Historically the Ultimate Fighter Series has taken fighters from good fighters to household names and pay per view draws. We have seen the likes of BJ Penn, Rich Franklin, and Rampage Jackson gain even more notoriety by going on the reality television show. There are currently two rumors out there regarding the twelfth installment of the cable television series. The first one has a newly signed Jake Shields headlining against GSP and the second scenario sees the winner of the Josh Koscheck vs. Paul Daley fight taking their spot opposite of current welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre.
While I think either opponent is credible for GSP at this point in his career, I fail to see what putting St. Pierre on my television set for 12 weeks is going to do in regards to the UFC bottom line. There are several reasons behind this and not just the obvious. The first one is the language barrier. GSP will need subtitles at many times during the broadcast and while Nog vs. Mir proved to be a pretty good draw, the reality is that since then Big Nog has failed to draw the PPV buys while headlining events. While you won’t immediately have this issue with GSP as he is one of the companies 3 or 4 largest draws, it likely means that you will gain very few new buys by putting him on the television show.
The second point that I see when I think about GSP being on season 12 of the Ultimate Fighter is it will lead to another extended period of time off for the champion. GSP has not fought more than twice a year since 2007. That means from 2008 through 2010 he will fight only 6 times. As I alluded to earlier, St. Pierre is one of the 3 or 4 biggest draws for the UFC in terms of PPV buy rates. What sense does it make keeping him on the shelf 9 months when he is healthy? I don’t believe that it makes any sense at all. He is in the prime of his career and failure to utilize him for three fights a year when possible is a horrible mistake.
My final point comes from what the UFC stands to gain by putting GSP on The Ultimate Fighter Season 12. I believe there is actually very little that they stand to gain. That being said I do believe Shields, Koscheck, and Daley can make legitimate strides from coaching on the series. Setting up Shields with the winner of Thiago Alves/Jon Fitch would make exponentially more sense in the term of creating draws in my opinion. GSP has fought in multiple main events, has had 3 hours (6 episodes) worth of UFC primetime hyping his fights and countless UFC Countdown shows. How many fans should they expect him to gain by coaching on the Ultimate Fighter? Even worse, what if he somehow leaves a negative impression (which I doubt) by doing the show? These are all scenarios that the UFC must consider before moving forward with this season.
At the end of the day it seems extremely odd to me that the UFC is choosing to go in this direction. It's almost as if they feel obligated to get him on the series because of his extended success in the organization. While many people know I am far from a GSP fan, which does not mean I don’t want to see the best fighters in the world fight consistently as possible. I hope the UFC decides to move in a different direction as they look at the business side of this decision. While I can’t imagine the decision having a negative impact on the UFC's bottom line, I can see it hurting the long term growth of additional PPV draws.
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