Author: James MacDonald

Dana White: Why His Claim to Be “Regulated by the Government” Is Meaningless

Did you know that the UFC is regulated by the government? If this fact comes as a surprise to you, it’s probably because you haven’t watched a Dana White press conference/interview/media scrum/Q&A over the past several years. It is Whit…

Did you know that the UFC is regulated by the government? If this fact comes as a surprise to you, it’s probably because you haven’t watched a Dana White press conference/interview/media scrum/Q&A over the past several years.

It is White’s stock reply to criticism—or even benign inquiry—of the UFC’s drug testing policy. It may have even replaced “it is what it is” as his favourite phrase.

No one really knows why Dana continues to repeat this non-sequiturish line as though it is a knockdown argument against any and all criticism. For some reason, the UFC President equates government involvement with regulatory rigour. What’s more, he apparently only makes this approximation in relation to PED testing.

He routinely takes the various athletic commissions to task for their appointment of judges and referees, yet he believes they are beyond reproach when it comes to monitoring PED use? It must be tough to operate under the weight of such cognitive dissonance.

Making an argument in favour of, for example, the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s (NSAC) drug testing policy is the stuff of debating clubs. Even the late Christopher Hitchens would have struggled to make a coherent case for the NSAC’s half-baked approach.

The phrase “government regulation” is almost entirely without content. It would be an argument from authority but for the fact that state athletic commissions are not an authority on the subject of performance enhancing drugs. Not only do they not adequately police PED use, but they seem oblivious to the possibility that they might ever be wrong.

Does anyone remember the NSAC’s kangaroo court-like hearing over Nick Diaz’s suspension for the presence of marijuana metabolites in a post-fight drug test? I recall the commission dismissing a sound case against the legitimacy of said test, without even so much as addressing the arguments presented to them.

This happened after they had praised Alistair Overeem for justifying testosterone levels that make the Hulk look like he suffers from hypogonadism with a story so fantastically improbable that J.R.R. Tolkien would have likely remarked, “Hold on, that sounds a bit too farfetched.”

So, let’s be clear: Government regulation is not synonymous with sound drug testing policy. No matter how many times Dana White repeats the phrase or how exasperated he sounds while doing so, no one believes that government regulation is the gold standard in drug testing. I’m not even sure if White believes it.

The UFC’s decision to—and I’m paraphrasing—test the fecal matter out of anyone with a therapeutic use exemption for testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) is both a good first step in cleaning up the sport and a tacit admission that not enough is currently being done to combat PEDs.

I’m eager to find out how effective this new random drug testing policy will be. If nothing else, it might force Dana White to stop parroting the phrase “government regulation” whenever the subject of drug testing is raised.

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UFC 157: Are the UFC’s Expectations for Ronda Rousey Too High?

As the hype surrounding Ronda Rousey’s Octagon debut at UFC 157 continues to intensify, it’s hard not to wonder whether Dana White and company are harbouring unrealistic expectations for the former Olympian. The UFC president’s fascin…

As the hype surrounding Ronda Rousey’s Octagon debut at UFC 157 continues to intensify, it’s hard not to wonder whether Dana White and company are harbouring unrealistic expectations for the former Olympian.

The UFC president’s fascination with all things Rousey-related has been well-documented over the past several months.

From calling her “a dude trapped inside this beautiful body” (MMAFighting.com) to claiming that the UFC’s interest in women’s MMA essentially begins and ends with Ronda Rousey, it’s safe to say that White is infatuated with his new star.

In fairness, he has good reason to be enthusiastic about Rousey’s future. The UFC president is not wrong when he says that “nobody in the history of this sport has brought attention to the sport like Ronda Rousey” (FightHubTV.com).

Unfortunately, that attention doesn’t necessarily translate into ticket sales and pay-per-view buys.

As I pointed out in a previous article, viewing figures for Ronda Rousey’s appearances on Showtime peaked at around 676,000—when she faced Sarah Kaufman. While that’s a respectable number, it falls far short of the 856,000 viewers who tuned in to see Gina Carano take on Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos.

Dave Meltzer has suggested that anything above 250,000 pay-per-view buys should be considered a success for Ronda’s UFC debut.

For those who don’t know, that number is significantly below average for a UFC pay-per-view. It’s almost unheard of for a world champion who has pierced the mainstream consciousness.

