Ultra Fight

Ultra Fight (ウルトラファイト) is a Japanese tokusatsu television series which ran from September 1970 to September 1971 on the TBS network.

Following the end of Ultra Seven's run on television, production company Tsuburaya suffered low viewership for its two follow-up series, so in a last-ditch effort, conceived a "zero production cost" program consisting simply of battle scenes from the first Ultraman and Ultra Seven series. The episodes ran a mere five minutes, and there was virtually no plot to these battles, they simply involved Ultra Seven fighting (or more often than not, being beaten by) various monsters including ones he did not face in his series, such as Baltan. The initial plan was to use nothing but recycled footage. However, it became apparent that there was insufficient material for the planned 130 episodes, so Tsuburaya decided to shoot new scenes using existing costumes, shot on a minimal budget in nondescript outdoor locations, with no special effects at all. As a result, 195 episodes were eventually produced.

In keeping with the "fight" theme, the battles were accompanied by a boxing-style play-by-play provided by TBS professional sports announcer Jiro Yamada.

A notable episode has Ultra Seven blundering about a hilltop and accidentally causing a rockslide that awakens a slumbering Eleking who (predictably) is less than pleased to have rocks tumbling onto him. What follows is an amusing one-sided battle where Eleking takes his anger out on Seven while the hero, completely accepting that it was his own carelessness that caused the mess, tries desperately to apologize.

While far from epic, the Ultra Fight series rekindled interest in the Ultras, enough that shortly after, The Return of Ultraman was aired. This would begin a series of sequels that carries on to this day.