TUF 9 Vindicated by Ratings

 
Steve Cofield has been making some passive aggressive remarks about the ninth season of The Ultimate Fighter. Basically Steve thinks the season was boring, just look at his title for the TUF 10 promo, "TUF 10 reel: More entertaining than entire season of TUF 9" or this gem "Can the Finale Save The Ultimate Fighter 9?"

Cofield went self-righteous saying,

"You got what you wished for. If you were one of the folks whining about the integrity of the sport, calling for less drama and more of the training footage and fights on the UFC's reality show, you got it. And what you also got was a show that was difficult to pay attention to. "

I guess Steve needs a little more drama to keep his ADD in check.

When it comes to the Finale I'll let UFC.com do the talking, 

"The live UFC fight card, which peaked at 2.8 million viewers for the main event featuring Diego Sanchez and Clay Guida, was the most watched-program in all of television in Men 18-34 and Men 18-49.

"Also, bucking the trend of most reality series, "The Ultimate Fighter" finale ratings for season nine were the highest since season six and the full season of 13 episodes were the highest in Men 18-34 since season five, illustrating the growing popularity in the sport of mixed martial arts and the UFC brand on Spike.

When it comes to the actual show TUF 9 did the same numbers as TUF 8, which had that "drama" factor that Steve misses so much. 

There is truth to Cofield's complaint, training is boring to partake in and boring to watch. But when you have 46 minutes to fill every week there is a lot of down time needed to be filled (at best fights last 10 minutes).

Personally, I would much rather have The Ultimate Fighter turn into 23 minute episodes rather than the producers scrambling to fill dead time with fraternity antics or training montages. If I have to chose between fighters training and fighters ejaculating on food, I will take the training montage. Besides, if Spike just added the music from Rocky IV they would be guaranteed a ratings bonanza.