In truth, there is nothing wrong with Rousey pulling in 250,000-300,000 buys for her debut, particularly given the modest profile of UFC 157 opponent Liz Carmouche. However, the time and money that the UFC has invested in promoting their new star leads me to believe that there is a much loftier goal in mind.

The Zuffa brass may have misjudged Ronda Rousey’s current drawing power. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time their projections have missed the mark.

Does everyone remember UFC 148: Silva vs. Sonnen II? It was marketed as the biggest MMA fight of all time and slated to break all sorts of records—at least according to the UFC, if no one else. Unfortunately, the event fell approximately 700,000 pay-per-view buys short of the previous record set by UFC 100.

Personally, I hope my present skepticism becomes a future punchline and Rousey develops into a huge money-making star. I am deeply invested in the future of WMMA, so this is certainly one of those times when I would be ecstatic to be proved wrong.

Only time will tell if Ronda Rousey has the potential to draw GSP-like numbers. For now, I can’t help but remain skeptical.

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MMA: If MMA Fans Dislike Grappling, Why Isn’t Kickboxing More Popular?

Fans love it when fighters “stand and bang,” don’t we? All that rolling around on the ground is little more than an unwelcome distraction, something that we reluctantly tolerate until the next blistering stand-up exchange. Given the p…

Fans love it when fighters “stand and bang,” don’t we? All that rolling around on the ground is little more than an unwelcome distraction, something that we reluctantly tolerate until the next blistering stand-up exchange.

Given the perpetuity of this myth, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if half of you read that paragraph while nodding your head approvingly.

It’s strange that MMA’s ground game has developed a reputation as a viable NyQuil substitute, despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary.

It’s difficult to pinpoint whence this notion became rooted in the collective consciousness of the MMA fanbase. It has become so pervasive due to its persistent reinforcement that even while I am enjoying a good grappling exchange, I can’t help but imagine that the person sitting next to me is stifling a yawn.

But, on further reflection, this image doesn’t really jibe with the facts.

In basic terms, mixed martial arts is kickboxing plus grappling. Take away the latter and you are essentially left with a K-1 fight contested inside a cage.

Is the mere image of two fighters inside a cage sufficient to make people watch a sport that is inherently less compelling? Has the UFC’s marketing of its product been so effective that fight fans have been blinded to its limitations as a source of entertainment?

Certainly these factors have played at least a minor role. However, they cannot account for the huge disparity in popularity between MMA and kickboxing.

If you buy into the myth that fans really do hate grappling, it must be difficult to wrap your head around MMA’s place at the summit of the combat sports’ hierarchy

In an interview on the MMA Hour late last year, former K-1 star Tyrone Spong expressed his own confusion when asked about kickboxing’s relative mainstream obscurity:

“I really don’t understand. It’s something about the American culture I haven’t figured out yet. I’ve been trying to do that, but it’s hard. Even at all the UFC events, you see that the people, crowd, the audience, they start booing when guys go to the ground, when they wrestle a lot and they do jiu-jitsu. And they start applauding and start yelling when they stand and strike and bang. So, I don’t know if it’s a thing of a ring or the Octagon that gets them, or the small gloves. I don’t know what it is. But, people in the states like to see people bang it out, but at the same time kickboxing isn’t that popular when kickboxing is all about striking and standing and trading and banging it out, so you tell me. I don’t understand.”

Spong’s remarks appear to oversimplify the issue, however. The notion that fans automatically erupt into a chorus of boos whenever a fight hits the ground is demonstrably false. Similarly, fights that are primarily contested on the feet are frequently targeted by the boo-boys—Frank Mir vs. Mirko “Cro Cop” anyone?

At the Ultimate Fight Night 22 fan Q&A, Chael Sonnen made an interesting observation about the wants of MMA fans:

“There’s a real misconception that fans love it when you finish fights, fans love submissions or fans love two guys that ‘bang,’ whatever that means. Fans do want to see two guys that are working, though.”

That may be what it boils down to. Whether on the feet or on the ground, fans want to see action. We want to see fighters “working.”

The average MMA fan is now educated enough to appreciate what is going on when a fight hits the floor. They cheer guard passes, submission attempts, takedowns, sweeps, etc. They even boo when a referee prematurely stands fighters back up—that means you, Kim Winslow and Fernando Yamasaki.

