The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale finished strong with a 1.3 household rating and an average of 1.7 million viewers. It received a 1.72 rating with M18-49 and a 2.13 in M18-34. This information was confirmed in an email from SpikeTV to MMA Payout.
The quarter hour ratings for the 2 hour finale are as follows:
1.35
1.27
1.23
1.22
1.17
1.27
1.25
1.39
Payout Perspective:
Although the 2 hour finale fell short of its season high of 1.9 million viewers, the 1.7 million average is still strong. Both fights were entertaining especially the Michael Johnson/Nam Phan fight. The fights confirmed that Jonathan Brookins stands above the rest of the fighters this season and it would be an upset to see Michael Johnson beat Brookins Saturday night.
As far as the season, I thought it was better than some seasons of TUF. As we’ve reported the ratings, many commenters have had differing opinions about this season.
Zach Arnold at Fight Opinion articulates an opinon some may agree with about this season’s TUF:
TUF 12 was a wretched season to watch.
Consistently brutal television in terms of the quality of MMA fights. We’ve discussed the point over and over again that the show is nothing more than a vehicle to promote a fight at the end of the series between two coaches, but it would be nice if the show made finding real prospects a top priority instead of a television executive deciding who has the best ‘TV look’ or who will get drunk on camera. There have been some mediocre seasons of The Ultimate Fighter, but this season takes the cake in totality for worst overall fight quality. UFC should be embarrassed that they aired these fights on television.
This past week, MMA Junkie had an interesting poll in which readers gave this season a “B” grade out of an “A-F” scale. The poll set aside 19 percent of the respondents which stated they don’t watch the show. The rest of the grades are as follows:
While voters were stingy with an A grade (2.5 percent), they were generous with B (42 percent) and C (38.3 percent) grades. Fewer than one in five voters assigned “TUF 12” a D (11.1 percent) or F (6.2 percent).
Although this is not a scientific poll, it shows the differing opinions on TUF. While some people do not like the show, others continue to tune in. TUF is good vehicle for the UFC as the ratings show, despite the criticism of the quality of fights, viewers continue to watch. I think that format of the show could be renovated to address those critics that think that the show is stale. The UFC should definitely look to the new weight divisions for future seasons of the TUF. Not only would it introduce the casual MMA fans to the lighter divisions, you could use the likes of Urijah Faber and Jose Aldo as coaches. Faber, especially, is an ex-WEC figher with market appeal. With tweaks to the format, I think that TUF can still be a popular program and provide viewers with quality content.
I think people are a little to hard on this season of TUF and the series in general. I agree the fights were crap this year overall. Mainly because there were fighters who just didnt belong. I felt Mr Guillotine (cant remember his name) was a very entertaining personality. But he was clearly unskilled and unprepared physically which reflects on his dedication to fighting. The Wrestler he beat seemed to have some credible skills on paper but clearly he couldnt have proven himself as he could rival Sonnen for worst fight intelligence. The Arabs were bums. On a related note im sick of seeing Judo in high level MMA.
But i disagree with Zack Arnold. It would be nice if it could work out the way he requests. But the set up of the show makes it impossible to be a real gauge of talent. There is no reason to throw prospects you already want in the UFC on TUF as its a crap shoot because of the random style match ups, short notice fights, new coaches and partners, interrupted training and dieting patterns. This is why the UFC dont have their very best talent go on TUF like Cain, Santos, Jones, etc. Its also why they only got bums when they used UFC vets when Serra won. No one with potential will risk their career on a crap shoot.
The UFC uses TUF the best way they can. They put a few talent fighters on, a litmus test to measure the value of the fighters on the show, then fill the rest with personality to get killed and showcase the couple of prospects. This year IMO Nam was the litmus test. He was a known product that is decent but if the show has any potential stars they should at least beat him. I believe Shonie Carter was the Litmus test in the past season. I also felt Danzig was it the season he won. But he clearly stepped up his game from his KOTC journeyman days.
People must realize that when TUF started there were fewer promotions and the UFC was only running 12 events a year at the most. So there was a lot of untapped talent out there. Now the UFC has to filled fighter slots for 25+ shows a year not to mention Bellator, SF, etc. signing every hint of a prospect.
Arabs?
Since when are Armenians Arabs bro?
12 events a year?
I think they were down to four or five by the time TUF 1 aired. It’s amazing how quickly people forget just how bad things were in North American MMA pre-TUF. The sport was basically dead by the time TUF hit the airwaves. If Vince McMahon hadn’t made the boneheaded decision to allow TUF to air after WWE RAW (he had the contractual right to nix the deal), the sport would have died in North America.
Steve
I didnt know what country they come from or i would have said Armenian. I thought they were were Arab. Calm down.
You are right it was 5 events each year. I kept think TUF started in 2006 but it was 2005. 2006 was when the PPV market blew up. Also i dont think Vince had the option of stopping TUF from being on Spike. Vince had the option to deny or approve any program that follows Raw on Spike. He allowed it and im sure it helped TUF rating having WWE as a lead in. But wasnt the difference in TUF being a hit or not.
http://www.mmafighting.com/2010/08/16/paul-heyman-told-wwe-to-not-allow-tuf-1-to-follow-raw/
I love watching MMA and Boxing (I’m watching Solo Boxeo on Telemundo as I write this – no one you’ve ever heard of and will ever hear of is on the card) and not every fight has to (or will) have top level talent. As long as fights are competitive, they are usually compelling. I thought there were some compelling fights this season, so I’m not complaining. I don’t see a great level of talent in any of this years participants, but I think Nam Phan and Brookins can probably compile .500 records before they get bounced out of the major leagues.
Going forward, I don’t think any future champions are going to be discovered in TUF. It’s just not a vehicle for that. I think when people complain about the quality of fights they are expecting too much out of the show. With so many talented athletes moving into the sport and so many small promotions out there, there are more paths than ever to the top. As such, the future UFC champs will come from the top fighters of the other MMA promotions who work their way up the ranks. TUF is free MMA, and that’s good enough for me. If you look at it that way, you have nothing to complain about. If you still don’t like it, for God’s sake, watch something else.
In terms of a vision for an MMA reality show: I think that Arnold is thinking of a show like Tapout’s show on Versus a couple year’s back. If you saw it, the guys would show up in some town where an up and coming fighter trained and following him (or her) for a week before their fight. I thought that was really cool. If I recall correctly, Damacio Page was on the show and so was Cowboy Cerrone (I think).
As for TUF, I think they should go back to TUF 1 and have the teams compete in some level of competition (outside of the gym). It would bring up a little more interaction between fighters. Yes, it is gimmicky, but we’re thinking of new ideas for a show.