Using Matt Lindland To Break New York
Posted by Iain Liddle on March 12th, 2008
By Iain Liddle
Despite his status as a former Olympic medallist and the fact that he is widely regarded top five middleweight in the sport, the UFC appears to have no interest in recalling Matt Lindland to compete in their octagon. They seem to have no such qualms though in using his pedigree as a competitor to reflect beneficially on themselves.
The new MMA Facts website, set up by Zuffa to lobby the New York State Athletic Commission into allow mixed martial arts in the state, has a section that allows the government suits to get to know the men behind the macho, fighter persona and attempts to show that they’re good guys after all.
It’s understandable that they’d choose clean cut, good looking guys like like Tyson Griffin and Kenny Florian as examples of the kind of elequent everyman that UFC fighters can be, rather than musclebound meathead they are often be portrayed as.
Scroll down to the bottom of the ‘Athletes’ page though, past the creepy picture of Keith Jardine, and you’ll see a surprising face at the bottom of the page. Yes! The news we’ve been waiting to hear. Matt Lindland makes his glorious return to Zuffa. Albeit not quite in the manner I’m sure we were all hoping for.
As expected, when clicking on his page the first statements greeting you are:
No Husker wrestler ever had a better single-season record than Matt Lindland’s 36-1 mark (.973 winning percentage) in 1993. Though he suffered his only defeat in the NCAA Championships and didn’t medal, Lindland went on to experience plenty of wrestling glory — earning gold medals at the 1999 and 2000 Pan American Games, winning U.S. amateur national titles in 1995 and 1997-99 and a World Cup title in 1996.
His wrestling career reached its zenith in 2000, when he joined his Husker teammate Rulon Gardner on the U.S. Olympic Greco-Roman team for the Sydney Games. Lindland earned a silver medal.
Quite an impressive record, no? With Olympians of this calibre taking part it is hard to dismiss the sport as ‘human cockfighting’ or whatever phrase the gutter press are using this week and surely proves that mixed martial arts is worthy of gracing any state.
Of course, as we all know, Zuffa has no interest in Matt Lindland on 364 days of the year. Dana White has specifically said recently that he has no interest in bringing the middlweight back to the Octagon, and Lindland himself has confirmed in recent interviews that he has received the same message personally. When it comes to presenting themselves are high-level competition and with the smell of the potentially large sums that can be made by promoting in ‘The Big Apple’ in the air, it seems that he is fair game.
Whilst Zuffa will say this site is a philanthropic act and they have set it up with the aim of getting the sport sanctioned in New York, rather than simply the UFC, recent examples such as their unwilling to co-promote the biggest possible fight in MMA history (Fedor-Couture) and legal wranglings with the IFL prove that they only have their own interests at heart and could care less about the sport as a whole as long as the money continues to line their own pockets.
Talking of the recent IFL court case, which was largely over Kurt Otto’s group briefly - and accidentally - using a picture of Randy Couture on their website without consent, it seems interesting that Zuffa isn’t afraid to do the reverse and borrow from their smaller rivals whenever they see fit.
So whilst he may not be trading punches with Anderson Silva any time soon, Matt Lindland finds himself in the ironic position of being one of the select few chosen to try and knock down outdated legislation. Which could well be the most inportant blow Zuffa lands all year.
March 22nd, 2008 at 11:15 pm
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