All Purpose UFC/MMA/That Kind Of Thing Thread

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

I think arguing "sport or not a sport" is one of the more asinine ways one can find to waste his or her time.

UFC can sell out basketball/hockey arenas in numerous cities. It's also raking in who knows how many millions of dollars in PPV buys.

Whether it's a sport or not, I'd argue that flat-out ignoring something that can fill an arena with 20,000 enthusiastic fans is poor journalism.

Obviously, some events are more important than others -- perhaps a given newspaper would be more interested in a famous evangelist coming to town and selling out an arena than in a monster-truck show that is coming to town and also sold out -- but at the end of the day, if a large enough chunk of the local population is interested in something legal, it's likely that a newspaper should cover it in some fashion -- whatever it is.

It's also worth noting that plenty of Americans -- most of them non-sports fans -- think boxing is an unacceptable pursuit, one of brutality and violence. A smaller amount of people feel the same way about intense contact sports like football.

It might behoove us all to keep that in mind while we trash one form of violence and defend another.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

How many to you think we could get for a beheading?

Get to typing...

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

Forty years?
How about more than a hundred years? Such as the evolution of the catch wrestling style, whose bouts ended in submission and can count Abraham Lincoln as one of it's practitioners? If anything, MMA is safer and far more regulated than the old catch wrestling, in which the barnstorming strongman took on all comers. The sport devolved on a money-making basis when promoters realized they could make more cash in fixed fights -- leading to professional wrestling -- but it also evolved into Japan's shoot fighting (ie. not predetermined), Russian Sambo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Which, when combined again in an organized fashion like in the UFC, gives us MMA.

The argument of whether it is a sport and whether newspapers should cover it are mutually exclusive.
You can say it's a sport, but not one worthy of coverage -- especially at the sacrifice of something else -- in your publication. And because there are so many fringe organizations and podunk shows (by virtue of the limited employment slots available in the UFC), it is often easier to dismiss MMA as "not a sport" than try to wade through all the BS to get the real story. And, much like boxing, there is a lot of BS to wade through.
I think it's more than fair to take a wait-and-see approach on coverage.
just got a call tonight from the "International Fight League" that it having a show at the end of the year at the local casino. Trust me, if I didn't know what it was, I'd blow it off too. I had the misfortune of watching Chuck Norris' FUBARed attempt at a kickboxing league. With all these minor league promotions, if an editor (or writer) isn't familiar with the hierarchy of MMA, it can be very confusion.
But the argument that it's not a sport simply lacks a factual backing.

And, no Idaho, I do not work for any MMA organization.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

Jay, you've been around a while. The newbies with no posts not related to defending UFC/MMA are the ones that have me wondering.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

Wow.
This is for the people who say MMA is not a sport:

According to dictionary.com, a sport is "an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature." If any of you bashers had seen a full MMA fight, you would know that skill, physical prowess, and competition are the three keys victory in the octagon. Fights can end by submission, KO, decision, or refferee stoppage so an MMA bout is not about "beating the shit" out of your opponent, it's about outsmarting, overpowering, or outworking him.

Like it or not, fighting is at the core of every sport. When you take away the balls, pads, teams, novel-sized rule books, and all the other diversions that define football, baseball, and basketball, you're left with two guys fighting. There is a reason why fights break out in every professional sporting league, but nobody ever brings a ball into the octagon. When you strip away all the bullshit, what's left is called MMA.

Turn on SPIKE TV at 8PMet tonight (dec. 13) and give the sport a chance.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

Some of the anti-UFC/MMA folks have posted that UFC/MMA isn't a sport because of the violence and opportunity for life-altering injury. Using that criteria, here's a list of sports that should be shut down:

1) Boxing.
2) Wrestling.
3) Martial arts.
4) Hockey.
5) Football.
6) Basketball.
7) Baseball.
8) Auto racing.
9) Horse racing.
10) Track and Field.

Readers are certainly going to love reading about chess and checkers tournaments.

I think the biggest misconception about UFC/MMA is that it is akin to the Toughman fights in local towns. Those shows have no rules, no qualified referees and doctors. Look at the major UFC/MMA shows. There are referee stoppages--look at Ortiz/Shamrock II. John McCarthy stopped the fight when it looked as if Shamrock could not defend himself. McCarthy and Dana White received much criticism for the stoppage but it was the right call--and doctors at ring side.

Since UFC/MMA is a burgeoning sport, it makes sense to cover it slowly, a la boxing. Cover press conferences, write features and PPVs. UFC 65 (I think) is coming up at the end of the month, highlighted by Ortiz-Lidell II. Cover that. Cover the press conference and weigh-ins. Write features on local fighters that are in UFC or Pride or K-1.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

Okay, I had to laugh when Idaho's last post was followed by MMA_Fan's first.

Nothing against MMA_Fan, but as I fully understand coming from covering auto racing, sometimes the biggest drawback to getting a sport mainstream recognition comes from said sport's most ardent fans.

Just saying.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

Get something on the AP wire and I'll run it.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

I was channel-surfing tonight during another boring NBA game on ESPN, and came across a live UFC card on Spike. I'd never seen UFC before and decided, what the hell.

I didn't touch my remote again. Even during the commercials, because I didn't want to miss anything.

I saw more big shots and bloodshed in that 1-hour-plus than I've seen the last 10 years in a boxing ring. I might have to start TiVoing this shit now -- the live stuff anyway.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

Let's see:

The Boston Herald and the Vegas paper already cover UFC. Newsday has Matt Serra, an Ultimate Fighter, blogging for them. The NY Times ran a feature on UFC that was the sports front during a baseball-crazed summer.

It's not as if the sports hasn't been covered by major media outlets.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

Mr Christley,

My point was, call me when the UFC is 40 years old. That way I don't have to talk about this for three+ decades and will be deep into my retirement.

You say it's a sport. I say it's a novelty sport. Up there with Demolition Derby, Lumberjack competitions and Cheer. And if I've insulted a driver of an old wreck, some guy with a thick beard and plaid shirt, or the POTUS, sorry.

YHS, etc

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

Those of us in flyover country can't afford to send writers to Las Vegas to staff UFC 65. We aren't going to write a gamer off TV. So unless it's on the AP (or Scripps-Howard or MCT or Reuters) wire, it's not getting in my paper.