Boasting a decade of experience in watching reality TV, the bogan knows what’s real. This came after twenty years of watching WWF/WWE, and it caused a looming suspicion to form at the back of the bogan’s mind regarding the authenticity of what it once thought was the apex of all things x-treme. Then, like a whisper on the wind, it begun to hear rumours. It heard that, somewhere, there was a cage that was not in the back of a divvy van. This cage had fighters. These fighters were x-treme. So x-treme that intellectuals were trying to ban them. It was bogan crack.
Eventually, it emerged that it was a new sport called ‘Ultimate Fighting’. The bogan dissolved under the weight of its own surging endorphins. Upon closer inspection, the bogan realised just how amazing this new sport was. It answered the question that has been preoccupying the bogan since Bloodsport was released. Who would win if a Kung Fu dude and a Karate dude got into a massive, glass-free stoush?
Initially branded under the slogan “There Are No Rules”, UFC found itself straining under the weight of a bogan tsunami, as the bogan has lived its life espousing the idea that it was no follower of mere rules. Then, the bogan discovered something shocking. After a period of political backlash, new rules were introduced to prevent death. This was, to the bogan, unacceptable. It was no longer ultimate enough. But only for a moment. In a flash of inspiration, the bogan realised that there were now 31 different ways to break the rules. To top it off, the sport began branding itself as ‘Mixed Martial Arts’ to the masses, while remaining ‘Ultimate Fighting’ to the bogans. The bogan didn’t stand a chance.
The bogan then learned of Randy ‘The Natural’ Couture, a fighter in America’s UFC. The bogan no longer just wanted its clothes couture, but its violence as well. Then, in 2005, a reality TV show called The Ultimate Fighter, which followed WWE Raw on Pay TV, brought UFC to the bogan world in the most awesomely appropriate way possible. It taught the bogan that UFC is the ultimate in X-treme – it has cages. It has blood. It has dudes who spend a great deal of time getting huge. It then learned of dedicated MMA training programs – a veritable primordial soup of huge bogans tired of having to resort to glassware as a weapon, and that consider regular martial arts not nearly x-treme enough – held in Phuket. Perfect.
But none of this was what won the bogan over. They had the bogan at ‘Ultimate Fighting’.