We all tend to take for granted that the UFC makes MMA a bit more serious than it is at its core. With the stars and titles and big pay-per-views, you’d almost forget what the game is in actuality.
It’s a carnival sport, a more real cousin of professional wrestling where scripted outcomes are missing but loudmouths who are willing to live their gimmick have increasingly gotten ahead. To that end, Vince McMahon and his band of merry entertainers could surely relate to it.
If you don’t agree, consider Exhibit A: a classic Ric Flair faceplant following a low blow in a recent Indonesian MMA bout, held by One Pride MMA.
Following a relatively low-impact lead leg kick that struck the groin area, the fighter throwing the kick stops. He knows he’s in the wrong, and though he’s willing to continue the fight, he halts and considers the situation.
If there’s more fight to be had, he’ll have it, but in the name of sportsmanship, he leaves the next move to his counterpart in the red corner.
That move?
Comically grab his cup, adjust it a few times, take a single step and faceplant hard on the mat. Flair himself—the subject of the most recent 30 for 30 and suddenly resurgent popular culture icon as a result—couldn’t have done it better.
The referee steps in, presumably to give our Flair Lite the five minutes he needs to recover, and the clip is over. We don’t know what happened in the immediate aftermath, but what we have is easily one of the more memorable reactions to a low blow in recent MMA history.
Thank the heavens for this wonderful, bizarre sport.
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