And this is bad because more people read ABC News than MMA blogs like Luke Thomas’s Bloody Elbow. Luke wrote a rightfully scathing review of her article on ABCNews.com, but didn’t go in depth with many of the “points” author Nellie Sciutto tried to make.
Keep in mind that Nellie Sciutto knows less about MMA than your mother. She typically writes about more women-friendly activities like frozen babies and yoga.
Not only has Mrs. Sciutto, a self-proclaimed writer over at the ABC New’s site, mis-interpreted whatever facts she found about Mixed Martial Arts, she also helped create more enemies of the explosive sport. Let’s take a look at what she wrote.
Here’s the idea: It’s a blend of techniques that include judo, jujitsu, karate, tae kwon do, wrestling and sumo wrestling. Two fighters face off in circular ring that’s 40 feet in diameter — and that’s about where the rules end.
Well, kinda, but um, no. If there were no rules, we wouldn’t have stoppages. If we don’t have stoppages, then we don’t have long rants on MMA blogs about how bad the stoppages was.
Fighting is not in rounds, as in boxing, but just one, long fight that doesn’t end until one fighter is knocked unconscious, or “surrenders.”
Or by referee stoppage, doctor stoppage, corner stoppage, and the end of the round. Nice try Nellie, but fights these days have rounds just like the more media-friendly sport of Boxing.
This is not a sport that big money is poured into — or earned, unless you’re a bettor…
Talk to Dana White about this one.
Clinch fighting: a tactic used to prevent the opponent from moving away into a distant striking range, while at the same time attempting takedowns using knees, stomps, elbows and punches.
While I can’t really be too hard on Nellie for this one considering she knows nothing about the sport, I did find it humorous that fighters are trying to score takedowns with the use of knees. Knees are the enemy of a takedown artist.
Pummeling: using the back of the head — not the neck, which can be very dangerous — to gain leverage.
Oh yea? I thought strikes to the back of the head were illegal? I guess Big John McCarthy was just making stuff up the whole time while he was warning fighters.
There are also Greco-Roman style trips, going for the feet and knees as leverage; “ground and gound,” taking your opponent to the ground and gaining a top position; and “lay-and-pray,” a derogatory term for a strategy sometimes used by fighters who can take an opponent down but are not adept at follow through.
Ah yes, the “ground and ground.” I believe Ricardo Arona takes a lot of heat for this technique.
Although there were more errors in the article, I didn’t bother touching her “video interview” with a reader on the MMA.tv Underground forums. It’s really just another cheap shot at the legitimacy of the sport.
So there you have it. Mrs. Nellie Sciutto’s article in all it’s fictional glory. Stay tuned next week for a prison interview with Rob Emerson! And although Emerson is not in jail for jumping unsuspecting men with his dumb little gang, he is supposedly in the slammer for another fighting related offense. Thanks to Luke Thomas for that story too!
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November 25th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
The News reporter, who was/is a novice to MMA, was given a huge amount of bogus information from a source that was playing a practical joke on his friend. In the grand scheme of things, unfortunately, ABC News heads are not concerned enough with the MMA culture to “fix this” to where anyone in the MMA blogger community (people obviously consumed with MMA) are gonna be happy. It just doesn’t happen. I would bet that the reporter is reprimanded for screwing up a story so badly though, just for journalistic sake. One thing that does stick with me - this story does not because everyone will forget it in a few days - is the old adage “with friends like these”. Keep in mind a lowly web writer is not ABC NEWS as you think of it, like some are making this out to be, but imagine you’re a writer for ABC News online. You do a story and your buddy from college knows something about MMA, you think, so you call him. “Sure”, he says, then precedes to give you a bunch of bad info as a gag becauses he’s with some other industry entirely. How do you explain that to your boss the next day after a couple hundred hardcore MMA fans e-mail your company?
It’s not good that this goes on, and as a whole I’ve done my share of rants on this, but this one was so out there I don’t think it effected anything. If you hated MMA and didn’t educate yourself to it, this confirmed what you’d like to pretend it true. If you’re a fan, this didn’t make you quit.