The Ultimate Fighter Ends Its Spike TV Run On High Note, Cruz/Faber Lead Charge on FX

The war between Viacom and Fox is on.

Announced Tuesday, Spike TV will debut "The Ultimate Fighter Fridays" on March 2nd, 2012, in an effort to counter-program FX's "The Ultimate Fighter."

The broadcast kicks off at 9 p.m. ET/PT, is slated for three-hours every Friday, and will serve as a "best of" for the seven-year, fourteen-season series. In addition, special fan-driven editions of "The Ultimate Fighter Fridays" are in the works that will ask for input from fans via social media.

"The Ultimate Fighter" is scheduled to make its FX-debut on March 9th as part of the UFC's landmark deal with Fox. Among the changes to the show is a switch from Wednesday to Friday night, live fights decided by fan-voting, and a championship coaches match to cap the season. Top-ranked bantamweights Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber are slated to train two teams of lightweight and welterweight hopefuls.

Spike TV has made several similar decisions to counter-program in the past, most notably counter-programming UFC on Fox: Velasquez vs. Dos Santos with a special UFC Unleashed marathon titled "Dos Santos vs. Velasquez: Unleashed for the Heavyweight Title" on November 12th. The broadcast earned 800,000 viewers. Similar plans are in development for January 28th's UFC on Fox 2 telecast.

Jack Encarnacao spoke with Spike TV President Kevin Kay and asked him about the poor ratings of the 13th season of The Ultimate Fighter -- the lowest rated in the six year run -- and Kay named one of the big causes: former UFC and WWE heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar. 

"Look, the Brock Lesnar season just wasn't that good. Let's be honest. It wasn't the Brock that the audience expected. The audience wanted Brock the bad guy, and Brock was more of a good guy, and I don't think it was that great a season," Kay said. 

Other than the vicious rash of injuries, failed drug tests and bad luck  that ravaged pay-per-view main events throughout 2010-2011, the biggest disappointment for the UFC in recent years has to be the massive flop of their biggest star on the reality show.

And make no mistake, Lesnar remains the biggest pay-per-view draw the organization's ever had. If you don't believe me, this is MMA Payout, the only site dedicated to the business of MMA, on Lesnar: "Looking at the numbers, Brock Lesnar is the king of PPV buy rates for the UFC."

When Brock Lesnar agreed to coach the show opposite Junior dos Santos, UFC executives, fans and pundits thought Dana White had scored another of his famous "unbelievable" coups. No one who knew anything about reclusive millionaire Brock Lesnar thought he would ever be willing to spend six weeks being taped for hours every day in Las Vegas. 

Lesnar could barely make it through one of his highly rated pre-fight UFC Primetime specials without smashing something and visibly making the camera crew fear for their lives. His post fight rants were as extraordinary and frightening as his in-cage performances. Lesnar smashed things. He cursed everyone, even sponsors. Most importantly, Lesnar the fighter smashed faces. 

The idea of Brock Lesnar reality television must have had Spike TV execs thinking they had bottled lightning. Just a couple of seasons after YouTube fighter Kimbo Slice had put on the highest rated-ever season of TUF, Zuffa and Spike must have been counting their money like it was being laid on the table.

Alas, the "old" Brock Lesnar didn't show up. There were no WWE-style-except-actually-real-and-scary tirades. Lesnar didn't get obnoxious with his politics. He didn't bully his fighters or start a lot of crap with dos Santos, his opposite coach.

That's the thing about a reality show that asks a proud professional athlete to do his best coaching a team of athletes who aspire to his achievement. You can't ask for anything more than the truth. Brock Lesnar may be pretty wound up and unbearable before and after his fights, but as a coach on a reality show, he's a fairly low key guy.

And it has to be remembered that bad health and bad luck played a big part in the show's bad ratings -- half way through the series fans found out that Lesnar's diverticulitis had returned and he wouldn't be able to fight dos Santos at the end of the season. 

Kevin Kay isn't trashing Lesnar, he's just explaining why the season fell so far short of the big expectations. It's a lot like the old cliche record company executive who signed Prince and got 'The Artist Formerly Known As..." instead. 

The UFC today announced that bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz and number one contender Urijah Faber will coach the next season of The Ultimate Fighter. This will be the program's debut on FX after 14 seasons on Spike TV beginning in 2005.

The show will debut on Friday, March 9, 2012 at 9 p.m. ET with a two-hour special. Future episodes will run one hour beginning at 10 p.m. ET. The two bantamweights will coach teams of lightweights and welterweights competing for two six figure contracts to fight for the UFC. After the season, the two coaches will fight for Cruz' title in mid-2012.

"We're producing ground-breaking television with The Ultimate Fighter LIVE and we can't wait to kick this season off with FX in March," UFC President Dana White said. "It's going to be can't-miss TV. Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber are two incredible personalities who also happen to be two of the best fighters in the world. They genuinely dislike each other and I expect this to make for the best season yet."

"We believe that Dana and Lorenzo (Fertitta), along with Executive Producer Craig Piligian, have come up with exciting new changes to the format of The Ultimate Fighter that will expand and grow the series," said Chuck Saftler, Executive Vice President, FX Networks. "The fact that the fights at the end of each episode will now be televised live is certain to create a sense of urgency for UFC fans. Furthermore, the move of TUF to Friday nights will provide a great ratings boost to the network."

Cruz and Faber have fought twice before, splitting the two fights. Faber won their first bout via guillotine choke in 2007 when he was the WEC featherweight (145lbs) champion. In 2011, Cruz took a five round decision when Faber challenged him for the bantamweight (135lbs) title at UFC 132.