Tag: shill ’em all

What Really Happened at the UFC 189 Toronto Press Tour

By Brian J. D’Souza

The last article on MMA that I published in 2014 was Shill ‘Em All, Part 5: Goodnight and Good Luck. It was a series about the constraints of the MMA media due to both carrots and sticks offered by promoters that won BloodyElbow.com’s “Best MMA Writing Award” in 2013. Last Friday, at the UFC’s media tour stop in Toronto, I found myself encountering the vitriolic stick used by the UFC that often keeps important questions from being asked.

The post What Really Happened at the UFC 189 Toronto Press Tour appeared first on Cagepotato.

By Brian J. D’Souza

The last article on MMA that I published in 2014 was Shill ‘Em All, Part 5: Goodnight and Good Luck. It was a series about the constraints of the MMA media due to both carrots and sticks offered by promoters that won BloodyElbow.com’s “Best MMA Writing Award” in 2013. Last Friday, at the UFC’s media tour stop in Toronto, I found myself encountering the vitriolic stick used by the UFC that often keeps important questions from being asked.

Fighter pay became a feature of the UFC 189 media tour when Marc Raimondi of MMAFighting.com reported that Aldo said “I will always complain…I will always want to earn more. This is the right that I have, so I’m going to continue doing this,” at the March 24th presser in Los Angeles.

The media portion of the Toronto press tour was kicked off by a question about whether Conor McGregor was copying an iconic photograph of Muhammad Ali when he posed in front of a bank safe with bankrolls full of cash.

“It just happened to be coincidence that it looked like the Muhammad Ali photo,” responded McGregor, “but what was really happening was, I was collecting my win bonus in advance.”

I’ve never shied away from writing about the contract issues and financial issues that have lifelong consequences for fighters. For instance, in 2014, I wrote a feature for Bleacher Report that described the stark realities faced by retired MMA fighters evidenced by the case of TUF 1 and UFC veteran Chris Leben. I followed that up by probing Jon Fitch’s road from being a title contender to being cut by the UFC for not signing away his video game likeness rights to being cut a second time and ending up in WSoF.

Since the lawsuit against the UFC was launched in December by the initial group of Jon Fitch, Cung Le and Nate Quarry, I began to openly question why no reporter had attempted to broach the subject with Zuffa. Then again, why would they when they can just continue asking tough questions like these?

Lawsuits are a common landscape feature in sports, from the recent case of Formula 1 driver Giedo van der Garde suing F1 team Sauber over his right to drive for them to the widely-publicized dispute between former NFL players and the NFL over concussions.

Throughout the eight-stop press tour for UFC 189, Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor have been open targets for fans telling them how their respective opponents were going to destroy them. They are expected to suffer and bear the experience because it furthers the goals of the promoter—selling tickets, pay-per-views, TV licenses, merchandise and sponsorships—and because Aldo and McGregor themselves will receive a portion of the financial proceeds.

McGregor himself told MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani that he would make “More than the [$7 million dollar] gate…I am on the pay-per-view cut. I will make three times more than Jose…and that’s still not fair.”

At the UFC 189 press conference, I asked Aldo about his pay complaints, whether his contract had changed due to the lawsuit and whether he would consider joining the lawsuit. A reliable source had told me that every time a main event fighter was rumored to be joining the lawsuit, their contract would get renegotiated.

This is where UFC president Dana White pretended to be translating and responded “He says you’re a dick” to me.

Aldo then responded tactfully through his (real) translator, saying “I’m happy, I’m not complaining, people are going to do whatever they want to do, so, it’s up to them. I’m happy with my contract.” It was the equivalent of saying “No comment.”

If I had foreseen Dana’s reaction, I would have held on to the microphone after asking my question in order to follow up. It was at this point when I stood up and said “My question was respectful, your answer was disrespectful. That came from [Aldo], not from you.”

The fallout from the press event was twofold: First, a UFC representative called me on Saturday to inform me that I was no longer welcome at any future media events. Second, Dana White sent out a series of tweets (check them out here and here) claiming that I was not a journalist and that I had snuck into the press conference. This is patently false—I have contributed to major outlets such as like ESPN and Sportsnet Magazine for years, was approved by the UFC’s PR representative, placed on the media list, and subsequent to the event, wrote an article on the presser. The UFC also has my signature on a release form that I signed to get into the event, after which, I was issued a wristband.

