On September 10, Youku launched the first boxing competition experience reality show "Boxing Us", which has been broadcast for three times. The program is still relatively professional from the lineup point of view, the initiator is professional mixed martial artist Zhang Weili, the coach is all professional players, and the commentary also invited Wang Yanbo, the official Chinese boxing commentator of the Olympic Games.
The format of the show is not complicated, 24 star artists from all walks of life and Olympic champions after a short boxing training, in "Boxing Us" and the designated opponents in the boxing match, the winner can join one of the three teams, for the gold belt to fight fiercely.
The advantages of this show are still very obvious, the boxing match itself is a bloody sport, and the boxing part is still very intense. And as the country's first variety show focusing on boxing, "Fist to Us" also has a certain guarantee in terms of professionalism, from the initiator, referee, to the commentary are professionals, the program also provides professional protection for the players.
However, "Boxing Us" as a boxing competition experience variety show, does not seem to touch the core of the boxing spirit, nor can it show the true charm of boxing.
The motivation of the contestants to participate is not sufficient
Like many competitive experience variety shows, the theme of the first issue of "Fist to Us" is: "Why do you want to participate in this variety show". It's true that it's important to articulate motivation, but in the face of a relatively niche sport like boxing, the subjective will of celebrities isn't particularly strong, which means that the reasons they give aren't very convincing.
For example, Huang Ling came to participate in the show because her favorite range of motion is more limited, and it may be related to music, so boxing is a new attempt.
Yu Wenwen said that he likes sports, and all kinds of sports are not excluded.
Model Zhao Lei feels that the profession of modeling is more passive and has been selected for a long time, but boxing is a more active sport.
It can be seen that boxing is not a major factor for many contestants to participate in the show. But the role of this link was supposed to show the charm of boxing and the love and understanding of boxing by the players, but at present, "We Who Fight Hard" has not achieved this goal at all.
It is not that the contestants do not know enough about boxing to participate in the boxing competition program, but the players of "Boxing To Us" are very rich in type in terms of age, social status or understanding of boxing, in this case, do not emphasize the subjective will of the players, but emphasize that the motivation for inviting the show may be more natural and more real.
For example, the show can issue invitations to artists and their agencies within a certain range, artists can sign up on their own, and staff and families can also become the driving force for contestants to participate in the show.
In this way, the willingness of some players to participate in boxing competitions is not particularly strong and harmless, and they can even gradually increase their understanding of boxing through the show, becoming a story line about growth.
Is the stage more important or is the training process more important?
The main content of "Fist to Us" is the display of the ring, each pair of players need to play three rounds, after the victory and defeat and then the team selection, the audience can hardly see the training process of the players.
If the contestants in "Boxing For Us" are all professional players or athletes who are undergoing training, then boxing as the main content is completely no problem. With the higher professional quality of the players themselves, the excitement of the competition is also more guaranteed.
However, very few of the 24 players have actually received effective boxing training, so the performance in the official boxing match is the amateur visible to the naked eye. At the same time, the whole game process has professional coaches and professional commentators, and this collision of professional and amateur cannot effectively show the real charm of boxing, but reduces the professionalism of the program.
Process settings like "professional and amateur" often occur in shows. For example, Zhang Weili appeared as the initiator in the first period and played with 24 players. However, in the face of players who have no professional boxing experience at all, Zhang Weili has no way to seriously exert her strength or give effective advice.
In the case of boxing is not professional enough, the program needs a lot of auxiliary content to set off the atmosphere, such as the interviews of the contestants after the game, the speeches of other players watching the game on the spot, and the reactions of the three team managers.
Xia Zhiguang said: "People have won and lost many times in their lives, and losing does not mean that they have not succeeded, and the process in the middle is also another achievement." ”
Wang Chenyi cried and said, "We have been working hard in the past two years."
Admittedly, boxing matches are intense. For example, Zhang Yanqi and Xia Zhiguang, as former idol group teammates, had no mercy at all when playing matches, and both of them tried their best. However, in the case of only 15 minutes of the whole game, a series of links such as pre-match preparation and post-match interviews accounted for 50 minutes.
Even all the contestants will perform a certain degree of "role playing" before they appear in the confrontation, such as Tatsuyoshiru wearing the costume of King Arthur of the "Ultimate Class" when he appeared, and also explain the reason for his costume, and once again explain his original intention to participate in the show.
The expression of this emotion emanating from boxing matches has become something that transcends boxing itself, putting the cart before the horse.
If all the contestants can concentrate on training for a long time, and the program fully shows the process of boxing training of the players, and improves the boxing skills to a certain extent before playing, the effect of the program may be much better, even if the strength of the players is still far from the professional players.
In the case of "Produce101", the stage display is the purpose, but the three months of hard training of the trainees are the core content of the show. The audience can intuitively feel the changes and progress of the trainees from the training process, so that they can empathize with the trainees.
If "Produce101" is the stage display from the first period, and the training process only appears as auxiliary content, then the sense of cultivation of the program is bound to be greatly reduced, and the immaturity of the trainee stage will be more obvious.
"We Who Fight Hard" also shows the training clips of the players, but the training clips are too small to help the audience understand the boxing training system and the difficulty of training. For example, the first three agents in the game will choose to look at the strengths or weaknesses of a player, which will be shown through daily training.
The three agents chose to look at Zhang Lunshou's disadvantages, and Zhang Lunshou's daily training clips would be broadcast in the program, indicating that Zhang Lunshou's disadvantage was that he had multiple injuries in his body, and the doctor did not recommend him to participate. But a more detailed and more specific training process can make everyone's disadvantages clearer, and there is no need to create such a link.
And at present, from the perspective of the program, the training of all the contestants seems to be arranged by themselves. Understandably, artists have a busy schedule and it's hard to get 24 people to pack together for boxing training, but that comes back to the question we were exploring at the beginning: Are artists passionate enough about boxing and willing to invest a lot of time and energy in the sport?
There is still a show of the fighting spirit in "We Who Fight with Strength", and the players have truly achieved "Fist Strength". But this variety show and the contestants must understand a core question: if you want to challenge yourself or break through the limits, why should these wishes be realized through boxing?
As the first variety show about boxing, "We Who Fight Hard" deserves encouragement, but if you want to become a good boxing variety show, you must return boxing to boxing.