NBC REALITY 'Contender's' post-show suicide bathes tonight's episode in irony

The drama comes from various sources.
By RICHARD HUFF
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
It's impossible to watch Sunday's episode of "The Contender" without wondering what's going on inside the head of boxer Najai Turpin, who killed himself last month, long after the show was taped.
It's also impossible not to be moved by this powerful hour.
Knowing Turpin is dead makes every word, every moment in this Mark Burnett-produced series more poignant.
"My family, if I die today or tomorrow, they have nothing," Turpin says early in the hour. "But now, this give me the opportunity to go out there and give them something. Give them something to look forward to in life."
He tells boxing manager Jackie Kallen that he doesn't hold people close because "they'll cross you."
Only his daughter, Anyae, gets close, he says, his face partially covered by a sweatshirt hood.
Turpin shot himself Feb. 14 in Philadelphia while sitting in a car with his girlfriend. In an instant, he left behind the family he so wanted to save -- with nothing.
"Najai is the contender who most confuses me," Kallen says. "He's a sweet guy, and he's very distrustful of people. He reminds me so much of a little animal that's been mistreated."
In this episode of "The Contender," as in the others, the story that emerges during the hour is about the two boxers who will fight in the end.
The decision of who fights whom comes after two teams of boxers -- East and West -- compete in a contest to pull a truck along the Los Angeles River. The winning team decides who to put up for the bout, and that boxer picks his opponent from the losing team.
A master
Burnett has proven time and time again that he's a master at crafting a reality show so that viewers care about the contestants. He's already done that with "The Contender," though ratings suggest viewers haven't caught on in large numbers.
The drama in this episode comes from various sources, not just Turpin, though he is the focal point by virtue of his personal struggles.
Early on, one of the boxers leaves for medical reasons, opening up a slot for one of the previously beaten fighters. And there's Sergio Mora, a street fighter who reads literary classics for life inspiration.
Before the show launched, Burnett and co-executive producers Sylvester Stallone, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Sugar Ray Leonard stressed that while boxing is the backdrop, the show goes beyond the sport in the way that Stallone's "Rocky" films also told the emotional story of the boxer's relationship with his wife, Adrian.
The interest of Sunday's episode, however, comes in part from the mysterious eyes of Turpin -- the eyes of a father struggling to get out of the ghetto by using his fists.
"My joy, she is my everything," he says of Anyae. "She gave me a reason to do everything I do. When my daughter was born, it gave me so much joy. It was like I had my mother again, someone I could trust, someone I could put my all into."
"The Contender" may not be drawing big audiences because it's easy to toss it off as simply a boxing show. To do so sells the show short. It's much more than boxing, it's a show with heart.
And this Sunday, it has a broken heart.