As for claiming I was representing BloodyElbow—I e-mailed the UFC rep for information about the press conference on Tuesday March the 24th. The UFC rep e-mailed me to confirm she’d placed me on the media list on Thursday at 7:41 PM. My editor for the publication I originally wanted to write for happened to take Friday off, so I had no lead time to discuss anything with them. I wanted to file a story on the UFC 189 presser that weekend, so I approached BloodyElbow on Friday morning and was commissioned for two articles, which were killed in the aftermath of the press conference.

If you read through the entire Shill ‘Em All series, you’ll see a recurring theme of the promoter controlling the narrative. Yes, the UFC 189 press tour was designed to market UFC 189, not to give any attention to issues outside the periphery of that goal. I maintain that my question about fighter pay was a logical continuation of the thread that Aldo and McGregor themselves started. The question over which UFC main event fighters are contemplating joining the lawsuit also needs to be asked.

March has been a sad month for MMA, with tragic stories about former UFC and PRIDE champion Mark Coleman and TUF 1 alumni Jason Thacker surfacing. While I admire the crowdfunding effort to raise money for both of their cases, I believe that having more contractual rights could have benefited both fighters throughout and beyond their MMA careers.

It was five years ago that former MMAWeekly.com editor and writer Ivan Trembow announced that he would cease his coverage of MMA due to the brain damage incurred in the sport. Perhaps he could have done more good from the inside, but he made a clean break and has never resurfaced to my knowledge.

To those that continue to report on MMA, I hope you think back to the tough times in your life when, like Jason Thacker, you needed help or support. And I hope you become that beacon of light that provides comfort or warmth in someone else’s life.

***

Brian J. D’Souza is the author of the critically acclaimed book Pound for Pound: The Modern Gladiators of Mixed Martial Arts. You can check out an excerpt right here.

The post What Really Happened at the UFC 189 Toronto Press Tour appeared first on Cagepotato.

Shill ‘Em All, Part 5: Good Night and Good Luck


(Sixty years ago, we had Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly. Now, we’ve got these guys.)

By Brian J. D’Souza

The class action lawsuit filed against the UFC by Cung Le, Nate Quarry and Jon Fitch has dramatically polarized the MMA sphere. Instead of debating the merits of the case, many are debating whether the lawsuit has a right to exist.

Chael Sonnen has characterized the lawsuit as a “shakedown”; others say that the plaintiffs are just bitter ex-fighters who have an axe to grind. It’s bizarre that so many are acting as if these events suddenly crept up quietly to ambush the UFC—and it’s also a symptom of the poor job done by the MMA media in reporting business concepts in a way fans can understand them.

A “USEFUL IDIOT”

Last month, Chael Sonnen sounded off on Ariel Helwani on his podcast, saying “You’re not a journalist, you’re a parrot.” The message wasn’t coming from a warm, fuzzy place inside Sonnen’s heart—the Oregonian wrestler was irate at Helwani’s handling of the steroid scandal Sonnen had been embroiled in, which lead to Sonnen’s exit from MMA competition.

FrontRowBrian—a Twitter personality who has the ability to scoop news stories and rumors that the mainstream media either doesn’t know about or is too scared to touch—added his own insight into the Helwani-UFC relationship, which hit a snag when Helwani was reported to be on the outs at UFC partner FoxSports in January 2014.

With his typically cheerful ginger candor, FrontRowBrian tweeted (then later, deleted) that Helwani was a “useful idiot,” and said that the UFC had temporarily fired him because they “just wanted to show him who is the boss and how they can end a career.”

Ariel Helwani is an extreme case of someone with overt dependence on the UFC. Like many media members, he knows what the key issues are between MMA promoters and the fighters, but he makes a conscious effort to restrain himself from fully developing very specific ideas in his reporting.

For example, when Nate Diaz’s complaints about pay made headlines in April, Helwani wrote a very detailed article for MMAFighting.com outlining Diaz’s points, as well as a succinct reply from Dana White. Carefully omitted from the article is any analysis of the revenue Nate Diaz generates for the UFC versus what he’s paid.


(Sixty years ago, we had Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly. Now, we’ve got these guys.)

