MMA Curmudgeon: Dave Doyle goes to war for his Zuffa Overlords
Posted by MMA Curmudgeon on May 30th, 2008
Yahoo Sport’s Dave Doyle, perhaps the most unfortunate victim of the trend to put little pictures of the writers next to their articles, weighs in on the most recent round of scathing commentary about MMA’s mainstream debut on CBS.
NEW YORK – Each growth spurt in mixed martial arts is met with a fresh wave of ignorance.
A fresh wave of ignorance. Sounds like the latest round of posts at bloodyelbow.com. I digress.
In the mid-’90s, politicians looking to score easy points succeeded in pressuring cable television executives to boot the fledgling sport off cable television. Instead of killing off MMA, it simply went underground.
Does it never cross your mind that people were just offended by a “sport” that saw Keith Hackney jump all over a helpless Manny Yarborough like he was a rabid dog? Why do people insist on concocting strange ulterior motives for MMA detractors? As if it is so unreasonable to dislike MMA that there must be something more to it.
When MMA returned to cable in 2001, it was portrayed as a sign of the decline of American civilization. Somehow, the republic survived.
Well, we’ve lost the 4th Amendment, the government is spying on its citizens, and the mainstream media is being run by the corporations and the Pentagon. Maybe there was something there after all? Most people blame the Bush administration, but I blame the Fertitta family.
…Whether a paint-by-numbers slam from stick-and-ball sports columnists, or the hyperventilating tone television airheads usually reserve for cases of young blonde Caucasian women gone missing, silly season is once again under way.
For those who have watched MMA since the beginning, the criticism has become as tired a schtick as Gallagher’s smashing watermelons.
It could be the criticisms of MMA are all so similar because the problems the “sport” presents are so obvious and glaring. While it would be novel to see someone call out the UFC for all of the bad tattoos, haircuts, and t-shirts, those are hardly the most relevant criticisms.
Current UFC owners Zuffa LLC bought the company in 2001, and deserve the bulk of the credit for making the sport a success in North America, which came after years of backbreaking work.
I’m sure Rorion Gracie, Art Davie, Bob Meyrowitz, Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, and Tito Ortiz are pleased that you are willing to give Zuffa credit where it is due. All that backbreaking work. Zuffa deserves credit too, for making pitches to TV networks that were so bad that they couldn’t get the Friday Night Fights style deal the wanted. Instead they were forced to bankroll their own reality TV show. Through their own incompetence they were able to back into a deal that saved the company. Kudos!
But the notion that casino magnate Ferttita brothers and UFC president Dana White cleaned up the rules is a fairy tale. Referees had the power to stop matches as early as UFC 3 in 1994; the first time limit was instituted not long after, and weight classes came into play by 1999.
No mention of how that “fairy tale” keeps finding its way into these articles and stories? I guess since Zuffa has a special business arrangement with Yahoo the “journalists” must be careful how they word things.
Myth: Mixed martial arts is a haven for white trash.
This is perhaps the most egregious stereotype of them all. If anything, one can make a convincing argument that the industry-leading UFC is among the most internationally diverse offerings on the American sporting scene.
Last Saturday’s UFC 84 featured fighters from the United States, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Korea, Cameroon, Great Britain and Croatia. The roster of UFC’s current champions features a native Brazilian (interim heavyweight champ Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira); an African-American (light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson); an African-Brazilian (Anderson Silva); a French-Canadian (welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre) and a Pacific Islander (lightweight champ and full-blooded Hawaiian B.J. Penn).
I like how you list the exceptions here as if you are making a real point. Sure, there are some minorities in MMA. But the bulk of the combatants are white rednecks with bald heads, horrible tattoos, weird facial hair, Affliction T-shirts, and hastily lasered off swastika tats. There is an ugly undercurrent of racism at MMA shows and there is little doubt that America’s racists have taken to the “sport” because it has traditionally been dominated by whites. In fact, I would wager that these international faces on top will actually hurt the UFC and others amongst their base audience.
Myth: MMA contributes to the level of violence in our culture.
…Both the U.S. military and police departments from coast to coast teach soldiers and police officers how to use mixed martial arts maneuvers for self-defense. If MMA is good enough for our nation’s peacekeepers, it should be good enough for the rest of us.
The military’s job is to search out and destroy our country’s enemies. It’s right there in the propaganda. The Abrams tank is also good for the military. But not for you. Besides, hand-to-hand instructors in the military are pretty clear that Mixed Martial Arts isn’t very useful in a real fight. It’s sport.
Myth: MMA is unskilled bar-fighting; while boxing is refined and genteel.
The glare coming off that pile of Olympic and world championship medals won by MMA practitioners in disciplines like Greco-Roman wrestling and judo should be enough to dispel the notion MMA doesn’t require skill.
Sure MMA requires skill. But is there really a lot of skill on display in these Dana White-special slug-fests the UFC is trying to market as great contests? I think it’s pretty obvious that Zuffa is slowly draining the skill out of the fight. You won’t see the glaring Olympic medal of Matt Lindland in the UFC. Dana White would prefer 10,000 “War Machine” clones. It’s a wonder Zuffa didn’t buy a tough-man contest instead of the UFC.
In MMA, when a fight hits the ground, the referee is instructed to halt the match at the first sign the fighter on the defensive can no longer intelligently defend himself.
This is true, except for Steve Mazzagatti. We don’t know what his instructions are.
Boxing, on the other hand, features the standing eight count, in which a dazed pugilist who has been knocked to the mat has to immediately scramble to his feet, regardless of whether the cobwebs have cleared, and come right back out to potentially absorb more brain trauma from the person who just put him down.
Which sport is barbaric, again?
Putting aside the fact that Japan’s SHOOTO promotion employed standing eight counts in their MMA fights (because even the head cheese at Yahoo is a dastardly TUF-Newb): The obvious answer? THEY ARE BOTH BARBARIC. Is it that complicated? Guys are attempting moves that would normally be labelled as a felony. MMA is barbaric on its face. Now you can watch it despite that. I do. But don’t try to pretend that people punching each other in the face and choking each other unconcious isn’t barbaric.
If you watched a complete mixed martial arts card, instead of cherry-picking knockout clips, you’ll find that the average MMA fan is educated to nuances of the sport, and react as much to a subtle shift of position on the mat that creates an opening for a potential submission attempt as they do any other aspect of the game.
When was the last time you journeyed out of press row Mr. Doyle? The average fan is educated to the nuances of the sport? The average fan is a drunken moron yelling “boring, boring, boring!” MMA is a sport that is not without flaws. It’s disingenuous to pretend that every critic is ignorant or has a bone to pick. Some people come by their aversion to MMA honestly. I know plenty of these people. MMA is bloody and barbaric. You should embrace the sport for what it is, not try to leap through mental hurdles to present it as something it isn’t. MMA is a sickening spectacle. And I’m OK with that. Are you?
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