If I Did It: UFC fighters retreat, Jake Shields right-wing hero

Welcome If I Did It the show where we solve PR kerfluffles from the world of MMA and beyond. This week we look at WME-IMG’s fighters’ retreat, Jake Shields vs the Black Bloc and more.

Alexei Auld is back with a brand new book available 7 Secret Sources of Inspiration: A Snappy Guide for Creative Procrastinators to grill Eugene S. Robinson (who’s pushing a GoFundMe to pay for the new Oxbow album) and myself with some PR stumpers from the world of combat sports.

For the audio only version check us out on SoundCloud and be sure to subscribe to MMA NATION on iTunes and subscribe to MMA Nation on YouTube so you’ll never miss an episode. This week’s kerfuffles include:

You’re WME-IMG. Yahoo’s Kevin Iole broke news of your planned UFC fighter’s retreat scheduled for this May in Las Vegas. “Athletes, musicians, actors/actresses and celebrities from many different genres who are represented by WME/IMG will appear at the retreat and will either offer presentations or be available to the fighters to ask questions. The fighters will be given a primer on the soon-to-open UFC Performance Institute, which is available free of charge to them and their coaches to use to learn best practices in training techniques, recovery, weight-cutting and many other areas.” Is there a secret reason for this retreat or is it just a corporate circle jerk?
You’re a UFC Fighter. With three months until the WME-IMG fighter’s retreat, are there steps you can take right now, to maximize your brush with the boss?
You’re Jake Shields. You attended a protest of a protest at Berkeley and tweeted video, “The aftermath of me helping a guy after being jumped by thugs. The police and 100’s of civilians stood and watched.” Brietbart fans labeled you as a hero for your rescue. Given your two fight losing streak outside of the UFC, is this a chance to make your career great again? And if so, how?
You’re an Anti-Trump Organization. These are serious times. Now you’ve been pushed into a situation you can’t control. You don’t like having to rely on a baseball bat, 2 x 4 or anything else, but multiple reports are telling you about the questionable ways of masked protesters and what they stand for. So now with their arrival throughout this country and throughout your television land, risky business now be taken care of. In public, if you will, as they fills your screen now with violence, like you’ve never seen before. So how can you protect all your little doggies and all your little padners out there in television land by getting ready for the coming of these midnight riders?
CRAP ACCENT QUESTION: I’ll ask a question with a crap accent, Eugene and Nate have to answer with a crap accent. Viewers decide who had the worst. (SEAN CONNERY) You’re the National Basketball Association. Your Rookie Transition Program (RTP) has been put on blast for incorporating sexual stereotypes and suspect scenarios including semen sucking jezebels turkey basting their way to pregnancy and players pockets. Vocativ cited a source who suggests that “essentializing women in this way leads to seeing them as less than human and paves a path for violence”. How do handle this risky bidness, live and in public, if you will?
You’re Omarosa, communications director for the White House office of public liaison. The blacks don’t seem to like the Trump Administrations’ Black History Month activities. Vice President Mike Pence mixed up the month with Freedom Day and celebrated a white man instead of any historically relevant black Americans. President Donald Trump referred to Frederick Douglass as “an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice,” at a Black History Month listening session you organized. With the Washington Post whipping out a 2015 quote where you claimed, “I’m a die-hard Democrat. Come on. I’ve got Hillary Clinton tattooed on my left arm.” If you’re not Sally (Yates) slowriding Trump, how do you make amends?
TEACHABLE MOMENT. You’re Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigned from President Trump’s economic advisory council after his company bungled the Muslim Ban transit boycott and lost more than 200,000 customers. You, on the other hand, are staying on, forcing the “travel ban” and climate change on the meeting agenda. You tweeted, “I believe this is doing good, so will remain on council & keep at it. Doing otherwise would be wrong.” A day later, you doubled down, tweeting, “Activists should be pushing for more moderates to advise President, not fewer. How could having only extremists advise him possibly be good?” What lessons, if any have you learned from Uber’s internal and external kerfuffles?
KID NATE’S HEEL TURN
EUGENE’S LOST BATTALION

THANKS FOR JOINING US. FOLLOW US on Twitter @eugeneSrobinson, @kidnate@alexeiauld. PLEASE GIVE THIS A THUMBS UP and leave comments on YouTube, read Eugene at Ozydot.com and be sure and check out all three of us on Amazon.com

“We’ll be back next week with another installment of If I Did It and we don’t know what we’ll be talking about yet because the PR mistakes have yet to be made.”