By Brian J. D’Souza

The class action lawsuit filed against the UFC by Cung Le, Nate Quarry and Jon Fitch has dramatically polarized the MMA sphere. Instead of debating the merits of the case, many are debating whether the lawsuit has a right to exist.

Chael Sonnen has characterized the lawsuit as a “shakedown”; others say that the plaintiffs are just bitter ex-fighters who have an axe to grind. It’s bizarre that so many are acting as if these events suddenly crept up quietly to ambush the UFC—and it’s also a symptom of the poor job done by the MMA media in reporting business concepts in a way fans can understand them.

A “USEFUL IDIOT”

Last month, Chael Sonnen sounded off on Ariel Helwani on his podcast, saying “You’re not a journalist, you’re a parrot.” The message wasn’t coming from a warm, fuzzy place inside Sonnen’s heart—the Oregonian wrestler was irate at Helwani’s handling of the steroid scandal Sonnen had been embroiled in, which lead to Sonnen’s exit from MMA competition.

FrontRowBrian—a Twitter personality who has the ability to scoop news stories and rumors that the mainstream media either doesn’t know about or is too scared to touch—added his own insight into the Helwani-UFC relationship, which hit a snag when Helwani was reported to be on the outs at UFC partner FoxSports in January 2014.

With his typically cheerful ginger candor, FrontRowBrian tweeted (then later, deleted) that Helwani was a “useful idiot,” and said that the UFC had temporarily fired him because they “just wanted to show him who is the boss and how they can end a career.”

Ariel Helwani is an extreme case of someone with overt dependence on the UFC. Like many media members, he knows what the key issues are between MMA promoters and the fighters, but he makes a conscious effort to restrain himself from fully developing very specific ideas in his reporting.

For example, when Nate Diaz’s complaints about pay made headlines in April, Helwani wrote a very detailed article for MMAFighting.com outlining Diaz’s points, as well as a succinct reply from Dana White. Carefully omitted from the article is any analysis of the revenue Nate Diaz generates for the UFC versus what he’s paid.

Then again, as Yahoo! reporter Kevin Iole carefully explained in a February column on the subject of whether fighter pay is fair, “No one can say with certainty because we don’t really know what [fighters] earn or how much the UFC makes.”

It’s a terrific alibi for adhering to the status quo that MMA journalists can cling to the way Ariel Helwani can cling to his four consecutive “MMA Journalist of the Year” awards (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013) as evidence that he’s a journalist.

JOURNALISTS IN GLASS HOUSES

The “Shill of the Year” award clearly goes to Kenny Rice, host of AXS TV show Inside MMA, for abruptly cutting short an interview with undefeated welterweight Ben Askren back in September.

“The UFC has had quite the monopoly the last handful of years, but really, if they don’t change their tune, they’re gonna start losing some fans,” opined Askren in response to a statement (question?) by Kenny Rice about the UFC housing the world’s best fighters.

Rice quickly halted the interview midstream, but his methods caused more damage than if he’d simply allowed Askren to finish. Fans everywhere were outraged over the incident and sounded off all over Twitter, discussion forums and comments sections.

“Honestly, I think a lot of people were kind of happy that someone was finally speaking the truth,” Askren later told MMAJunkie Radio, “all of a sudden I get cut off and I get censored – they’re really mad about that.”

When AXS TV producer Andrew Simon offered an apology, Askren requested that he be able to return to the show to debate the topic of MMA economics with Kenny Rice. No debate ever materialized, but as a consolation, Rice’s Inside MMA co-host Bas Rutten posted a 1,200-word Facebook rant full of disjointed, tangential thoughts that absolved Rice from responsibility (at least from his viewpoint).

In completely unrelated news, Robert Joyner of MMAPayout.com reported that AXS TV chairman, CEO and president Mark Cuban became a UFC bondholder in 2009.

DOLLAR$ AND $EN$E

In 2005, George Clooney directed Good Night, and Good Luck., a film about CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow challenging anti-communist fear monger Senator Joseph McCarthy through accurate—and courageous—reporting.

Murrow makes a speech in the movie that cuts right to the heart of today’s media culture of self-interested info-tainment: “Unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.”

