Why The Ultimate Fighter is the most significant reality series ever

"You're gonna get hit!/You're gonna get knocked
out!/You're gonna feel it/This is the ultimate!"
- actual lyrics to the theme song

There are a few things you should know about me if we were going to hang out and be friends, or even if you were going to enter into a business relationship with me. One of those things is that I'll really enjoy being your friend or working with you. Another one of those things is that I HATE REALITY TELEVISION AND WANT ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH IT WHATSO-FUCKING-EVER.

That is not to say that there aren't some reality shows I've watched in the past. I watched the first season of Survivor (Gervis got robbed!) back when the entire genre was still a novelty. I watched the first season of Jersey Shore to see what all the fuss was about, only to find the fuss as actually about other peoples' fuss in New Jersey. And as the title of the post indicates, I watch The Ultimate Fighter (hereafter referred to as TUF). As a genre, though, I think Reality is slightly below the average youtube video in terms of artistic merit.

Despite this, I was watching a rerun of TUF and was thinking "man, I actually still watch this show, dozens of seasons in (they do two a year, like Survivor)." Does that make it the greatest reality show in TV history by default? Absolutely, yes. But here are some other reasons it's the best and/or most significant reality show ever.

Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down That Fourth Wall

This is where talking to the camera gets you. Everywhere.

Is it just me, or have characters on TV noticed that we're watching them (usually without pants on)? I'm talking about the fourth wall, and I'm talking about how the modern sitcom seems to have done away with it entirely.

Full disclosure: for the purposes of this post I will be using the TVTropes entry on Breaking the Fourth Wall for my definition of the device.

Rich People Who Need Drivers: Another DUI Story

I picked this picture of McDonald only because I think terezowens.com is the 

funniest thing ever. 

After an unforgettable season for the San Francisco 49ers' defense, the off-season thus far has been one that the organization would likely rather forget. On Jan. 28, rookie Pro-Bowl  defensive end/linebacker Aldon Smith finished up his record-setting season by getting arrested on suspicion of driving while under the influence. Yesterday (Wednesday, Feb. 9), Smith's defensive line-mate was arrested after a traffic stop on a warrant connected to his 2010 DUI arrest.

There is more to the story than the SF Chronicle reported, according to SBNation. They reported McDonald had been arrested due to confusion within the DA's office. That 2010 DUI arrest has already been handled, with McDonald convicted and made to complete a mandatory first-offenders class. The warrant that got McDonald arrested on Wednesday morning was issued in August of 2011 because had not provided proof that he had completed the class. After a few hours at a police station in Sunnyvale, McDonald appears to have worked this out, telling CSN Bay Area's Matt Maiocco that he had completed the class and submitted proof.

It appears to be a clerical error.

That does not mean that the story didn't out. It did, and splash headlines across the internet and in local print media read something like "49ers McDonald Arrested on DUI Warrant." Those headlines weren't false, just missing some bits of the story. Most outlets have issued updates to include the more detailed info about the warrant.

With one notable exception: the San Francisco Chronicle, the Bay Area's leading daily newspaper, does not appear to have published anything with the new information. That's not the only reason the 49ers PR department should be scrambling right now.

Google Ray McDonald. Here, I did it for you. A quick glance at the headlines?

The class? Mentioned twice. The mistake behind the warrant: Mentioned never.

Not only is the apparently erroneous nature of the warrant not mentioned, but the far more exciting (and infinitely more misleading) "Another San Francisco 49ers Defensive Player Arrested" is written in multiple forms.

You can practically hear the pants tightening around the giant erections that the local media is getting from this story. It's really no big story, but they can splash those kind of headlines across their site/paper and get hits/sell ads without committing libel. By doing this, they have created a feeling of "Oh shit, here we go again" among 49ers fans when they see the headlines. The newspapers feel the same way about it as fans, except with a different inflection. It's more like...

Oh shit! Here we go again! Yaaay!

