(This story appears in today’s edition of USA TODAY .) When he first heard Spike TV’s pitch for a reality show concept involving the Bellator MMA fight promotion, Frank Shamrock didn’t believe it. “They told me they were going to give me my own dojo and my own guys and let me train them entirely in my own method,” Shamrock, a former UFC and Strikeforce champion who serves as one of four coaches on the show, told USA TODAY Sports and MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “I thought, ‘No, you’re not going to do that, not really.’ But they really did.” The premise for Fight Master, Spike TV’s new MMA-themed reality TV show that premieres tonight (10 p.m. ET/PT), is fairly simple. It’s also not so different from how the MMA world works when cameras aren’t rolling. The show takes a field of 16 fighters, whittled down from an original cast of 32 aspiring cast members, and allows them to choose one of four coaches who they will believe will help them win the ensuing single-elimination tournament.
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