When Murrow and producer Fred Friendly attempt to cover a news story that evidences the arbitrary nature of the communist witch-hunt, key sponsors back out. Upper-management at CBS allows the controversial story to run, but in the end, the powers that be have their own ironclad rhetoric for paring down Murrow’s influence.

“Sixty Four Thousand Dollar Question brings in over $80,000 in sponsors and it costs a third of what you do,” chief executive of CBS William Paley tells Murrow and Friendly.

So what incentive is there for an MMA website to fund an investigative reporter like John S. Nash to write a detailed analysis of MMA contracts when they can get more bang for their buck commissioning a series of stories about the usual “he said/she said” clickbait floating around the blogosphere?

Not to mention the clear links between MMA promotions’ advertising dollars and certain news outlets, like the UFC’s relationship with USA Today/MMAJunkie, as reported on in Shill ‘Em All, Part 4. I was directed to senior vice president of USA Today Leagues and Properties Merrill Squires to answer questions about the “USA Today UFC Group.” Although I contacted him for comment 11 months ago, I am sure that it will only be a matter of time before he gets back to me.

Meanwhile, MMAJunkie.com has provided excellent analysis of the UFC lawsuit including a story about perennial opportunist Tito Ortiz declining to participate in the suit, as well as a must-read piece on Travis Browne’s manager John Fosco calling the plaintiffs “a bunch of wimps.”

Are these stories relevant to the nature of the lawsuit, or are they just disinformation being pumped out to influence public opinion? Perhaps Browne’s side-gig as a marketing rep for several UFC-approved sponsors deftly answers that question.

SHADOWS OF OURSELVES

The reality of the UFC lawsuit is that it is being led by a group of fighters who are removed from their primes. They didn’t have the mechanisms, information, organization or leadership to stand up for themselves at the apex of their careers when it would have had the most impact. There’s also the reality of getting sucked into the game of corporate politics—sacrificing dignity and rights today for the promise of a paycheck and advancement tomorrow.

MMA journalists are in a similar juxtaposition with respect to their careers—there are incentives to toe the party line. But every time a reporter bends to the promoter’s whims, they endear less respect and credibility. Eventually, no matter how compliant or obedient a reporter is, they can find themselves unemployed and forgotten.

In the last year, many prominent names in the industry—among them Mike Chiapetta, Joe Ferraro, Mike Straka and Jim Casey—have moved on from full-time jobs covering the sport. Many part-time writers are also seeing their budgets slashed, and thus being further marginalized or rendered irrelevant.

One well-known former MMA media member penned (and recently deleted) a poem with this sad verse:

I didn’t know I would end up here,
No family, no money, no career.
Two girls who look up to me,
And a shadow of who I used to be.

All I can say to the survivors still committed to working in the media is that you need to carefully consider your objectives and the impact of your work. How do you want to be remembered? Will you be remembered?

The clock is ticking. What you produce will be your only answer.

***

Brian J. D’Souza is the author of the critically acclaimed book Pound for Pound: The Modern Gladiators of Mixed Martial Arts. You can check out an excerpt right here.

Shill ‘Em All, Part 4: Hustlers, Marks, And the Long Con of Selling Media Coverage


(Look closely, and you can actually see suckers being born every minute. / Photo via Getty / For previous installments of Shill Em’ All, click here.)

By Brian J. D’Souza

Everyone has a vague idea of how three-card Monte works: a street hustler places three cards face-down. A mark is enticed into finding the money card. Using misdirection, subterfuge and distraction, the hustler dupes the mark into picking the wrong card over and over. Sometimes a “shill” aids the hustler by playing the game and making it appear winnable.

The fight game is a similar hustle where many MMA journalists often play the role of the shill. Rather than being independent, certain MMA outlets and journalists are working in concert with the promoter to achieve a specific aim. Often, the promoter is buying publicity for their product, which is fair game considering that running an MMA promotion is a brutal marketplace where only the fittest survive.

Speaking in direct reference to a then-SiriusXM radio personality Scott Ferrall being paid a talent fee to attend UFC shows, UFC president Dana White said, “Believe me, in building this business, we had to do some things.”

It’s critical for an event promoter to spend money on the front end — including giving incentives to journalists — so that they can make money on the back end. Sports leagues require massive amounts of capital, as well as leaders capable of executing a clear vision; save for the spectacular Japanese league PRIDE FC that was backed by the yakuza and their dirty money, no one has done a better job of running an MMA promotion than casino magnates Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, the majority owners of the UFC.

