Brock Lesnar vs. Steve Austin: Will WWE Tough Enough Stay Ahead of UFC TUF?

We’re a couple weeks into the new seasons of WWE’s Tough Enough and UFC’s The Ultimate Fighter television seasons and things are beginning to look rough for the once very popular MMA reality series.

After debuting with what must have been a very disappointing 1.5 million views, TUF got even worse news when Tough Enough debuted at a staggering 3.3 million views. The shows, which are largely headlined by host “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and coach Brock Lesnar, were expected to be much closer in ratings than it turned out.

While UFC President, Dana White, publicly stated that he believes the ratings for Season 13 of TUF have been just fine, there has to be some internal concern from the company as their only regularly-scheduled program continues to see its viewers decline.

The following 10 questions and answers will help break down exactly what is happening with the battle between Tough Enough and The Ultimate Fighter, and whether MMA fans should be concerned about the early ratings.

1. Is the Original Always Better Than the Remake?

Many people who are watching The Ultimate Fighter and Tough Enough may not remember the original series WWE ran years ago. Long before NXT, the WWE began running Tough Enough for four seasons that lasted from 2001-2004.

The show produced such future WWE Superstars as Maven, Nidia, Chris Nowinski, John Morrison, current WWE Champion “The Miz,” and even commentator Josh Matthews.

Though mixed martial arts and pro wrestling are not direct competitors and do seem to have at least a fundamental business relationship, they do battle for much of the same audience.

There are even fans who have gone as far as to say that The Ultimate Fighter is simply a rip-off of Tough Enough.

While The Ultimate Fighter has certainly produced many big stars for the UFC, the interest in the show has dwindled from the beginning to now, where many fans have described it as being “stale.”

With Tough Enough now back on the air, the UFC will need to really kick things into high gear if they hope to compete going forward.

2. Will the Boost Tough Enough Got from "Stone Cold" Steve Austin Continue?

Nostalgia does crazy things sometimes.

Whether it’s fashion, music, old movies and television, or pro wrestling; fans will always have a special place in their hearts for the things that made them smile as a kid.

“Stone Cold” Steve Austin made for some of the best entertainment-based childhood memories for an entire generation of WWE fans who now make up the ever-important 18-25 year old demographic.

People who aren’t even pro wrestling fans anymore have been tuning in, in support of their childhood hero who is now the host on Tough Enough.

While Booker T, Bill “Hugh Morris” DeMott, and Trish Stratus are the trainers of the show that is supposed to be focused on finding the next WWE Superstar, there is little doubt that “Stone Cold” is the reason that many, if not most are watching.

Eventually the “wow” factor will fade away if the show becomes bland, but for the time being, Tough Enough is doing a great job of surrounding the show around Steve Austin.

3. Does the Ultimate Fighter Lack the “Elimination” Drama of Tough Enough?

Whether it’s game shows like Survivor and Big Brother, or dating shows like Flavor of Love and Rock of Love, everyone always pays the most attention to one big part of the show: Eliminations.They might be corny and stupid, but people simply love them.

Tough Enough has done an excellent job with its eliminations so far. In fact, one of the best moments in the show so far came when “Stone Cold” Steve Austin eliminated contestant Ariane Andrew in the first episode.

The UFC’s hands are somewhat tied with The Ultimate Fighter’s structure. Having fighters get eliminated for anything other than losing fights seems silly, so that’s how it has been since the beginning (with the exception of fighters leaving or being kicked off for breaking rules).

With it being a reality TV show, TUF hasn’t been able to capture quite the drama that other game shows have, and especially not in the way that Tough Enough has. 

4. Is Brock Lesnar's Drawing Power Overrated?

Brock Lesnar has been the biggest draw in mixed martial arts, practically since the minute he stepped into the UFC cage for the first time.

A former WWE champion, Lesnar pulled an entirely new base of fans over from his previous employer while seemingly getting under the skin of many MMA traditionalists who didn’t believe he belonged.

It wasn’t long before he proved that he did belong and had the UFC Heavyweight Title around his waist. But the ratings didn’t drop just because his critics started to be silenced.

In fact, many of those critics are now some of his biggest fans.

When it was announced that Lesnar would be one of the coaches on season 13 of TUF, the general consensus seemed to be that this would turn into one of the highest-rated seasons in the show’s history.

But it hasn’t been that way at all. With Lesnar not fighting, many viewers seem to already be bored with the show.

Certainly Brock will continue to draw in huge money for his own pay-per-view fights, but perhaps the UFC was a little overconfident in his ability to bring in huge numbers of viewers for a reality show that he wouldn’t be fighting on.

5. Does TUF Need More Dana White?

Isaac Brekken/Getty Images

LAS VEGAS - FEBRUARY 15: UFC President Dana White arrives at UFC, Famous Stars and Straps and New Era's 'The Magic Party' at XS the nightclub on February 15, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Isaac Brekken/Getty Images)

In the early seasons of The Ultimate Fighter, some of the best moments came when UFC President, Dana White, came down to the gym to talk some sense into the fighters.

His now infamous “Do you want to be a [expletive]in’ fighter?!” rant is one of the most memorable moments in the show’s history.

But as the show has gone on, Dana White’s appearances seem to be fewer and further between. When he does show up, it’s usually promoted fairly well and he delivers some great one-liners, but it just doesn’t seem to happen quite enough anymore.

