Learning and Teaching MMA

The sport of MMA is growing every day.  As it continues to push to the forefront, it will be covered more and more by the mass media.  The problem with that is that some of the people forced to cover the sport have no clue. When I covered the UWC event, I sat beside a D.C. sports guy, and explained the finer points of the sport throughout the night.  No disrespect, he just hadn’t been educated prior to getting the job to sit cage side.

As many of you have figured out I enjoy more than just MMA.  I love College Basketball and with the NCAA tourney coming up I was doing my typical pre-bracket homework.  During this search I ran across an article by Bob Hunter.  Hunter is a sports columnist for the Columbus Dispatch.  Throughout his post located HERE, he made a few valid points on other sports), but has the wrong impression about MMA.

Before I get into his comments I do want to note that there are millions around the world that do not understand the sport.  I do not know Hunter personally and this is not an attack on him at all.  He has the right to his opinion and I mean him no disrespect.

These are his comments :

“A friend who attended his first Ultimate Fighting Championship event Saturday night in Nationwide Arena wasn’t impressed with the brawling (“90 percent of it is boxing, and they’re bad boxers”) and said it will never go mainstream unless they clean it up. That works for me. I’m not sure we want head kicks in the mainstream. It moves us that much closer to Rollerball.”

UFC 96 was not the most entertaining fight card to date.  Many feel that it was average at best, but to comparing it to Rollerball is a bit ridiculous.

Speaking of mainstream?  Hunter talks about Hockey fights in the same article.  At this point Hockey is fading out of main stream.  When you can’t sell out your home stadium on opening day, you are in trouble.  Their bare knuckle brawls on ice is at least equivalent to a leg kick.  In my opinion it is worse.  The ref stops the fight once they hit the ground, never mind the 5 unanswered punches landed to the face of the opposing player.

Ray Lewis blindsiding Ted Ginn Jr. at full speed as he crosses the middle is way worse.  Ray Lewis is 6’1 and 250 pounds!  He also runs a 40 in 4.5 seconds or less.  In perspective that is slightly smaller than Brock Lesnar; one of the largest fighters in the UFC.The NFL is main stream.

I also feel that watching a MLB pitcher get smashed in the face with a line drive, or a hitter getting beaned by a 98 MPH fastball is worse.

This sport is going to continue to grow.  We need the writers and sports columnists to understand the sport, and push the positive side of the sport. Instead of the MMA community bashing minor mistakes, we should all worry about the ones shedding the negative light on the sport, the ones that compare it to Rollerball.