If the mark happens to be the casual fan being steered into buying an MMA card, so be it. Colonel Tom Parker might have paid girls to scream at Elvis’s early shows, but his product held up to scrutiny over time. No one is holding a gun to anyone’s head and forcing them to buy watered down PPV’s or watch lackluster cards.

On the other end, when the mark happens to be the fighters, it’s a much more serious issue. Successful promotions earn tremendous amounts of revenue from pay-per-view buys, television licensing, live gate, merchandise, and other streams. MMA fighters who don’t know or understand their value will continue to be taken for a ride.


(Look closely, and you can actually see suckers being born every minute. / Photo via Getty / For previous installments of Shill Em’ All, click here.)

By Brian J. D’Souza

Everyone has a vague idea of how three-card Monte works: a street hustler places three cards face-down. A mark is enticed into finding the money card. Using misdirection, subterfuge and distraction, the hustler dupes the mark into picking the wrong card over and over. Sometimes a “shill” aids the hustler by playing the game and making it appear winnable.

The fight game is a similar hustle where many MMA journalists often play the role of the shill. Rather than being independent, certain MMA outlets and journalists are working in concert with the promoter to achieve a specific aim. Often, the promoter is buying publicity for their product, which is fair game considering that running an MMA promotion is a brutal marketplace where only the fittest survive.

Speaking in direct reference to a then-SiriusXM radio personality Scott Ferrall being paid a talent fee to attend UFC shows, UFC president Dana White said, “Believe me, in building this business, we had to do some things.”

It’s critical for an event promoter to spend money on the front end — including giving incentives to journalists — so that they can make money on the back end. Sports leagues require massive amounts of capital, as well as leaders capable of executing a clear vision; save for the spectacular Japanese league PRIDE FC that was backed by the yakuza and their dirty money, no one has done a better job of running an MMA promotion than casino magnates Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, the majority owners of the UFC.

If the mark happens to be the casual fan being steered into buying an MMA card, so be it. Colonel Tom Parker might have paid girls to scream at Elvis’s early shows, but his product held up to scrutiny over time. No one is holding a gun to anyone’s head and forcing them to buy watered down PPV’s or watch lackluster cards.

On the other end, when the mark happens to be the fighters, it’s a much more serious issue. Successful promotions earn tremendous amounts of revenue from pay-per-view buys, television licensing, live gate, merchandise, and other streams. MMA fighters who don’t know or understand their value will continue to be taken for a ride.

The number one negotiable expense promoters have is the fighter payroll. For instance, when Floyd Mayweather Jr. faced Victor Ortiz in 2011, his paycheck was estimated at around $40 million dollars; as the promoter, he graciously paid Ortiz, the B-side of the main event, $2 million. In the shell game of MMA journalism, media shills have a critical role in ignoring the most basic question — not merely what fighter pay is, but rather, what is fighter pay in relation to a promotion’s net revenue?


(All sports journalism, pretty much.)

It’s easy for a journalist to write an article that relays the sanitized version of news sanctioned by the promotion. All it involves is cutting and pasting the disclosed payouts from athletic commissions, parroting the party line about how stringently fighters are drug tested in MMA, and participating in the circular argument about how to make the useless UFC rankings work better. As professor of cultural research at the University of Western Sydney David Rowe noted, sports journalists in general are more like a fan club that panders to popular opinion without digging too deep into investigative reporting.

MMA promoters aren’t exclusive in their attempts to control the media, either. The NFL’s Washington Redskins recently attracted negative attention for giving media outlets partnered with the team preferential access. According to an insightful piece in the Washington Post, the Redskins collect seven-figure annual fees from media partners NBC4 and CSN. As could be expected, the Redskins media partners gave the boilerplate statement that they would never compromise their reporting.

The unsubstantiated rumor that incited our entire Shill ‘Em All series was a post on Reddit that claimed the UFC was directly paying expenses for MMAJunkie.com in exchange for favorable coverage of the UFC in USA Today. While I never found a smoking gun tying the UFC to USA Today/MMAJunkie like Tim Marchman of Deadspin.com did to tie VICE’s Fightland section to the UFC, I did talk to many high-level MMA reporters and editors who tipped me off to simpler, more obvious connections between the UFC and favorable relationships with certain media outlets — ads.

