There have been a lot of comments made on this site, by myself and other writers here, about journalists in the new-media and in the mass media who write articles about the sport that are clearly ignorant and have no place being pushed as anything more than the spawn of egotistical, uninformed people who get too much attention.
The most recent piece of crap I’ve run into was published by Lee Russakoff of the Comcast Coalition for Idiotic Blogging.
Obviously, this piece was spewed out in response to a comment Kimbo made in his interview with ESPN magazine, another piece that should never have been released by a publication utterly confused by the whole point of the sport and what defines the legitimacy of a fighter. (that, though, is a rant for another day)
Russakoff’s piece is unsubstantiated and doesn’t even take note that, shockingly, there are precautions set in place by the athletic commissions or the fact that there are, in fact, athletic commissions.
In fact, the only point that Russakoff makes in his article is that he doesn’t know anything about the sport.
Realistically, if this article had been published ten years ago, during the dark ages of the sport, he would have had a point. The fact is, though, since the sport has become mainstream it has been observed by medical technicians and professionals and has been shown to be as safe as any sort of competition is possible, with lower risks than football or hockey.
If you are going to right a piece on an area you don’t know about, have the decency to inform yourself or go back to complaining about the price of coffee.