heres a good op-ed piece before i go spouting my opinions.
source
Contender just a pretender
It shoulda been a contender.
Instead, NBC's new boxing-themed reality series, featuring middleweight fighters squaring off in the ring in an elimination-style format for a $1 million prize, is a real lightweight.
The "Contender" airs at 8 p.m. on Sundays.
I felt compelled to watch the latest installment of the series since NBC's promos had promised a special heartfelt tribute to one of its contestants, Najai Turpin of Philadelphia, who committed suicide Feb. 14 in the aftermath of his dismissal from the program. I musta been a real palooka to get fooled like that.
The so-called tribute lasted all of about 30 seconds.
It involved "Sugar" Ray Leonard, one of the co-creators of the series along with marble-mouthed Sylvester Stallone, reading from a cue card and sharing none of the facts of Turpin's death. "He passed away," Leonard said.
I might be morbid, but where's the reality in that?
I suspect NBC glossed over Turpin's death because of the fear of litigation, but that's no excuse for trivializing the death of this troubled soul.
In a half-hearted attempt to seem sympathetic, Leonard urged viewers to send financial contributions to a trust fund for Turpin's daughter at:
www.contender.yahoo.com.
Yahoo!
Hey, as long as you're surfing the official Internet site of the "Contender," please don't forget to vote for your favorite "Rocky" film!
It felt like getting sucker-punched.
The series is a disappointment on almost every level.
Tribute to Turpin short
I had high hopes during the first 15 minutes of Sunday's program when we were provided glimpses of Turpin and his eventual ring opponent, Sergio Mora.
Yet all we got were incomplete snapshots of their lives polished into a slick Hollywood sheen.
I'm sorry, but the fight game is not that glamorous.
It's full of grit and sweat, blood and tears, heartbreak and accomplishment.
You get none of that from the "Contender," with each episode culminating in a five-round bout that's been chopped up in the editing process and reduced to a few live-action sequences interspersed with slo-mo punchs and enhanced sound effects.
It is, in effect, a miserable "Rocky VI" film without Talia Shire.
In her place, the program casts fight promoter and manager Jackie Kalen as den mother to the contestants. She's a breath of fresh air compared to Sly and Sugar, who get more face time in front of the camera than the real fighters.
Kalen shows real concern for Jeff Fraza of Haverhill, Pa., who gets knocked out of the competition due to, of all things, a bout with chicken pox.
His departure is given short shrift.
The remaining fighters are instructed to conduct a recall vote to see which one of the dismissed knuckleheads gets to return to the inane program.
An even more foolish "challenge" follows in which East Coast and West Coast teams pull pickups truck loaded with heavy bags over a short distance and then spell out C-O-N-T-E-N-D-E-R much to the delight of a cheerleading Leonard.
The winning team chooses a fighter to represent it and then selects a single opponent from the losing team.Yep, real complicated stuff.
The "Contender" should spend much more time exploring the complexities of its combatants outside the ring and showing complete rounds inside it. It provides neither.
In the end, this bum of a program is nothing but a pretender.
ive gotta agree with him 100%. this show had the chance to be a really gritty, really "real" reality show. people who have legitimate problems, a tough life, but everything gets so glossed over that its hard to sympathize and support them. its too bad, because i love boxing, and i was hoping the show would portray the tough life of a boxer, but it falls far, far short.