All a fight promotion would need to do is have one of its major sponsors place ads in a publication in exchange for favorable coverage of the promotion. Consider why a major brand and UFC sponsor like Harley Davidson would advertise with MMAJunkie — or even more blatantly obvious, the UFC-sponsored content on MMAJunkie.

Probing these issues and trying to learn more about the “USA Today UFC Group” that does the ads for UFC.com has been a challenging experience. MMAJunkie editor-in-chief Dann Stupp would not respond for comment. MMAJunkie reporter John Morgan referred me to Mary Byrne, the managing editor of USA Today’s sports section. Byrne gave the boilerplate denial that the UFC had any editorial pull with USA Today/MMAJunkie and referred me to senior vice president of USA Today Leagues and Properties Merrill Squires to answer questions about the “USA Today UFC Group.” Squires has been unresponsive to queries so far.


(UFC.com, “Part of the USA Today UFC Group.”)

MMA journalism isn’t getting any easier to do. At the end of 2013, ESPN.com released reporters Josh Gross and Franklin McNeil. The bright spot counterbalancing this decline in MMA coverage is that FoxSports.com brought Mike Chiappetta, Marc Raimondi and Damon Martin aboard. The UFC deal with FOX gives the television network clear incentive to promote MMA through all of its properties, but it seems unlikely that we’ll ever see news coverage like ESPN’s Outside the Lines segment on UFC fighter pay from FOX or FoxSports.com.

Suppressing the truth still is a taxing game of whack-a-mole that the promoter can’t completely win, and the MMA media will get scooped time and time again by more impartial outlets. Recent statements from Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva illuminate a different truth from what the promoter is selling. St-Pierre’s controversial comments about insufficient drug-testing and the UFC being a monopoly came through a Quebec publication and were translated from his native French; Anderson’s comments about how he asks his wife to drive him around Los Angeles so he could cry without being seen by his kids were given in Portuguese to Globo.

Many fans, pundits, and industry insiders truly believe that they have the supreme ability to separate fact from fiction and that they are impervious to the machinations of the promoter’s influence. Yet without Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva’s open and honest interviews, we would still have a Pollyanna-view of their respective situations. In a similar vein, without the unveiling of the WWE’s digital network, some MMA fans would not be able to see the flaws and shortcomings of the UFC’s Fight Pass.

As for the promoter, they don’t actually need to convince all of the people all of the time. They simply have to keep the game running, utilize misdirection through their shills, and continue raking in the mark’s money.

********

Brian J. D’Souza is the author of the recently published book Pound for Pound: The Modern Gladiators of Mixed Martial Arts. You can check out an excerpt right here.

Shill ‘Em All, Part 3: The ‘Almost Famous’ Fanboys of MMA Media


(“Jose Rosenberg, MMAFloorTurd.com. My question is for Johny Hendricks: Johny, will you please accept my friend request on Facebook?“)

To see the first two installments of Shill ‘Em All, click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.

By Brian J. D’Souza

All serious music aficionados know the true-life origins of Cameron Crowe’s 2000 movie Almost Famous: Like the young protagonist of the movie, Crowe worked for Rolling Stone magazine, spending three weeks on the road with the Allman Brothers Band at the age of 18.

The ongoing theme of Almost Famous has to do with the loss of focus and objectivity 15-year old music journalist William Miller experiences when he gets up close and personal with fictional rock band Stillwater.

“Just make us look cool” the band tells Miller as they attempt to coerce favorable coverage that will further enhance their music career. This raises the question of personal bias in journalism — in our case, what happens when MMA reporters get too close to their subjects?

The first time I met Georges St-Pierre at the Tristar Gym in 2008, I was so in awe of his stature as a champion that I overlooked red flags concerning his management. I wrote a good story — a 2,000-word profile for a Canadian men’s magazine about his arc from bullied schoolboy to UFC champion. While I may have even elicited several good quotes about his childhood and time working as a garbage man, there were many grisly details that lay beneath the surface that I would discover in the coming years.

It’s easy for media members to project themselves onto MMA fighters. It starts with a delusion (“I could be him!”) and escalates into other false premises (“I am special, too!”). Numerous reporters have courted love affairs with fighters — both figurative and literal — and astute fans can spot the signs of favoritism from miles away: reporters using their platform to name-drop, rationalize a fighter’s flaws, or minimize criticism of said fighter.


