I don’t pretend to be an expert in the complex world of mixed martial arts. There are too many subtle nuances within the sport; no one should claim to understand unless they have trained for years. Anyone who has seen me knows there have not been years of training involved in any aspect of my life. All that being said, you don’t have to be an expert to know what you saw. I can’t speak to what you laid eyes on last evening, but mine saw robbery. Worse yet, robbery that is being half heartedly endorsed on the blogosphere. I think I can tell you why and how it is happening. It’s just as shitty as Shogun having no gold around his waist.
Sports fans are generally just that. One group. There are baseball fans that know more than others. Football fans that are more informed than other football fans. Basketball nerds and guys that just enjoy watching the game and so on. For the most part these groups get along with one another. That is not the case in MMA. Uninformed MMA fans are some of the worst people on the planet. These are jerkoffs drawn to the raw violence of the sport, do not appreciate its complex nature, and do everything to ruin it for everyone else around them These are people that scream “…get him in the headlock!” or better yet “…rip his arm off and beat him with it!” Both of those I heard at the last UWC fight at the Patriot center. These are the homo habilis, drunken baffoons that file into every hooters one Saturday a month in their Beatdown shirts to ruin it for everyone.
Those people annoy me, but I wear no a white wig and hold no gavel here. I know people watch NASCAR for the crashes, hockey for the fights and MMA for the blood. I’m not judging those people. I am just acknowledging they exist to set up my next point. The MMA elitists are almost as bad for the sport as the aforementioned meatheads. These are bloggers, message board nerds and their ilk that let their narcissism blind them in their support for the UFC and mixed martial arts. The first group of assholes discussed in this post are a necessary evil for this sport. It’s means the sport is growing and becoming more popular. Not all of these Affliction T-shirt wearing douches stays a douche. They learn the sport the more they watch, they appreciate the sport the more they watch and they become living, breathing, walking soundboards for the sport. They start telling their friends about it, and their friends, and their friends. That’s growth, people. That’s the goal of any business.
Some of snooty blogging sect doesn’t want that. For one reason or another they feel reluctant to expansion. To the point where they use their power of the public forum to not only speak down to fans that they deem “unworthy,” but they actually endorse shitty decisions like the one we saw last night. How, do you ask? I’d be MORE than happy to tell you.
We ALL know Shogun won the fight last night. He was more aggressive, did more damage and executed the perfect game plan against MMA’s great enigma: Lyoto Machida. For Rua’s efforts he was handed a unanimous decision for the other guy. That was crime in itself. The bigger crime was the passive aggressive defense of the judges cards by the blogs that cover the sport. The terms “truly beat the champion” and “don’t let it go to the cards” are flying around the internet. BULL SHIT. Then why have judges at all. Let the challenger know that if he doesn’t knock out or sub the champion in the allotted time, he loses. I don’t by that shit for a minute.
It is my personal opinion that some, and even most MMA bloggers are obsessed with being contrarian when it comes to the meathead MMA fans. These meatheads are the bane of the existance of the bloggers and it affects their opinions and coverage. What happened every time the crowd booed last night? Joe Rogan would say something to the effect of “…I don’t know what they are booing, this is a great fight.” Well, sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn’t, Joe. Sometimes it was two guys trying to slap leg locks on one another who looked like they didn’t know what they were doing. The people booing at Staples Center annoyed the piss out of me too. That doesn’t mean they weren’t right at times.
The point here is that it is irresponsible for bloggers/messageboard members to play down the crime that happened last night in LA. The masses think it was highway robbery and the MMA snobs don’t want to play to the masses. They want to show how smart they are. They want to show how much more they know about MMA than you are I. That’s the only explanation. Here is a comment on a blog I read on a regular basis:
The only time Machida was in any danger was when he slipped on the mat, and he didn’t even get taken down then. At no other point in the fight did I feel like Machida was in trouble.
There were multiple times where Machida had Rua in trouble but his excessive caution made him back off. But that is why Machida won; he put Rua in danger. Rua did a lot of leg kicks and impressive looking misses, but never really put the champ in danger. In that situation, the challenger should not win a decision.
It’s a disappointing performance by Machida—- he needs to be willing to take more chances to be a great champion. But he still won the fight. I firmly believe the compustrike stats will bear that out. The CSAC judges made the right call.
This poster is an idiot and clearly wrong. From Bloody Elbow FightMetric scored the bout 49-46 for Mauricio “Shogun” Rua over Lyoto Machida. This douche just wanted to disagree with everyone and make it all about himself. This is one of the more glaring examples but, the passive aggressive nature of some coverage of this horrendous decision is even more damaging. The hardcore fans and bloggers need to realize that it is more important to watch the sport and enjoy it than it is to separate themselves from fans they think are beneath them. The goal of all MMA fans should be the growth of the sport. We want this thing to be the NFL. It won’t be if awful decisions that cost men championships are not discussed honestly and openly. It won’t be the NFL, then it will be boxing. And nobody wants that.
