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by Kendall Shields

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Make no mistake, I love my country. But were I to enumerate its shortcomings, were I to catalogue the ways in which the Canadian people fail to live up to the highest principles and ideals our nation stands for, first among them (or at least somewhere near the top of the list) would be our collective inability to get TSN’s Michael Landsberg off the air. Landsberg, who has hosted a sports talk program called Off the Record for over a decade despite no discernible talent or skill, is reputed to be “Canada’s king of in-your-face debate,” as the show’s site proudly proclaims — in-your-face debate, apparently, being . . . a good . . . kind . . . of it? Michael Landsberg — not to be confused with Michelle Landsberg, writer, activist, worthwhile human being — is a smug little gnome of a man held in the utmost contempt by all right-thinking people. And yet, every so often, he features guests on his show that genuinely interest you, and so there you are, helpless to resist, despite your better judgment.

And it is in this spirit that I direct your attention to the 5 February 2007 edition of Off the Record, viewable through the program’s website — look for the “TSN Broadband” section to the right, and launch their player from there. Landsberg’s guests in this edition included UFC welterweight champion Matt Serra, UFC interim welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, and — raising this to the status of utterly essential viewing — from the fighting city of Windsor, Ontario, UFC 5 runner-up “Dangerous” Dave Beneteau.

So what do you learn here?

In the show’s “Up Front” segment, we have St. Pierre and Serra interviewed side by side, St. Pierre looking sharp in a dark, pin-striped suit over a crisp, open-collared white shirt (the cuffs: French, but of course), and Serra looking casual casual (as opposed to “smart” casual or the dreaded “business” casual) in a black hoodie and blue jeans. Landsberg begins the segment by suggesting that Serra and St. Pierre are far too respectful of one another to properly build anticipation for their upcoming fight. Of course, the fact that the UFC has suspended their UFC 83 pre-sale so that a reasonable number of tickets can be made available to the general public, would suggest otherwise. But what’s fun here is watching the two squirm as Landsberg reminds them of the little and not-so-little slights each has directed towards the other in the ten months since their first fight. St. Pierre’s sideways glance between smiles over Serra’s “Frenchie/red wine” comments is enough to make this segment worth your four minute and seventeen seconds. Serra insists he has nothing against French Canadians, and St. Pierre concedes that Serra, as New Yorker, would have no idea about the seriousness of the linguistic tensions that make up so much of Canadian history, and so can be forgiven for the comments, which caused more offense than was certainly intended (”It’s just a case of strangers not knowing each other’s history quite well enough,” Robert Smigel apologetically told the Onion A/V Club when Triumph the Insult Comic Dog went too far). Rather than really let the conversation unfold — somebody get this guy some Charlie Rose tapes or something — Landsberg cuts off his guests repeatedly, which gets a rise out of Serra, who already seemed a little tense: “Is your job to be kind of pricky, or no? Do you do that on purpose?” In what seriously passes as the wittiest thing I have ever heard Michael Landsberg say, he responds, “I prefer prickly.” The camera reveals a most self-satisfied smile.

Things only get more in-your-face from there, as St. Pierre exits, and Serra is joined on the panel by LAW radio host Dan Lovranski, Fight Network founder Mike Garrow, and, centrally, “Dangerous” Dave Beneteau, who apparently became a lawyer and now works in construction. They address the province of Ontario’s reluctance to sanction MMA events, and the question of whether or not MMA has truly entered the mainstream. Beneteau thinks that what is holding the sport back from further growth are the fighter’s tattoos, sideways hats(?), and use of phrases such as “yo, bro.” Beneteau argues that boxing has class that MMA lacks, on the level of the event and on the level of the athletes themselves. Aside from Randy Couture and a few others, “everything underneath that — trash.” Dana White’s potty mouth comes under fire, too. Serra is aghast at all of this, and attempts to draw an analogy between Dana White and Muhammad Ali, which is perhaps veering too far in the other direction, no?

The next segment addresses the question of the safety of MMA in relation to boxing and pro wrestling (under the somewhat baffling heading “Has UFC lost its edge?”). Can you make the case that MMA is safer than either? Dan Lovranski, who I guess doesn’t know that he’s wearing a microphone: “OH MICHAEL I WOULD SAY YOU CAN DEFINITELY MAKE THE CASE.” The issue of steroids inevitably follows. Matt Serra, are you clean? “Dude, if you test me I’ll test positive for marinara sauce.” Asked about Royce Gracie’s positive test (Gracie has claimed, on this very show, that his positive test was the result of a vast UFC-backed conspiracy) Serra is unequivocal: “I think that was shameful, and it was awful. He should have been ashamed of himself, Royce. Anybody who does that’s a cheater.” And concerned: “They’re insecure, if they’re doing it.” A de rigeur discussion of Chris Benoit follows.

The “Next Question Segment” with Matt Serra is good fun. He’s asked where his nickname “The Terror” comes from (a childhood friend), how many hours a day he trains (four or five), whether or not he’s taken performance enhancing drugs (no), whether or not he faked his back injury to get out of his match with Matt Hughes (an annoyed “would I even answer that?”), when he last watched a Jenna Jameson movie (a seemingly honest response: Serra watches movies like that, but he’s not certain he’s seen her work), and, most interestingly, I think, who is the dirtiest fighter he’s ever faced. The answer? Karo Parisyan. If this is true, it would put Karo in some pretty notorious company: he would join Fedor Emelianenko (rope grab vs. Lindland, Yoshihiro Akiyama (greasy, greasy Akiyama), Vladimir Putin (whose slick sode tsurikomi goshi should not divert our attention from his near despotism), and most recently Jérôme Kerviel (the judoka at the heart of the Société Générale scandal) as the world’s most infamous cheating men of judo. No mean feat.

But what you’re all really wondering — and rightly so — is what Dave Beneteau thinks about Brock Lesnar. And here you have it: “Great marketing.” Okay! “It legitimized MMA.” Alright! Lesnar might help the UFC capture the wrestling audience, but it will never capture the boxing audience, Beneteau argues, “and they don’t deserve it.” And why is that? Because of Dana White’s vile, foul-mouthed public persona, which Beneteau insists is beneath even Vince MacMahon’s. What emerges most strongly in this Off the Record appearance is Dave Beneteau’s complete contempt for Dana White, which is strange. Stranger still, I guess, is that anyone would want to talk to Dave Beneteau about MMA in 2008. And it’s even stranger than that, I grant you, that I would want to talk about Dave Beneteau talking about MMA in 2008, but there you have it.