(“Jose Rosenberg, MMAFloorTurd.com. My question is for Johny Hendricks: Johny, will you please accept my friend request on Facebook?“)

To see the first two installments of Shill ‘Em All, click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.

By Brian J. D’Souza

All serious music aficionados know the true-life origins of Cameron Crowe’s 2000 movie Almost Famous: Like the young protagonist of the movie, Crowe worked for Rolling Stone magazine, spending three weeks on the road with the Allman Brothers Band at the age of 18.

The ongoing theme of Almost Famous has to do with the loss of focus and objectivity 15-year old music journalist William Miller experiences when he gets up close and personal with fictional rock band Stillwater.

“Just make us look cool” the band tells Miller as they attempt to coerce favorable coverage that will further enhance their music career. This raises the question of personal bias in journalism — in our case, what happens when MMA reporters get too close to their subjects?

The first time I met Georges St-Pierre at the Tristar Gym in 2008, I was so in awe of his stature as a champion that I overlooked red flags concerning his management. I wrote a good story — a 2,000-word profile for a Canadian men’s magazine about his arc from bullied schoolboy to UFC champion. While I may have even elicited several good quotes about his childhood and time working as a garbage man, there were many grisly details that lay beneath the surface that I would discover in the coming years.

It’s easy for media members to project themselves onto MMA fighters. It starts with a delusion (“I could be him!”) and escalates into other false premises (“I am special, too!”). Numerous reporters have courted love affairs with fighters — both figurative and literal — and astute fans can spot the signs of favoritism from miles away: reporters using their platform to name-drop, rationalize a fighter’s flaws, or minimize criticism of said fighter.

To avoid falling into the trap of being overly-admiring of an MMA fighter is easier said than done — many video journalists like MMA HEAT’s Karyn Bryant have to stroke an interview subject’s ego in order to get them to open up. This is a typical habit of entertainment reporters (Byrant’s got her start in television working at MTV) where celebrities are worshiped like gods. But this approach can become a problem when the ego isn’t the only thing being stroked, as was evidenced during Bryant’s now-infamous “motorboating” interview with Quinton Jackson.

That was an uncomfortable example of a fighter getting too friendly with an interviewer, and Bryant was quick to defend it on the basis that she likes Jackson on a personal level. Of course, that kind of touchy-feeliness can go the other way, when an interviewer is clearly thrilled to be in the same room as his favorite fighter:

Some media members, like CombatLifestyle.com photographer Tracy Lee, have made appearing in their own photos/videos partying or vacationing alongside MMA fighters the centerpiece of their portfolio. Narcissism and self-promotion are standard practices for many entertainment reporters — in television or video, your calling cards are your looks and persona. Despite this, the most in-demand personalities in combat sports remain those who are adept at interviewing and analysis, like the kind provided by Ariel Helwani, Joe Rogan, or Larry Merchant.

Often, prominent MMA fighters or personalities have a special relationship with a media outlet, like how CagePotato.com sponsors female MMA fighter Rose Namajunas, and has employed a variety of fighters as guest columnists. While this wouldn’t necessarily cause objectivity about those fighters to fly out the window, there would definitely be more considerate coverage given to their triumphs and failures.

On the flipside of the coin in terms of journalistic bias, many prominent athletes harbor grudges against media members who direct unfair criticism in their direction. It’s rare that fighters speak out due to their dependence on the media, but it does happen from time to time. For example, during the UFC 101 conference call to promote the BJ Penn vs. Kenny Florian main event, Penn vented anger towards MMA news sites MMAWeekly.com, Sherdog.com and MMAJunkie.com over what he perceived as negative coverage in the aftermath of his fight at UFC 94 against Georges St-Pierre.

“That’s just it — I don’t like how Sherdog, MMA Weekly, MMA Junkie — how all you guys — portrayed me after the GSP fight. I’m done working with you guys,” said BJ during the call.

Chief among BJ’s criticism of the media? His complaint to the Nevada State Athletic Commission had contained a line (inserted by BJ’s overzealous lawyer) about fighters ingesting a pill that could make their skin greasy, and BJ felt that the aforementioned news sites had put too much of their focus on that point rather than the clear evidence that St-Pierre had greased, inadvertently or intentionally, in their fight.

