CARL REVIEWS: THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 34, EPISODE 12

We have come to the end of the road, and I can, in fact, let you go.

EPISODE 12: HOW CHAMPIONS ARE BORN

Against all odds, we have made it to the end. In forty-five minutes, our journey through The Ultimate Fighter will finally be complete.

PREVIOUSLY ON THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER: Potential medical disqualification looms for finalist Zygimantas Ramaska followed by a plethora of manly crying, after which Robert Valentin tapped out Paddy McCorry.

Thanks to his facial fracture we may not yet know if Zygimantas Ramaska is fighting--unless you pay particular attention to MMA twitter in which case this has all been spoiled already, but I'll preserve the excitement for you--but we are rolling right into his fight prep. We recap the epic best-ever TUF fight between Zygi and Bekhzod again, but mostly, this is just to establish the ongoing medical limbo Zygi is in, training kickboxing while waiting for the commission to confirm he's fighting at all. Zygi is understandably confident in his striking against anyone on the show, and somewhat ominously declares no matter what, someone from the fight is going to the hospital.

Which goes straight into Zygi's spot in the Human Contact Chamber. This week we have Evelina, his sister, who appears to be facetiming him from the front seat of her car. We see very little of the chat, but we do get a moment to focus on Zygi describing how hard it has been to go five weeks without any way to talk to his family, which is very charming to my cold American heart. But--and I say this having gone back and counted--Evelina gets exactly nine seconds of speech, and they amount to 'everyone here is fine.' The ongoing theme of the quietly functional family unit continues.

Mairon Santos is up next, and he gets to talk to his wife. They miss each other an awful lot and she is very confident he will win. That is the entire segment. Boy, these are unbalanced.

Mairon's fight prep reel is also kickboxing. He says with the uncertain opponent he has chosen to stop preparing strategically and is choosing to simply sharpen what he does best and fight as well as possible. Alexa Grasso is struggling a little trying to coach both Mairon and Guillermo Torres in case Torres winds up filling in. Mairon doesn't want to fight him, as they've grown close during the show, but as with Robert, people must kill each other for money to survive. Alexa is also worried about Mairon's weight cut, as he still has to get rid of five pounds, and to emphasize his difficulties they show us the process of wrapping him in those reflective sheets you use to microwave off-brand Hot Pockets so he can sweat more.

The fact that we transition directly from that into the weigh-ins feels like a bad sign. Zygi makes weight easily, Mairon is once again forced to use the box of shame, but it isn't enough: He is overweight at 148 and has one hour to cut two pounds. Mairon is thrown into the sauna and comes out sufficiently dehydrated that he has to be arm-walked out by Diego Lopes, but he makes it back to the scale with one minute to spare--and, at 146.5, is still a half-pound over the limit. Mairon asks to weigh in again after shaving his head, but Zygi and Valentina step in to just accept the fight as-is without making him suffer further. Mairon immediately goes to Zygi to apologize for his unprofessionalism; Zygi embraces him and tells him it's fine.

As an MMA fan, this is fucking frustrating, and that frustration is a big part of where TUF lives. Technically, every fight on TUF is a non-professional exhibition bout, because that skirts enough legal regulations that the UFC can hold them without, say, being compelled to publicly release results. Weigh-ins are another such issue. Generally fighters are compelled to cut weight because they lose money if they don't make weight--but on TUF you're fighting for free, so there's no financial incentive nor penalty. It's an awful lot harder for the UFC to simply cancel a bout, too, because the tournament format falls apart when people get disqualified.

Which is how, twice in one season, people can miss weight and everyone can just shrug it off and decide to keep going anyway. If it sounds like I'm frustrated that the fighters aren't being held to stiffer standards, that is absolutely not the case. I'm frustrated that it's only on TUF that we can watch people damn near kill themselves with dehydration for weight cuts they're not even getting paid to make, and it's only on TUF that when those cuts fail, everyone can just shrug and move on with the acknowledgment that busting balls over a couple hundred grams of mass, as will happen for the rest of their professional careers, is aggressively silly.

(For additional backup purposes, Guillermo Torres and Edwin Cooper Jr. both make weight at 145 pounds, so rest assured half the house had a shitty week.)

It's fight day! Except there's thirty full-ass minutes left in the show, so the constant foreshadowing of Zygi's potential troubles with the Nevada State Athletic Commission sure do seem meaningful. Right after his hands are wrapped he and Valentina are called in to talk to Jeff Mullen and the NSAC's doctor, and sure enough, he will not be cleared to compete. Valentina immediately and extremely correctly asks why on Earth they waited until five minutes before the fight to tell him this as opposed to doing it yesterday; Mullen does not really have a great answer.

