The Contender: Round Five

This is the point in most reality shows where I lose interest. The characters get dull, the premise gets dull and the format starts to grate on you. For some reason I'm still enjoying The Contender, and my only reasoning for it is that at the end there's a real battle as opposed to a boardroom showdown. This week was actually interesting for fight fans as there was the return of Peter Manfredo Jr. to the ring. Throughout the episode, everyone was saying how out of it he looked. Yet, like the real Vargas-Joval fight Saturday, even though Miguel threw a lot more punches, it seemed Manfredo had the power. Vargas looked lackluster compared to his pre-injury days, but for a comeback fight he did enough to make a statement Saturday. So did Manfredo tonight. However, after watching the Vargas fight, I really would like NBC to show the five rounds unedited. It would take the same amount of time as the edited version it seems to me (15 minutes for the three-minute rounds, five minutes for the corner action). That would be much improved and show “reality!” And I'm very glad someone from the East team finally won.

The Highlight of the show was when Sugar Ray Leonard recounted his Duran experiences with Manfredo. That was interesting stuff for boxing fans and shows some of the actual insight and knowledge the show can pass on to the contestants. Bring more of the “gym wisdom” to the show and less of the crazy stunts. I'd rather they just do a lottery to see who fights every week instead and show the two training for each other. But that would upset the Mark Burnett formula.