So, why is MMA currently more popular than other combat sports? There is no real mystery here. Put simply, mixed martial arts offers us the chance to watch the best fighters on the planet. Other less dynamic forms of violence certainly have their place. However, they do not showcase the world’s best fighters.

Despite being peddled to the point of cliché, the concept of “baddest man on the planet” has managed to retain its allure. And that concept is currently best defined by mixed martial arts.

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Anthony “Showtime” Pettis and the Evolution of Mixed Martial Arts

Anthony “Showtime” Pettis has nabbed more column inches than the gun control debate over the past few weeks. The 26-year-old Milwaukeean has not only established his place at the top of the MMA food chain, but he is one of a few fighters wh…

Anthony “Showtime” Pettis has nabbed more column inches than the gun control debate over the past few weeks. The 26-year-old Milwaukeean has not only established his place at the top of the MMA food chain, but he is one of a few fighters who has signaled that the sport is entering into the next stage of its evolution.

In our 200,000 years on this planet, humans have developed a world filled with the kind of awe-inspiring innovation that would be, to paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, indistinguishable from magic in the eyes of our ancestors.

Despite the colossal technological, scientific and philosophical leaps we have made, it seems that we have only recently discovered the most efficient means of expressing the most fundamental of biological imperatives: Our instinct for self-preservation.

This seems utterly improbable, yet the undeniable truth is that our knowledge of unarmed combat was, until only a few years ago, practically equivalent to a first century understanding of flight. Indeed, we developed the means to fly a man to the moon before we figured out the most effective way to defend ourselves.

Armed with current knowledge, I cringe when I think back to the first “fight” I was ever involved in as an impressionable 11-year-old boy. I say “fight” because the truth is that I was goaded into a physical confrontation by virtue of an imagined slight. But I digress.

Having internalised the filmography of Jean Claude Van Damme, I started the fight by karate-chopping my unsuspecting foe square in the nose. As my unwitting antagonist stood in front of me, with tears streaming down his face, I decided to finish him with a sidekick to the face, in true Mortal Kombat fashion.

Fortunately for the conscience I would later develop, the kick felt short of the poor lad’s face by about six or seven inches. In retrospect, witnesses to this bizarre scene must have thought I had assaulted an innocent child and then launched into an impromptu martial arts demonstration like a victorious Tekken character.

My point, you ask? At no time did it occur to me to shoot for a takedown, secure double underhooks or throw an inside leg kick. In common with everyone else at the time, my knowledge of fighting had been informed almost entirely by a steady diet of 80’s action films.

The evolution of our understanding of fighting had, until relatively recently, been constrained by normative values that eschewed violence in its purest form. Sure, certain fighting disciplines had existed in the mainstream, in isolation from competing and—as we would later find out— complementary forms of violence, but a collective approach to fighting was largely absent.

We now have a much fuller understanding of what is likely to work in a real fight—even if MMA, strictly speaking, is not a real fight. In 2013, attempting a standing sidekick against anyone with even a passing interest in MMA is liable to end with you on your back, feasting on the other person’s fists.

Since the mid-noughties, MMA “theory” has been largely stagnant, after a decade-long pugilistic enlightenment, leading to the fusion of various fighting styles into a single potent approach that blends elements of wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai and Brazillian jiu jitsu.

This particular mixture of styles has been so successful and so thoroughly reinforced over the past eight or nine years that it is tempting to think that mixed martial arts has reached its final form. The sport has undergone a period of homogenization that has led to a qualitative boom while simultaneously stifling its future development.

Fighters have, quite understandably, stuck to a formula with a proven track record of success. Unfortunately, one could argue that this has suppressed creativity. Still, there is reason to think that this period of creative constipation may be coming to an end.

Fighters like Anthony Pettis, who are willing to think outside the box, are garnering more and more attention not just because they are flashy, but also because they are effective. They have shown that there are paths to success within mixed martial arts that go beyond its familiar core elements.

Disciplines like Karate and Taekwondo are not as effective as the core disciplines of MMA, but the likes of Pettis, Lyoto Machida, Ronda Rousey, Benson Henderson, Daron Cruickshank, et al. have been able to adapt their backgrounds in traditional martial arts to a style that is suitable for the cage.

