BET aired back to back episodes of its mixed martial arts based reality show last night. As promised, I reserved all judgment until I actually watched the show.
I’ll continue watching “Iron Ring” because I am an MMA fanatic, but so far the show is awful at best. I hope at some point it becomes more about the fighters and less about the owners. The rappers add nothing. The coaches are, for the most part, nobodies in the MMA community. If I hear the word “AKA” one more time, I might watch the rest of the series on mute.
I found the first episode pretty useless. Instead of meeting the fighters or learning the rules of “Iron Ring”, we were introduced to the celebrity team owners Nelly, T.I., Lil Jon, Ludacris, Jim Jones, Juelz Santana and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Based on some of their commentaries on the sport, it is pretty apparent that these guys have little to no clue what mixed martial arts is really about. Lil Jon had the best insight on the show, “You can kick, punch, grapple—there’s so many different ways of winning a fight and getting excitement for the audience. I think it could one day pass boxing,” he said. One thing we did find out is that there are three weight classes in the show – lightweight, middleweight, and heavyweight.
Each team owner has a “legendary mixed martial arts trainer” to help select fighters and train their team.
Ludacris’ Team
Coach: Abdul Mutakabbir
Notes: Abdul is an accomplished martial artist and was a New York State Triple Crown Champion for 20 years. He is well known in the martial arts community. Most of his martial arts training, however, is practical street fighting for self defense. Highlight reels show Mutakabbir training with swords and knives. All of this training is useless in mixed martial arts. While Abdul may be a legend in martial arts, his status as a “legendary trainer” in mixed martial arts is in question.
Nelly’s Team
Coach: Jermaine Andre
Notes: I wouldn’t call him a “legendary trainer”, but Andre is a pretty legit fighter. He is a Muay Thai specialist and holds a 13-4 mixed martial arts record. Not a bad selection.
T.I.’s Team
Coach: Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett
Notes: Charles Bennett is a freakshow in the MMA community. He comes out hard and heavy for every fight. He throws bomb and after bomb early and often . If one of those punches lands, there is a good chance you are getting knocked out. His fights rarely go out of the first round because you’ve either been knocked out, or taking advantage of the fact that he doesn’t do cardio. On the show, Bennett boasts that he has “probably trained 2 times in his life for a fight”. He has 36 pro bouts. EliteXC aired a pre-fight special once that contained some footage of Bennett’s cardiovascular training. He was playing basketball with his friends in a park somewhere. Is this the guy you want coaching your team? Ironically, TI’s team is named “Grand Hustle”. Something tells me Bennett won’t be making his fighters “hustle” during training.
Dipset’s Team
Coach: Novell Bell
Notes: Loud. Obnoxious. Annoying. Bell seemed intimidated in the presence of Abdul Mutakabbir; he kept running his mouth and dropping F bombs in an effort to overshadow Abdul. He even tells his fighters he doesn’t want to see any submissions, he wants “cats that can knock cats out” and “none of that grappling stuff” . I don’t know any “legendary MMA trainer” who would preach such a philosophy.
Lil Jon’s Team
Coach: Shonie Carter
Notes: Shonie Carter is a UFC veteran and has fought in 61 pro MMA bouts. He was a contestant on “The Ultimate Fighter: The Comeback”. He has a decent stand up game and is known to pull off a submission or two. His experience in the game will make him one of the more legit coaches on this show.
Floyd Mayweather’s Team
Coach: Roberto Traven
Notes: Roberto Traven is a jiu-jitsu fighter who has a 6-3 pro MMA record. I’ve never heard of him until this show , but his MMA experience will be beneficial to Mayweather’s team.
I think it’s safe to say that BET used the phrase “legendary mixed martial arts” trainer pretty liberally.
In the second episode we got a little more information about the fighters, but not much. Dipset’s team and Ludacris’s team were holding tryouts in a gym somewhere in New York. The whole session seemed unorganized and messy. I couldn’t figure out who was more obnoxious, Novell Bell or the show’s narrator. I could do without the both of them. At the end of the episode, Team Dipset and Team Luda’s coaches selected the fighters that made the first cut. They picked about 10 names from the packed gym and much to the dismay of Rhino Fight team’s Alex Aquino, he was not chosen. Aquino throws a fit, claiming he can beat anyone in the gym and that he has the best record in the place. Next week, Aquino gets a shot at one of the middleweights selected in the first cut. If he wins, he has a spot on the team. The drama ensues.
Next we down south to TI’s “Grand Hustle” tryouts. TI selected his fighters a little differently. Fighters paired off and fought one five minute round. The fighters that made the best impression on TI would be selected. Throughout the episode, BET kept replaying this clip of TI saying “If you take the head the body will follow!”. What does that even mean? I could see “If you take the head, clinch and throw knees” or “If you get the neck, go for a choke”, but if you take the head the body will follow? How? Why? Where? It makes no sense. One of the fights goes to the ground and TI is shouting this new catch phrase. Jamie Yager, the fighter on the offense at this point, sinks a rear naked choke on his opponent and TI is yelling “go for a submission!” as the downed opponent is practically tapping out. At least he is enthusiastic about it. It seems that athletic commissions are not sanctioning these fights either. Jamie Yager was throwing knees and kicks to a downed opponent and the referee didn’t seemed phased in the least. I wonder if he even knew they were illegal in US MMA.
The show still hasn’t told us how a fighter can win the whole competition. We do know that the winner will receive 100,000 dollars. I find that number a little humorous, considering that most of the team owners had more then 100,000 dollars of jewelry hanging off of their necks.
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