FAMILY VALUES: Wes, his girlfriend Red and son Jax are featured on the new series. (
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OK, they aren’t from a small town (it’s Shreveport, LA, population hovers around 200,000), they aren’t necessarily struggling to improve their lives and life isn’t a constant uphill battle, as MTV has billed their newest reality show, “Caged.”
But they do fight in a cage.
The series follows a group of young men competitors in mixed martial arts and the women who love and loathe them.
Daniel is a sweet guy from a wealthy founding Shreveport family. In his first year of college, Daniel’s beauty-queen girlfriend Hannah was killed in a car crash, and he has never gotten over it. Nor does he want to.
Daniel has kind of dropped out — he lives with his parents, thinks about Hannah, dedicates his fights to Hannah but is slowly making his way to fame in the cage. Daniel even has a few sponsors. He has a girlfriend of sorts named Brittani, who wants a commitment more than he’s interested in making.
Wes is a young guy who has worked his way through college and now has a well-paying job. He also has a beautiful girlfriend named Red and a gorgeous baby son named Jax.
Wes is a really unpleasant guy who uses the F-word so often, you’d think it was an article of speech.
He curses out Red, calls her a “damned bitch” to her face and worse behind her back. He uses the word freely in the house with little Jax and uses foul language even when Red gives him a present. It’s a horrible thing to watch, and you can’t help but hope he gets his due in the cage.
Red is in nursing school and Wes complains that she doesn’t make him meals. He is totally humorless and despicable.
Tony is a rock star — or thinks of himself that way — and says he gets high from being punched in the face. He believes in himself and believes he will go as far as the sport can take him.
Danger is a handsome young guy who longs to be a pro-fighter as much as he longs for his family’s approval.
Danger keeps telling the girl he’s having a non-relationship with that he’s not the relationship kind. That doesn’t stop Danger’s sister from confronting the non-girlfriend when she finds out from the viper of a ring girl that Danger’s non-girlfriend has slept with someone else.
A giant fight ensues even though Danger doesn’t even want her as a girlfriend, because he’s too focused on his career. It makes no sense.
Part “Teen Mom,” part “Jersey Shore” and part sport documentary, “Caged” isn’t a knockout, but you won’t feel sucker punched because, unlike other reality shows, the cast hasn’t taken a dive and faked the action for the sake of created “drama.”
Tonight’s premiere ends with Daniel’s big fight with his and Hannah’s family in attendance. It falls on the fourth anniversary of her death and begins with a prayer for Hannah from the announcer, and ends with the fight.
Does Daniel win? Do you seriously think I’d actually tell you?