MTV2's FINAL FU

[David Jamieson]

Reyes has damaged the image of martial arts for a long time. starting with his stupid ninja kids movies and all teh way along with his musical karate crapfest.

I'd like to see rich franklin beat the living sh1t out of him personally. But he would never step into a realistic fight situation ever.

another creepy hollyweird freak really.

[Shaolindynasty]

Ok, this proves the point system of the show is flawed.

Last night the new group was only on their second day. This girl who came in last on the challenge and lost her fight badly came in third place overall

I could look past the ridiculous aspects if it at least made sense

[Pork Chop]

Reyes has fought muay thai under saeksan janjira; so yeah, he has done a pro fight before.

Franklin's a bit out of his weight class, Kenny Florian or Jens Pulver's a little closer to the mark.

[dwid]

Anyway, I get the idea y'all don't like the fights. What about the rest? I'll probably never see it so I'm experiencing it vicariously through all of you (and enjoying it!) Note that this is the longest discussion thread that we've had off an e-zine article so far, so props to author Melissa Leon-Guerrero Do for putting this piece together for us.

Well, the trouble is, there isn't anything to the show other than the challenges and fights. So, you can't really evaluate it from the perspective of "reality show." There is no character development, and the only glimpses of personality come during snippets between rounds of fighting and immediately after challenges. Most of these snippets involve delusional comments suggesting that the competitors really believe that their performance suggests some kind of combat skill.

This really only leaves one to evaluate it as an athletic competition, as that is more or less the format it is presented as. As such, it is neither an accurate reflection of traditional training or martial arts or of combat, while pretending to be all of these.

[canglong]

The most disappointing thing seems to be once again the potential for something good was turned into another version of the Real World when in fact that show and final fu are far from it. Yes there was too much tkd and karate for a show that advertises all styles. Too much hype and not enough fu.

[Chief Fox]

I watched the show for the first time last night. Actually I watched 4 episodes.

There are good things and bad things about the show.

Good things:
1. It's bringing martial arts to the masses. Maybe not the best martial arts but martial arts none-the-less.

2. All or most of the competitors are in excellent physical condition.

3. The idea of the fights is control. Not to beat somebody into submission. Control is a good thing.

4. The callenges are pretty entertaining and deffinately require a lot of effort.

Bad things:
1. Most of the competitors have very large egos. If you have a large ego, I think that you are misrepresenting your art.

2. Most of the competitors, especially the girls are listed as second and third degree black belts. I find this to be a joke. They appear to have decent skills when performing in a non combat situation but once they are fighting it looks very sloppy. Their technique goes out the window.

3. While control is a good thing in the fights, it's not very realistic and is sometimes unfair. I realise that the control is there to level the playing field but it really isn't that effective. For example: You have a 6 foot tall male fighting a 5'9" female. Both are supposed to have about the same amount of experience. The male is obviously a lot stronger. The female walks right into one of his techniques and basically bounces off, snapping her head back. The male is then penalized for using excessive force. This wrong for a few reasons. a. The female displayed poor technique by wlkaing into the males kick. b. She then played up the injury saying she got "whiplash". c. The male is penalized and is now somehow responsible for the female's lack of control. d. Now the male is gunshy because he doesn't want to be disqualified thus allowing the female to land more techniques.

4. The challenges really reveal who is the superior athlete. It's very surprizing that these so-called black belts are in some cases kinda whiney during the challenges.

[TaichiMantis]

In the fight tonight, he was the only one that looked like he could really do some damage.

[qiphlow]

why all the surprise about the show being such a narrow representation of MA ? it's on mtv, after all! i would guess that most folks who watch are not aware of the diversity of MA styles, only what they have seen in movies (american movies), and on the tv. HIIIIIIIIYYYYYYYAAAAA!
in watching, i have found most of the girls to be tough as ****--thay keep on going. most of the guys seem like they think they're god's gift to MA. and what is "american" karate?

[BigPandaBear]

I just saw the Isshin-Ryu guy fighting against the Red Dragon Karate girl, and the dude kicked the girl in the side and she was complaining about some sort of whiplash.. lol!! The guy wasn't even hitting her that hard.

Bottom line is the girl got rocked, and if there weren't so many restrictions on contact, that girl would have went home in a stretcher.

It just reinforces my belief that a lot of these dojos aren't teaching how to take a hit. One clean sock in that girl's face and the fight would have been over. She was as frail as a **** leaf. For women, that can be a fatal mistake.

[BigPandaBear]

I just saw the Kenpo guy lose to that American Karate guy. What a joke. The Kenpo guy was pounding the guy and the scores weren't registering. Punches obviously don't mean jack in this show.

[Banjos_dad]

come on though. One good thing about seeing bad MA thru any medium is that, don't you get that little touch of schadenfreude, like ****: at least that's not me
Come on, doesn't it make you feel better, even a little?

[jethro]

and when is this show on?

[BruceSteveRoy]

its on MTV2 at 0730 EST and i think again at 2300 EST. Mon-Fri. new episode every day. They are getting ready to start the 3rd group of 10 ppl before moving into the final rounds. also on the weekends they tend to show every episode from the previous week. Its a terrible show but it sucks yuou in and won't let you look away.

[famenchuan]

Worst show ever. This just gives traditional martial arts a bad name. First they all look like models who could not get a job. None of them could fight for ****. Some of the competitions are a joke. You cant hit to the face. You cant have excessive force even if your just hitting to the body. The show is just a disgrace. I actually put a application in and if I get on the show I'm just going to beat the **** out of the first person I fight. Dont care if I get disqualified. This show could of been great too.

[Chief Fox]

But maybe it's not that great in its current form.

The idea, I believe, is to find the best all around martial artist.

How do you do this? Through certain physical challenges that measure speed, strength, endurance, flexibility, balance and warrior spirit. You also do this through sparring matches.

Final Fu does well with the physical challenges. It falls short with the sparring because it is downgraded with restrictions to level the playing field. This leveling of the playing field actually allows a lesser martial artist to excell if they play by rules better than their opponent.

Another place where MTV has come up short with Final Fu is in the selection of the martial artists. The field is domminated by Tai Kwon Do and Karate practitioners. There is very little representation from other arts. To me, this gives a lopsided view of what martial arts are.

I sorta understand the light contact rule. This is a TV show. What makes it interesting is all the different players. If a player gets injured on day one they may not be able to participate in the rest of the show. I think this is why they went with light contact. Maybe there were insurance issues too. Who knows. Still, I believe they should wear head gear and allow shots to the head. It would make the show a bit more realistic. BUT I also don't want to see a 6' guy KO a 5'6" girl.

If I had my own martial arts school, I would have a Final Fu tournament about every 6 months or so with my students. I think it does a good job of identifying weak points in fitness and martial skill.

So how would you bring a Final Fu-esque tournament to your school. What challenges would you have? How would you handle the sprring? How would you handle paticipants of different sizes and abilities?