He’s fighting for redemption of a sort, as is Wes, who insists: “I love to punch people. I love to get hit.” He juxtaposes his hard upbringing with that of the pretty boy Daniel, who comes from the family that founded Minden and is blessed with money, local respect and good hair. “I’m from the sticks,” Wes says, part complaint and part boast. When he needs to lose weight quickly before a fight, he buys a sauna suit from Walmart and sits in a car in sunlight. He has a baby with Red, his on-and-off girlfriend, whom he either wants to marry or abandon altogether, depending on the day.

Women feel secondary on this show, a rarity on these programs; even on the testosterone-thick “Jersey Shore” Snooki is a worthy alpha. The most present woman on “Caged” is one who isn’t alive. Daniel is still grappling with the loss of his girlfriend, Hannah, a local pageant queen who died in a car accident in 2007 and whose death still scars the town. Even Wes, not one to linger on a feeling, openly struggles with it.

In its early episodes “Caged” emphasizes the fights, the brief bursts of machismo and fury inside the octagon that these men hope to dominate. But the show spends as much time on the personal lives of its protagonists, an acknowledgment that viewers will relate to the characters for how they behave and interact, not for what they do. The cage is just the milieu.

Finding a new milieu that would resonate has been on the mind of television producers at least since the beginning of “Jersey Shore.” Last August, Lifetime ran “Russian Dolls,” which aimed to do for the Russians of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, what “Jersey Shore” did for Italians. Ethnic or regional themes were announced for other potential shows, about Persians in Los Angeles, Koreans in Los Angeles or Massachusetts loudmouths.