As fans of mixed martial arts, we are all sometimes prone to hyperbole and overreaction.
In the moment, every comeback becomes “the greatest in the history of the sport.” Every new champion is “the future of the weight division.” Every green fighter who has run through lesser competition is “a fighter to keep an eye on.”
These reactions are somewhat understandable, because the competition inside the cage gets our adrenaline pumping, and when we see something particularly noteworthy, we tend to view that incident with blinders on—our adrenaline gets the best of us.
A perfect example was Joe Rogan’s announcement of Tim Boetsch’s come-from-behind victory over Yushin Okami at UFC 144.
Boetsch looked to be on his way to a unanimous-decision loss when he came out in the third round and ended the fight with an impressive knockout—a finish that sent Rogan into a frenzy.
“That might be one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the UFC. That was absolutely outstanding,” Rogan exclaimed, surely caught up in the moment. Rogan, still full of adrenaline from seeing Boetsch’s win, then added, “That was the greatest comeback I have ever seen in the history of the UFC. That was unbelievable.”
Later, Rogan backtracked on his comments. “I called it the greatest comeback in the history of the UFC, it might not be. I think Frankie Edgar’s comeback over Gray Maynard might be the greatest comeback, but it was pretty damn close. I might of got a little crazy there, folks.”
Rogan’s initial reaction wasn’t wrong. It was a man getting caught up in the moment, an announcer turning fan and seeing something incredible and reacting to it right then and there.
Rogan offered no cool detachment like some other announcers—he was caught up, just as many fans were, seeing the moment live or on pay-per-view.
That’s why we love MMA. We wait for those moments. They’re what make the sport and the viewing of it great, but that in-the-moment type of reaction can also backfire.
An example of this is the in-the-moment reactions that followed the main event of the March 3 Strikeforce card.
There seems to be some questions surrounding Saturday night’s Miesha Tate versus Ronda Rousey fight—some controversy that is based around that in-the-moment type of reaction, controversy that is totally unjustified.
There are questions if Rousey, the new Strikeforce bantamweight champion, cranked the armbar too violently on Miesha Tate or if she was ungracious in victory. The simple answer to both questions is no.
The armbar is the easy one to deal with. Can a fighter crank a submission hold to hard? During the course of the fight, the answer is no.
How can a legal move in a sport where you want to force your opponent to submit be done too hard? It can’t. It’s impossible. Tate elected not to tap—that was her choice. That choice left Rousey no option but to attempt to force that tap, digging in and eventually earning the submission victory.
Some could argue that the referee stopped the fight too late, but as The Underground points out, fighters have come back from brutal damage via armbars to win.
Had Rousey left the hold applied too long after the referee called for a release—yes, that would have been a problem. She didn’t. No problem, no controversy.
As far as the sportsmanship question, I feel that can be dismissed as well. If anything, Rousey was honest after the fight when she said she didn’t feel too bad about the damage she inflicted and refused to squash her beef with Tate when given the opportunity to do so.
For Rousey, the animosity between the two seemed to have crossed the line from trash talk selling a fight to true animosity and distaste for her opponent. For her to offer up an empty apology would be disingenuous and ring hollow.
Where we could see a problem coming from all of the talk of controversy in the Tate versus Rousey bout is in the mainstream press.
To some outside of the bubble that MMA fans live in, the thought of two women stepping into a cage may seem barbaric. To others, it may come across as some kind of twisted voyeuristic fantasy.
Neither is close to the reality of the situation. It is a combat sport that these athletes, a former amateur wrestler and an Olympic judo player, can make a living at. Nonetheless, if the story of the “bad sportsmanship” or “violent armbar” slips out of the MMA bubble and into the mainstream press, there will be head-shaking and judgment from those who just don’t get it.
So, what was the point of all this? Was it just a rant connecting two unrelated topics, or was there an actual point to all of this blathering about?
The point is this—MMA is a wonderful thing, a sport that we all become fully absorbed in, a sport that we often get caught up in and react to immediately without taking a step back and thinking things through in a big picture.
That’s one of the joys of the sport, that it allows us to do that, to have an immediate reaction. It’s also one of the drawbacks to our sport, as that immediate reaction escapes into the larger world and causes finger-pointing, and possibly limits the growth of the sport.
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