I will Start this Article with a comment made by Gus Johnson via cage potato
“I take a lot of criticism, but I try my best to try to help promote this fucking sport, when nobody else, including television executives could give two shits because they think it’s barbaric and it’s filled with a bunch of hoodlums, which is exactly how it looked to everyone watching the show Saturday night. The problem with MMA is that these Internet guys ruin the sport because they’re negative 90 percent of the time. I try to say as many good things about these athletes in this sport on a network level — not on an underground level or a Spike TV cable level or a pay-per-view level. My job isn’t to promote the sport. I’m paid to give my opinion and to describe what I see and it’s my opinion that the guys they had Jake fight were supposed to beat him. That’s how I see it. I said it, so I believe it. That’s disrespect. Do you mean to tell me that Strikeforce didn’t bring a former Pride champion [like] Dan Henderson in to beat Jake Shields? Come on, man. I’m also not blaming Miller for what happened. Mayhem didn’t do anything that Shane Mosely hasn’t done, or other fighters who aren’t a part of the main event of the card who get in the cage or the ring to hype a future fight haven’t done hundreds of times before. It always happens. That’s not a big deal. The reaction from Gilbert and Jake and all these guys was what was the big deal. It was improper, and to be honest, it was shameful.”
People love to nit pick; especially the boxing faithful. People seem to forget that boxing has had more then a few brawls; I’ve seen press conference fights via Mike Tyson & Lennox Lewis, Marco Barrera & Erik Morales, trainers of Roy Jones Jr. & Jon Ruiz, Riddick Bowe and Jorge Gonzalez, Hopkins and Trinidad, Ali and Frazier, Lennox Lewis and Hasim Rahman(who is soon to make his MMA début), The list goes on See for your self.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRBfZna8QlA&feature=player_embedded
People also turn there head when it comes to other sports. Hockey has them brawls nightly, and the occasional good old’ bench clearing brawls. I’ve seen baseball games where there were dug out wars and guys throwing bats at each other. Even Basketball players fight; sometimes even with the fans. Soccer players head butt each other and the fans kill each other, so nobody in soccer has any room to talk.
But you know MMA is barbaric, must have something to do with all that extra skill and talent boxing lacks. Let me guess kicking in fighting is dangerous; yes you are correct kicking is dangerous, but so is a right hook in boxing; thing is the hook is more likely to land and land safely at that. Any time a fighter throws a head kick he puts himself at risk of getting hurt; it’s the slower more telegraphed weapon. MMA has Grappling during combat; who would have thought, must be deadly if police use a lot of the moves as a non lethal first resort tactics on daily basis.
I bet a lot of people thing well at least boxing uses big gloves right; True boxing use’s huge gloves but boxing also allows people to take multiple blows to the head; the padding doesn’t ease the brain damage only the potential of a cut. Also after a guy gets Knocked out (to the point where in an MMA fight it would be over) the boxer still has till the count of 10 to get back up and the referee will let him continue to fight, and in most boxing matches it can happen 3 times in one round before the ref. will call the fight via TKO. Fact is that there has been 1 death due a MMA bout and multiple deaths due to boxing. Funny the same people that think MMA is barbaric think owning a AK47 should be perfectly fine, and think its ok to send young boys over to Iraq with 6 month of basic training to fight a religious that’s been going on for hundreds of years.
Funny how contradicting stupid people are, seriously think about it.
by Tyson Harris
Tags: barbaric, Barrera, champion, criticism, Dan, Erik, Gus, Henderson, Jake, Johnson, Lennox, Lewis, Marco, Mike, MMA, Morales, Mosely, PRIDE, promote, Shane, Shields, Tyson