If there’s one thing we’ve learned to expect from Jason “Mayhem” Miller over the years, it’s this: We have no idea what to expect from Mayhem Miller.
That trait has made him one of the more well-loved cult figures in mixed martial arts. The man is a born entertainer, and his special brand of crazy took him from brawling on tiny independent shows in the United States to Japan to MTV2 and Hollywood.
After going 0-3 in the UFC, Mayhem seemingly called it a career when he launched into a Twitter tirade aimed at UFC president Dana White.
Kill yourself @danawhite we are all begging you.
— Mayhem Miller (@mayhemmiller) August 11, 2012
Two days after that tweet, Miller was arrested in a church in Viejo, California. He was discovered wearing a robe and nothing else and was taken into custody for burglary. The church’s pastor came forward to defend Miller, and the charges were dropped by the Orange County Superior Court in November of 2012.
This is but one example of the strangeness that seemingly surrounds Miller wherever he travels. And if you thought Miller’s wacky ways were a thing of the past now that he’s retired, well, you thought wrong.
Early on Sunday morning, Miller posted an impassioned plea for MMA fans on the cult-ish fan message board The Underground, begging fans to…well, I’m not actually sure what he wanted the fans to do, but I think it had something to do with Dana White.
I’d like to take a look at this, line by line, and try to make sense of it all.
Dana White has killed the sport that you and i love. The refusal to build stars. The reward for standing and wanging.
By “the refusal to build stars,” I’m assuming that Miller is talking about the UFC not being willing to put potential superstars up against men who have no business fighting for the express purpose of giving their stars an easy win and building up their name value. This is how things tend to be done in Japan, at least historically.
In the UFC, the best fighters tend to face each other. That’s how it should be.
THE UNIFIED RULES, have all killed the sport of mixed martial arts. I come to you humbly, as a student and teacher of the mixed martial arts. A man that has never tapped out, or been knocked out in mixed martial arts competition and ask that you do not support a corporate monarchy that favors a mark in the Win column, over showcasing the ART of MMA.
We should establish here that Dana White did not create the unified rules of mixed martial arts. I know that the alternate version of the UFC’s history (as written by Zuffa) claims that White and the Fertitta brothers single-handedly turned the UFC from a pit-fighting operation into a classy joint, but that simply is not true.
And it seems to me, despite evidence to the contrary, that winning in mixed martial arts is a fairly important thing. The amount of fans who would purchase a pay-per-view to watch the art of MMA demonstrated is probably quite small.
Obviously, it behooves those with an interest in gambling on Ultimate Fighting to know who will most likely win and most likely lose a UFC match, so the current structure will remain until YOU, the Fan demand that these forces stop controlling Mixed Martial Arts.
I’m not entirely sure what Miller is saying here. Is he claiming the fights are fixed? Is he saying that powerful gamblers are helping to determine who wins and loses each fight? Because, if so, that’s a pretty terrible thing for Miller to insinuate about his fellow mixed martial artists.
I am Mayhem Miller, so i am well aware of what it is like to live on the opposite end of the corporate power structure, with a lifetime record of 52-8-1 and a UFC record of 0-3. The men in UFC were never stronger than men i fought around the World, just the circumstances in which i fought them were more Extreme.
I’m lost. Is the UFC cage more extreme than, say, the one used by Strikeforce or the WEC? Or is Miller saying that the deck was stacked against him in the UFC by White and the Fertittas? If that’s what he’s insinuating, then I’d have to point out that the UFC doesn’t generally appoint someone as an Ultimate Fighter coach if they’re just trying to get rid of you.
When the next Big Thing hits, jump aboard-because with PPV sales slipping since 2009, and the executives at Fox watching these boring fights, if you are still a Dana shill, you are polishing the brass on the Cubicle Captain’s Titanic. Don’t let him kill our sport. I love it too much.
Let’s not pretend like the Rory MacDonald vs. Jake Ellenberger fight at UFC on Fox was some kind of referendum on how exciting the UFC is or isn’t. You can’t blanket the entire promotion with “these boring fights” and overlook some of the thrilling battles that have taken place in the Octagon this year.
At the end of the day, this is Jason Miller being Jason Miller. These are the kind of statements we expect from him, because he’s conditioned us with nearly a decade of saying zany, off-the-wall things.
We’ve also learned not to take Miller seriously at all, because you never know if he’s being earnest or pulling a stunt for his own amusement. I’ve had many interviews with Miller over the years, and I can’t put my finger on one single answer that I felt, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was genuine.
That’s just Miller being “Mayhem.” You can never be quite sure what to expect, and you can never recognize the truth because he surrounds it with a cloud of nonsense and under-informed opinions.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com