The access reporters have can cross over into cyber stalking and inappropriate behavior, as evidenced by Examiner.com’s Eric Holden. Female MMA fighters Stephanie Skinner and Cassie Robb gave an interview in May of this year where they provided texts from Holden that including messages like “ur kissy pics give me a boner,” “if I went down on someone and that was it, I feel like…they wouldn’t be fully satisfied,” and “have a threesome with a guy.” (You can see all of Holden’s cringe-worthy texts right here.)

Holden’s work often focuses on the sexy side of female fighters. When Bellator ring card girl Jade Bryce posted an Instagram of Holden buying her a slice of pizza, he wrote an entire blog post about the incident to glorify the moment and preserve it forever. Which brings up another message from Almost Famous: When you’re not objective, you’re no better than a groupie — someone trying to make your name off of the star with no discernible talents of your own.


(Eric Holden, “reporter.” / Photo via Examiner.com)

If MMA personalities like BJ Penn or Stephanie Skinner feel aggrieved by the way they are portrayed by the MMA media, they have limited options in terms of defending themselves. Lesser-known MMA figures would suffer if they didn’t do all the press available — sponsorships, ticket sales and new gigs are all reliant on getting your name out there. Even BJ Penn’s cut of pay-per-view sales could be diminished if he cut major news outlets out of a media tour promoting his fights.

Pro boxer, analyst, writer and trainer John “The Iceman” Scully has special insight into dissonance between the media and fighters, alluding to the lack of empathy the media shows as a result of their sheltered life experiences.

“I happen to know for a fact that many boxers secretly despise certain members of the media who are frequently disrespectful towards them in print,” Scully told me. “Many media members I’ve talked to seem to think it is just business and nothing personal but they need to understand that boxers take boxing very, very personal. It is such a deep part of who we are, unnecessary or seemingly tame attacks on us are often taken much more seriously than many realize. I’m not saying that writers should suck up to fighters and constantly write puff pieces, I’m just saying that the brashness they often show with their pens is unwarranted and is borne over time from the fact that they grow accustomed to witting things from within their office or home behind the computer without ever having to answer to it.”

The end result is usually hidden animosity towards MMA reporters that rarely gets sparked into flames visible to the public. Reporters can be oblivious to the resentment they cultivate.

As Scully relates in a poignant anecdote, “I’ll tell you something a former heavyweight champion personally told me about a very prolific writer who apparently, from what he wrote that same week in an article, thought he and this former champ were close buddies. The champ told me that ‘If I could get away with it I would push that m*****f***** down a flight of stairs.’”

The few times we’ve seen figures in the MMA world publically complain about their treatment by the media likely only represents the visible tip of the iceberg. Conversely, there are times when an MMA figure will say or do something that merits criticism, like being caught using performance enhancers or making misogynistic comments, and the media has to write something unflattering about them.

Perhaps the character of Lester Bangs from Almost Famous gave the most important advice that’s applicable to MMA journalists:

“You CANNOT make friends with the rock stars. That’s what’s important. If you’re a rock journalist — first, you will never get paid much. But you will get free records from the record company. And they’ll buy you drinks, you’ll meet girls, they’ll try to fly you places for free, offer you drugs…I know. It sounds great. But they are not your friends. These are people who want you to write sanctimonious stories about the genius of the rock stars, and they will ruin rock and roll and strangle everything we love about it.”

People like Dana White, the Fertittta brothers, and star fighters like GSP are the “rock stars” of the MMA universe. There certainly are perks like tickets, parties and paying gigs that can tempt MMA journalists — but nothing is given away freely in this game. “Quid pro quo” translates into “This for that” — in our case, the promotions, fighters and assorted personalities in MMA are entitled to coverage — but we as journalists have to work harder to ensure that what we write is fair, accurate and in the spirit of bettering the sport of MMA.

Above all else, if I’m in a building with an MMA fighter or promoter, and the elevator doesn’t work and no one else is around, I’ll be gracious and let them walk down the stairs first.

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Brian J. D’Souza is the author of the recently published book Pound for Pound: The Modern Gladiators of Mixed Martial Arts. You can check out an excerpt right here.