6. Does TUF Need a Lead-in Show?

One big advantage that Tough Enough has on The Ultimate Fighter is that it comes on TV directly after one of the highest-rated cable television shows, WWE Raw.

With the best moments of Raw almost always happening at the end of the show, much of the audience is still excited and wanting to see more. Tough Enough quenches their thirst for more “man drama.”

It’s going to be tough for the UFC to create a lead-in show for The Ultimate Fighter given their limited resources and their obvious intention not to over saturate the market with too many small-level fights. But certainly some sort of UFC-based show prior to The Ultimate Fighter would help increase the ratings.

7. Is TUF Becoming Too Focused on the Fights?

Before you jump all over this one and start panicking about how “it should be about the fights,” let’s break this down a bit.

Each season of TUF has been increasingly focused on the actual fights and training than the last. Meanwhile, with the exception of the season featuring Kimbo Slice (who is now out of the sport, by the way), the ratings have been on a fairly consistent fall since the early seasons.

Whether or not we want to admit it as MMA fans, much of the audience who tunes in for TUF simply want to be entertained. They don’t care whether it comes in the form of an argument between the two coaches, an entertaining main event fight between two contestants, or Chris Leben peeing on someone’s bed.

One of the most popular seasons of TUF came when coaches Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Rashad Evans showed some real-life hostility toward one another. While their fight didn’t take place until after the show was finished, fans were highly entertained by the back-and-forth comments between the two coaches.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any real heat between Brock Lesnar and fellow coach, Junior dos Santos.

I’m not suggesting that TUF takes fighting out of the equation in any way, but perhaps the focus for the rest of the show needs to get back to being on the happenings in the house and not so much the day-to-day drills in training. 

8. Are "Boring" Fights Killing TUF’s Momentum?

One of the biggest factors that may be hurting TUF is the regularly poor fights at the end of each episode.

While there have certainly been some gems, the consensus seems to be that too many of the fighters are playing it safe and simply trying to win decisions, instead of taking some chances in an effort to finish their opponent.

Even some of the top fighters, and winners, from each season took a lot of heat for this “safe” style.

We can’t fault the fighters for doing everything they can to win the competition, but these fighters are not well-known enough yet to have fans look past their fights being “boring.”

Perhaps ending each episode of TUF with that week’s fight isn’t the best option.

Particularly when an episode ends with a fight that fans perceive to be “boring,” it seems to kill a lot of the momentum that would normally encourage a viewer to tune in the following week.

9. Is the Ultimate Fighter Market over Saturated?

Since its debut in 2005, The Ultimate Fighter has run two seasons of the show every year, including a season yet-to-be announced that is expected to take place in Fall 2011.

While the show has done an amazing job of producing top level talent like Forrest Griffin, Diego Sanchez, Kenny Florian, Josh Koscheck, Michael Bisping, Ryan Bader; it has been a long time since the show produced a truly big star.

One of the biggest reasons for this may be that fans are starting to view TUF as not being anything “special” anymore. It used to be that each season of the show was viewed as being something unique and interesting. But lately, with the exception Season 10 which featured Kimbo Slice, Roy Nelson, Brendan Schaub, and coaches Rampage Jackson and Rashad Evans, they seem to be kind of blending together.

Obviously The Ultimate Fighter is being used to keep the UFC brand in people’s minds during the year, but it may be that the two seasons per year method is getting to be a bit much for viewers.

10. Is MMA’s Popularity Dwindling?

The biggest concern for the UFC and MMA fans in general may be whether or not the sport of mixed martial arts is losing some of its popularity.

After its unexpectedly low viewership in the first week, TUF once again fell well short of Tough Enough in total viewers in week two. Estimates are that about 2.7 million viewers tuned in to watch Tough Enough while only 1.2 million saw The Ultimate Fighter.

As one would expect, the highest-rated episodes of TUF have tended to be the first and final episodes, which feature the unveiling of the cast and the choosing of the teams, and the last fights before the finals.

Generally the show sees a fairly significant drop-off in ratings from week one to week two, and it did again this year, as it lost about 300k viewers. But while the WWE’s product still easily won out in terms of total viewers, it was Tough Enough that actually saw a drop of 700k viewers.

The percentage drop-off of viewers was about the same, but this had to be particularly disappointing for the WWE as they were coming off of their biggest event of the year, WrestleMania.

Normally post-WrestleMania hype alone is enough to spark huge interest from fans to get back into the product, but it doesn’t appear that it translated very well into Tough Enough.

Meanwhile, the UFC didn’t even have an event the week before and still maintained on par, percentage-wise, with the viewer drop-off that the WWE saw.

But even more importantly than the ratings between Tough Enough and TUF is a concept that many are forgetting... This is reality television vs. reality television.

It’s not MMA vs. Pro Wrestling.

While the UFC has been the king of this type of television for the past seven years, it should come as no surprise that the WWE’s reality series has a bit more pizazz.

After all, they’re the experts on blurring the line between fiction and reality.

As we head deeper into 2011, mixed martial arts continues to defy the economy while increasing its lead as the fastest growing sport in the world.

Until pay-per-view and revenue numbers begin to slip on a consistent basis, the UFC has absolutely nothing to worry about.