Zygi is understandably heartbroken, but he shakes both hands on his way out before going to do his grieving in the corner in the locker room. Alexa gets called in next and told to put Guillermo in against Mairon, because Guillermo fought earlier than Edwin, so it's safer to have him fight again. Edwin is understandably upset that he made weight for nothing, and I imagine Valentina's a bit upset that her team's chance at the finals is shot, but you cannot beat the commission, so it's Mairon Santos vs Guillermo Torres whether we like it or not.

Guillermo is extremely hyped to get a second chance, and we are wasting very little time getting both men into the cage to finish things off.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Mairon Santos (13-1, Team Grasso) vs Guillermo Torres (7-1, Team Grasso)

Both men stop to shake hands before the fight starts. The numerical advantages are all on Mairon's side: He's almost twice as experienced, he's taller, he's got half a foot of reach and fourteen less years on his side. But we're also starting this fight with 24 minutes left in the episode, and that sure does seem like enough time for some wrestling to happen.

ROUND ONE

Mairon comes out fighting long, staying behind jabs and teep kicks and focusing on checking Guillermo's leg kicks and footworking him back to the fence. The first time Guillermo closes into the pocket he gets cracked on the chin with a right-hand counter, and the first time Guillermo tries to move in and grab a leg he gets kicked in the face. There are some range problems developing. Having successfully backed his man into the cage, Mairon jumps in with a left hook that visibly wobbles him, and easily sprawls on the takedown Guillermo shoots to recover. Almost everything Mairon throws is landing and every time Guillermo tries to return fire he gets hurt, as in trying to get a leg kick in he eats a right hand to the temple and two knees, but Guillermo is able to use the clinch to simply throw Mairon into the fence and go in deep on a single-leg takedown attempt. Mairon stays on his feet, circles back to the center of the cage, and goes right back to work landing at range with two minutes left in the round. Guillermo is visibly uncertain how to get in on Mairon, and Mairon is content to throw out jabs and leg kicks just to chip him down a bit more. At the twenty-second mark Guillermo suddenly rushes into a single-leg and successfully gets Mairon down; he can't keep Mairon down or get to his back, but he does keep him against the fence so he can get a few solid punches in just before the horn.

10-9 Santos. Outside of that very last bit, it was all one-way traffic for Mairon. Both corners tell their fighters to breathe and, uh, that's it.

ROUND TWO

Mairon takes the center of the cage right off the bat and returns to long kicks, but this time Guillermo times out a blitz that at least lets him land a couple punches and a kick to the body as Mairon is pulling away. Mairon sticks to his gameplan, waits for an opening, and charges into a flying knee when he sees it, but Guillermo successfully eats it to grab ahold of a leg and spin him into the cage for another single-leg struggle. Once again, he gets a couple punches in, but once again, Mairon spins out and retakes the center. There's a big mouse on Guillermo's right eye, and Mairon takes advantage of it well, feinting at it to open up a shot to the body and following that misdirection with a crisp uppercut. Guillermo finally lands one of his looping counters, however, in the form of a big right hand that sends Mairon reeling all the way back to the fence. Guillermo briefly takes him down, but Mairon springs up again and, with half the round gone, he's right back in the center of the mat. Guillermo is looking tired, but Mairon's blitzes have also slowed down just enough to get timed. He lances Guillermo with a left hand to counter another shot, and one heavy leg kick makes Guillermo briefly fall back. With a minute left Guillermo goes back to the takedown well, but Mairon spins him back to the fence before he can even complete the attempt, and they spend the rest of the round stuck in the clinch together landing small, sharp strikes, with only a brief break a few seconds before the horn.

That was a closer round thanks to that staggering right hand, but it's still 10-9 for Mairon. There seems to be a conscious effort not to coach the two men against one another, as no corner advice is given save Alexa Grasso yelling encouragement to both from the stands.