And since most people only read the headlines or the first paragraph of what pops up on their RSS feeds (I don't know how people get news now. Projected onto their eyelids? Either way they don't pay attention after a few seconds of any given story.), what do you think the topic of discussion around the water coolers of San Francisco is? Certainly not the inherent issues presented by a legal system that can accidentally issue an arrest warrant. 

In Defense of Josh Hamilton: From One Addict to Another

This is how I imagined I looked when I played ball as a kid.

The sporting world's collective imagination was captured in a way only sports truly can capture it. Here was a former crackhead, heroine-addict and alcoholic, now on national TV on one of the biggest stages in baseball, absolutely tearing it up. Even people who didn't care about sports tuned in by the end of it, as the story that couldn't have been better if it were scripted entered its second act. Here was the sweetest and most effortless swing I'd seen since Ken Griffey Jr. was in his prime. Here was Josh Hamilton, hitting 28 of the 38 balls he swung at out of the yard at the 2008 Home Run Derby at the old Yankee Stadium. Here was the best story in sports.

Josh Hamilton was the best story in sports, but today, I think you'd find many people are unimpressed with Josh Hamilton. In fact, many are worried this is the end of his story. And here I am, to tell those people to shut up and leave him the fuck alone.

NFL Hall of Fame Snubs

I may be biased when it comes to Tim Brown, my favorite
Raider ever but I believe his numbers speak for themselves. 

Nothing gets the discussion going quite like the Hall of Fame virtues of active or recently retired players. Besides winning a championship, the ultimate individual goal in ANY sport is to be inducted into that sport's Hall of Fame. Recently the NFL inducted 6 players into the Hall of Fame, and as I was looking down the list, I realized two things. First, this was the first class of inductees that featured exclusively players I'd watched as a kid and second, the guys who got in were, with a few exceptions, not really superstars. So I looked into it further to see who the finalists were for this year's class and was horrified to find who the selection committee had left off.

Here is a list of all of the finalists, with the bolded names representing those who actually got in.

Eli Is the Best Manning

Suck it, big bro.

People straight up chuckled last off-season when Eli Manning said he thought he was an elite quarterback. The discussion wasn't "who are the elite quarterback's in the NFL," it was "Isn't that Eli so cute? He thinks he's as good as his brother and Tom Brady." Well, guys, he is. In fact, Eli is already a more successful NFL quarterback than his brother, the better-than-great Peyton Manning. And he's only 31.

Look, no one is going to tell you that Eli is more gifted than Peyton. Peyton possesses arguably the greatest football mind of all time, and one of the best arms of the modern era. But this is the NFL, where success is measured in wins, and more importantly Super Bowl wins, and Eli has gone two-for-two.

Dan Marino is without a doubt one of the five most gifted quarterbacks of all time, but he never won a Super Bowl, so he's not in that best quarterback of all time discussion. That discussion is Joe Montana, Tom Brady, Otto Graham and John Elway. Why? Because Montana has four rings, Brady three, Graham won 8 NFL championships (pre-Super Bowl era) and Elway won two and lead his team to five in his career. Even Brett Favre tends to get left out of that discussion despite holding most of the records a quarterback can, because he only won the big game once.  I don't neccessarily think that's how it should be, because a football game is won or lost by the team, not by one guy, even if that guy is a quarterback.

Peyton has some of the best personal career stats that any quarterback can call his own, and Eli's stats simply don't compare. Peyton, however, has won one Super Bowl in his 13 seasons, while Eli has two in his first 9. So Eli has his older brother, who has cast a shadow over Eli's entire life, beaten in the only statistical category that matters.

The scary part?

Eli is entering his prime. Most quarterbacks have their best years from 30-34, and he's on pace to throw for more than 50,000 yards in his career (assuming he plays for another 8 seasons). That would put him fifth in NFL history, behind only Brett Favre, Peyton, Dan Marino and John Elway. He has thrown for 4,000 yards in each of his last three seasons, and seems to only be getting better.

The goofy looking Eli, the overshadowed younger brother of one of the best ever, played his way into the NFL Hall of Fame today in Indianapolis. But more importantly, he beat his big brother.