries the event live.

Like the idea of this preview show, I'll check it out tonight and get it posted tomorrow sometime.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Ultimate Fighter this week, should be pretty interesting to see how it does up against Spike TV's Ultimate Fighter Friday with Kimbo.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Here's some details on how the new Live Ultimate Fighter is going to be ran

• The fighters are already aware of their matchups for Friday's opener (however, they won't be released publicly). The matchups also will be announced for the following week's episode so UFC officials have a full week to publicize the fight and the fighters.
• Although officials initially suggested that fans may get to vote to determine the matchups, that no longer will be the case, White said.
• Despite the live fights, there will be no fight broadcasters. UFC commentator Jon Anik will serve as a weekly host with White and will introduce that week's episode. However, once it's fight time, the sounds of the gym and the fight will take over the show while void of commentary.
• White will be involved in every episode. That means for UFC on FUEL TV 2 in Sweden, he'll be in Las Vegas for "TUF: Live" on Friday, hop on a jet that night, land in Stockholm, watch the fights, and then be back on the plane to Vegas five hours later.
• The fighters will, in fact, be cut off from the outside world for 13 weeks rather than the usual six. He said the usual restrictions (no phones, computers, personal calls, outside trips, etc.) will remain in place.
• The show editing will now be done on site. The editing of the show used to be outsourced, but with the need to package the show quickly and include footage that's sometimes just hours old, everything has moved to Las Vegas.
• The fighters will have no access to social media while on the show. While it would have marketing/promotional benefits, White convinced fellow co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta to nix any of the fighters' Twitter and Facebook use this season. However, White said he'll evaluate this season and may reconsider it for "TUF: Live 2."

Show starts off tonight, on FX @ 9.

 

[The Cork]

Interested how the gay guy gets on.

Would be funny as fuck if he was a GSP style lay-and-prayer, imagine the heat he'd get off crowds and the epic gifs that will come from it.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Yeah it'll be interesting Dana White came out yesterday and said he didn't care and he'd cut anybody from the show who fucked with him.

But that will be interesting to follow, it's not really that he's gay that i think will bother most of the guys on the show but the guy was in a gay porn movie.. So yeah..hah

 

[No More Sorrow]

Actually I just read that he straight now, but did have involvement in a gay porn movie back when he was in college, and got paid 80K for it.

And for the U.K. Guys on here

Good news for fans of the new Ultimate Fighter Live in the U.K. as the show will broadcast in England with no tape delay.

The show will begin airing on ESPN in the U.K. starting Saturday morning March 10 at 2 am local time in England.

It’s the first time the show has aired in the U.K. at the same time as in the United States.

There will be further announcements regarding future episodes and their air times soon.

The new Ultimate Fighter Live will debut with a 2 ½ hour episode with 32 fighters battling for 16 roster spots to be coached by UFC bantamweight champ Dominick Cruz and top contender Urijah Faber.


The show will run for 13 weeks culminating in a finale show in early June before Cruz and Faber battle it out on July 7 to close out their trilogy of fights.

 

[Dale]

Looks like i'm going to have to catch this tommorow on download

 

[No More Sorrow]

Probably best for you to do considering it's a two and a half hour season premier :

 

[Dale]

Gonna watch some of this now.

I love all these money bonues being thrown around for extra incentives