Last I remember the Contender was back in 2010 or so? Shit.
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I remember it being $1,000,000 production cost per shiw back when that was a lot.
Lol at how cringy stalone was on that show talking to actual fighters about grit and giving pep talks cause he played rocky lol
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I remember the presentation of the actual fights was ridiculous.
The production was like a sports movie, so there was dramatic music, slow motion, sound effects, etc.
With TUF, the fights were presented as actual fights. You saw each round play out in real-time.
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There were some really good fighters that came from that show. @VTCO is correct, the presentation was a little silly. @King_Kong is also correct that they banked too much on Sly and Ray Leonard’s star power. They were also going head to head with TUF, which was something novel for most people at the time,showed full fights and had the bullshit drama from the TUF house.
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I just remember being so disappointed on them heavily editing the fights
In today’s YouTube format, I think that it could be successful; but when constricted to a time slot… it made it impossible to include the actual fighting and still have the “drama” to build it
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Yeee Hawwww
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Alfonso Gomez fought above his usual weight of 140 to fight 168lbers, and I think he won the show. Gritty tough guy with great combinations, he fought some of the greatest fighters like Cotto. I always liked his confident staredown.
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I love the theme song from that show.
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It’s really tough to sell boxing as a product imo. Ever since mma became a thing I cannot watch boxing without thinking how silly it is to only use your hands.
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