Spike TV To Counter-Program TUF With 'The Ultimate Fighter Fridays' In 2012

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.