Jones and Sonnen on 'TUF' both brilliant and ridiculous

• Jon jones is the UFC's light heavyweight champion
• Jones had recently turned down Sonnen as a late-replacement opponent
• Chael Sonnen has done nothing recently to warrant a title shot in UFC

Fight fans who simply can't get enough of the nascent rivalry between Ultimate Fighting Championships light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and former middleweight contender Chael Sonnen are about to get a whole lot more of what they claim to love when the two fighters appear as opposing coaches on the 17th season of the UFC's long-running reality TV show competition The Ultimate Fighter, which begins filming this month.

Whether those fans will still love it by the time Jones and Sonnen finally step in the cage together April 27, well, that remains to be seen.

What's clear enough from the start, however, is just how committed the UFC is to reviving its flagging and prospects-driven reality franchise.

With the current season pulling dismal ratings every Friday night on FX, the world's largest MMA organization seems to be pinning its hopes for a revival on the brash, say-anything antics of Sonnen, who talked his way into the spotlight and stayed there through the sheer force of his personality, despite two failed title bids at 185 pounds.

His new target is 25-year-old MMA prodigy Jones, the UFC's 205-pound champ who seems as ill-equipped to defend himself against Sonnen's verbal attacks as Sonnen is to defend himself against Jones' physical ones.

The result — or so the UFC hopes — will be ratings gold en route to a pay-per-view jackpot.

When viewed through the bizarre prism of reality TV, it's so ridiculous that it's almost brilliant.

Through the lens of pure sport, on the other hand, it's just plain ridiculous.

Is there any logical reason to grant Sonnen, who hasn't won a fight in the UFC as a light heavyweight since 2006, a shot at that division's champion?

Not at all.

There's also no reason to think he'll offer much of a challenge to bigger, younger, faster Jones once the reality show preening is over and the actual cage fighting begins.

What the UFC is hoping is that, by the time we reach that point, Sonnen will have logged enough camera time to convince people to buy the fight anyway, because they want to see him either back up his words or eat them.

That's probably all of the justification UFC President Dana White needs, and no doubt the good people at FX will be pleased with the ratings bump.

If there's one thing Sonnen excels at, it's looking and sounding good on TV. In the arena of reality television, that's where the requirements begin and end.

Still, it's one thing for the UFC to use Sonnen as a ratings generator but quite another to give him a career opportunity he absolutely hasn't earned just because people will devote an hour each week to watching him on television.

That brand of infamy might get you a talk show, but should it really get you a title shot?

The UFC thinks so now, when it needs a ratings savior. Let's see if it still thinks so by the time this is all over and TV tricks give way to cage-fight reality.

Fowlkes also writes for MMAJunkie.com