ROUND THREE

Both men are throwing stabbing leg kicks, half because they are tired and half because they are wary after both getting hurt. Mairon buzzes Guillermo's ear with a right hand as they're moving against the fence, and Guillermo briefly looks spent, but as Mairon tries to come in for a combination Guillermo returns fire and goes right back to the wrestling well. Once again, the attempt is unsuccessful. Mairon is right back to working behind his jab and bending the occasional left hook or right hand around or through Guillermo's guard, and Guillermo is throwing the occasional blitz, but he can't muster much in the way of effective offense. With three minutes left in the round Mairon catches Guillermo off-guard with a jab that drops him to his knees, but Mairon doesn't engage in the grappling, lets him up, and resumes picking him apart. Guillermo is sneaking the occasional good shot in when Mairon tries to throw in combinations, but he's constantly on the back foot and eating strikes to the head. Encouragement is again yelled to both men at the two-minute mark, but Mairon's finding his range with the uppercut and Guillermo has no answer for it. He does land a hammering right hand as Mairon closes, but it doesn't interrupt his rhythm or the pace of the fight. With one minute left GuIllermo shoots another huge takedown, and he briefly throws Mairon to the mat, but he's back up again ten seconds later and Guillermo looks like he put everything he had left into the attempt. Mairon counters another shot with a knee and an elbow, and with twenty seconds left Mairon turns the tables by shooting a takedown of his own, but he can't get it either. As the fight and the season both expire, Mairon tees off on Guillermo, who is weaving against the cage but cannot slip them all.

Another 10-9 for Mairon, and there should be no doubt whatsoever about who takes the fight. Both men kneel down out of a solid mixture of respect and exhaustion after the fight and we get a couple neat replays of that flying knee, and unfortunately for Guillermo, there are very few highlights that don't involve him getting brutalized.

Mairon Santos wins by unanimous decision. They are polite enough not to read the scores. Mairon and Guillermo walk back to the locker room laughing together, which is a pleasant change of pace. Everyone is happy except Zygi, who pulls a Miro-in-AEW and expresses his anger that God took away his dream.

Mairon and Kaan face off and shake hands as Dana recaps the season as a tremendous success. Robert and Ryan follow suit, and in his urge to stay permanently on brand, Robert makes sure to yell angrily at the camera. Alexa and Valentina also have a face-off, but this being the third time they've done this they cannot help having a laugh about it themselves.

And that's it. That's the show. We end not on a philosophical statement about the journey the men made or a chance to talk to them one last time or even a sign-off from our coaches, but instead, a commercial for the upcoming UFC pay-per-view at THE SPHERE, a Mexican Independence Day-themed pay-per-view main evented by Sean O'Malley and presented by Saudi Arabia.

I mean, that last bit really sums it up, doesn't it?

Outside of a general presumption of inevitable negativity I wasn't sure what to expect from my return to TUF. After years of not watching the show and years of hearing nothing but bad things about it from those unfortunate enough to get paid to do so, my expectations were very low. And yet, ultimately, it's the good stuff that hurt. I wasn't at all surprised to see the shallow attitude it has towards its own sport and its competitors, or the attempts to capitalize on drama despite there being absolutely none to see, but I was particularly surprised when, despite itself, the show managed to capture moments about exactly how this sport has grown since its inception.

That's the part that hurts. I have no false presumptions about the show being great; they're not making it to be great, they're making it to fill time and maybe, if they're lucky, earn another few pay-per-view buys and a quality prospect. But in 2024, when one third of the UFC's roster comes from the Contender Series and there's already an annual international talent-search tournament in Road to UFC, the concept of TUF as a real source of talent is antiquated at best, and the idea of TUF as a source of reality show drama is bleached and drying in the sun. The Spike TV days are over, the UFC is part of an international multi-billion dollar conglomerate that airs on a Disney network, and the era of drunken fratboy antics and street fights is dead and buried.

But there's a creative space for what TUF could be, and in brief flashes and glimpses, you can see it here. There are stories to be told with these fighters, but more importantly, there are stories to be told about fighting. The Ultimate Fighter will be twenty godforsaken years old in 2025, and it stands, however unintentionally, as a living history of the sport's growth. The difference between the misfit fighters of the early years with giant chips on their shoulders and the edge that comes from fighting in an underground sport for barely any money and the modern day of rosters stuffed with happy, friendly, functional humans who get to enjoy a world that no longer actively disdains their sport is genuinely wild to see, and in a show that has been strained and distilled and poured from vessel to vessel until all the energy and personality fell down a sink and wound up in the Calico Basin, its one undeniable strength is its link to its own past.

Someone asked me if, having done this, I would do it again next season, and boy, barring another really stupid internet bet I would rather not. But however pointless the show's format has become, the show, itself, isn't. There is still something to be gleaned from it if only they give it an actual, honest-to-god direction.

And for the twentieth anniversary of the show, I hope they figure out something.

Twenty years.

Jesus Christ.