Welcome If I Did It the show where we solve PR kerfluffles from the world of MMA and beyond. This week we look at WME-IMG’s fighters’ retreat, Jake Shields vs the Black Bloc and more.

You’re WME-IMG. Yahoo’s Kevin Iole broke news of your planned UFC fighter’s retreat scheduled for this May in Las Vegas. “Athletes, musicians, actors/actresses and celebrities from many different genres who are represented by WME/IMG will appear at the retreat and will either offer presentations or be available to the fighters to ask questions. The fighters will be given a primer on the soon-to-open UFC Performance Institute, which is available free of charge to them and their coaches to use to learn best practices in training techniques, recovery, weight-cutting and many other areas.” Is there a secret reason for this retreat or is it just a corporate circle jerk?
You’re a UFC Fighter. With three months until the WME-IMG fighter’s retreat, are there steps you can take right now, to maximize your brush with the boss?
You’re Jake Shields. You attended a protest of a protest at Berkeley and tweeted video, “The aftermath of me helping a guy after being jumped by thugs. The police and 100’s of civilians stood and watched.” Brietbart fans labeled you as a hero for your rescue. Given your two fight losing streak outside of the UFC, is this a chance to make your career great again? And if so, how?
You’re an Anti-Trump Organization. These are serious times. Now you’ve been pushed into a situation you can’t control. You don’t like having to rely on a baseball bat, 2 x 4 or anything else, but multiple reports are telling you about the questionable ways of masked protesters and what they stand for. So now with their arrival throughout this country and throughout your television land, risky business now be taken care of. In public, if you will, as they fills your screen now with violence, like you’ve never seen before. So how can you protect all your little doggies and all your little padners out there in television land by getting ready for the coming of these midnight riders?
CRAP ACCENT QUESTION: I’ll ask a question with a crap accent, Eugene and Nate have to answer with a crap accent. Viewers decide who had the worst. (SEAN CONNERY) You’re the National Basketball Association. Your Rookie Transition Program (RTP) has been put on blast for incorporating sexual stereotypes and suspect scenarios including semen sucking jezebels turkey basting their way to pregnancy and players pockets. Vocativ cited a source who suggests that “essentializing women in this way leads to seeing them as less than human and paves a path for violence”. How do handle this risky bidness, live and in public, if you will?
You’re Omarosa, communications director for the White House office of public liaison. The blacks don’t seem to like the Trump Administrations’ Black History Month activities. Vice President Mike Pence mixed up the month with Freedom Day and celebrated a white man instead of any historically relevant black Americans. President Donald Trump referred to Frederick Douglass as “an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice,” at a Black History Month listening session you organized. With the Washington Post whipping out a 2015 quote where you claimed, “I’m a die-hard Democrat. Come on. I’ve got Hillary Clinton tattooed on my left arm.” If you’re not Sally (Yates) slowriding Trump, how do you make amends?
TEACHABLE MOMENT. You’re Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigned from President Trump’s economic advisory council after his company bungled the Muslim Ban transit boycott and lost more than 200,000 customers. You, on the other hand, are staying on, forcing the “travel ban” and climate change on the meeting agenda. You tweeted, “I believe this is doing good, so will remain on council & keep at it. Doing otherwise would be wrong.” A day later, you doubled down, tweeting, “Activists should be pushing for more moderates to advise President, not fewer. How could having only extremists advise him possibly be good?” What lessons, if any have you learned from Uber’s internal and external kerfuffles?
KID NATE’S HEEL TURN
EUGENE’S LOST BATTALION

“We’ll be back next week with another installment of If I Did It and we don’t know what we’ll be talking about yet because the PR mistakes have yet to be made.”