For several years, Anderson Silva existed almost as an anomaly within the sport. We looked forward to watching him compete not just because he was the best, but because his creative style was practically unique.

Perhaps it took time for other fighters to catch on, or maybe we just needed a few more of them to take some risks inside the cage and have them pay off. With the demonstrable success of these techniques, we can expect to see more and more fighters implementing them into their game.

This may be the next evolution of the sport: more creativity, more diversity and more borrowed techniques from traditional martial arts.

Increasing diversity within the sport can only be a good thing. As compelling as MMA is in its current form, I can’t help but imagine how exciting it will be when a fighter like Anthony Pettis is more the rule than the exception.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

“Rampage” Jackson: Why His Call to Ban the Oblique Kick Smacks of Hypocrisy

Just when you thought that Quinton “Rampage” Jackson had nothing else to complain about, he goes ahead and surprises us all, denouncing the “oblique kick” as being too dangerous for mixed martial arts. For those who don’t …

Just when you thought that Quinton “Rampage” Jackson had nothing else to complain about, he goes ahead and surprises us all, denouncing the “oblique kick” as being too dangerous for mixed martial arts.

For those who don’t know, an oblique kick is essentially a sidekick aimed at the opponent’s knee, with the seeming intention of hyperextending the joint. Anderson Silva and Jon Jones—who used it effectively against “Rampage”—often utilise the technique.

Speaking to ESPN, Jackson explained that, as he sees it, the kick has the capacity to cause long-term injury:

It should be banned and it shows a lot about the fighter’s character that he would throw it. How would he like it if somebody threw it at him and stopped him working for a year?

Admittedly, the move does have the potential to injure the knee joint. But, at the risk of sounding cold, that fact is irrelevant.

There are many techniques employed in mixed martial arts that are dangerous. In fact, almost all of them are used with intent to injure.

Whether the goal is to concuss or disable a limb, fighters use these techniques with the express purpose of causing harm.

What I find most curious about “Rampage”’s complaint is his sudden aversion to causing injury. After all, we are talking about a fighter who, when he competed for Pride FC, had no qualms about soccer kicking and stomping on his opponent’s head.

I have no empirical data to back this up, but I suspect that most fighters would accept a sidekick to the knee before they would consent to having a 220-pound man attempt to punt their head into the front row.

It’s just a hunch.

Of course, we needn’t go as far back as the Pride days to witness “Rampage” Jackson showing disdain for the long-term health of his foes.

At UFC 144, in February of last year, the former UFC light heavyweight champion, apparently unburdened by this recent addition to his conscience, hoisted Ryan Bader up into the air and dumped him on his head in a move that could have crippled the former Arizona Sun Devil.

How does one reconcile that action—repeated throughout his career—with a concern for oblique kicks? Such an inversion of priorities is almost pathological.

Lest this article be mistaken for an attack on someone who just wants to make the sport safer, let me be clear that this piece is intended to highlight the hypocrisy of Jackson’s claim.

I am all for making the sport safer through all reasonable means. What I am not for is banning sidekicks to the knee, while allowing techniques that have potentially severe consequences.

Whether “Rampage” truly believes what he says is up for debate, but it speaks to his waning charm that these eccentric claims are becoming increasingly less tolerable as time goes on.

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UFC on Fox 6: Donald Cerrone vs. Anthony Pettis Head-to-Toe Breakdown

It may not be the main event of UFC on Fox 6, but there is a solid case to be made that Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone vs. Anthony “Showtime” Pettis is the most intriguing bout on the entire card. Their highly anticipated tussle not on…

It may not be the main event of UFC on Fox 6, but there is a solid case to be made that Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone vs. Anthony “Showtime” Pettis is the most intriguing bout on the entire card.

Their highly anticipated tussle not only has tremendous title implications, but it may turn out to be the most aesthetically pleasing contest we have seen for quite some time.

Both fighters possess, as Joe Rogan might say, “K-1 level striking.” Moreover, each is known for setting the kind of frenetic pace that would turn Cain Velasquez into Mark Coleman by fight’s end.

In addition, Cerrone’s copious smack-talking has added some spice to a contest that already makes a vindaloo curry look like a plate of ice cream.

So, to help kill some time between now and Saturday night, let’s take a closer look at how this fight breaks down.

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