UFC IN AUSTRALIA - By Paul Jones
As you may or may not know, an article has been doing the rounds recently regarding the proposed UFC show to be held in February at Sydney’s ACER arena. The topic of UFC and combat sports regulation in general always causes lively and aggressive debate with both sides accusing the other of being ignorant and ill informed and it would seem that this article is no exception.
The article entitled “Cage rage coming here” (Which can be viewed in full at http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/cage-rage-coming-here/2009/10/10/1255019652968.html) has had numerous allegations of ignorance and bias levelled against it, including a formal response by Australian UFC fighter Elvis Sinosic.
The article does appear to be another hodge podge of buzzwords, ill researched information and various statements about how this will be the downfall of society as we know it and that even speaking the letters UFC will cause the terrorists to win and the cute girl who serves you at McDonalds to throw your number in the garbage after you spent weeks getting up the courage to give it to her.
I’ve decided to single out a few of the less subtle quotes from the article and make annotations and points where I thought they were applicable.
THE sport described by critics as "human cockfighting" is coming to a stadium near you, despite warnings that US-style cage fighting will fuel more violence on the city's streets.
The actual “Human cockfighting” quote was attributed to Senator John McCain at some point in the mid 90’s, prior to acquisition of the company by Zuffa LLC and the subsequent reform of the rules governing the sport of MMA in the United States. As for the fuelling of violence on city streets line, it is a perfect example of using an existing societal issue with no obvious specific cause or resolution and transferring its emotional response to the cause you are trying to champion.
Despite the sport being banned in 10 US states, There is a distinct difference between not being regulated and being “Banned”. In Crawford Nebraska they banned women who are single, widowed, or divorced from parachuting on Sunday. This is not entirely relevant to my point but I had Wikipedia open anyway.
Competitors are permitted to pin an opponent to the floor and punch or elbow them into unconsciousness in a move known as "pound and ground" (Did Michael Cole ghost write this article?). UFC rules explicitly ban fighters avoiding contact (Obviously didn’t watch the Starnes/Quarry fight), faking injury or throwing in the towel, while the absence of a blood rule often leaves the octagon looking more like an abattoir.
The regulations on “Throwing in the towel” according to the unified rules currently being used by various state athletic commissions “Corner stoppage: a fighter's corner men may announce defeat on the fighter's behalf by throwing in the towel during the match in progress or between rounds.” I do find the whole “Faking injury” part rather interesting. By their logic it would seem unfair to deny a fighter the right to fake being hurt. If that was done in a soccer match they would have all manner of epithets directed at them by comparison.
Also faking an injury does come under the broad umbrella of throwing in the towel. You can easily tell the ref you hurt yourself and are unable to continue. The blood rule is more in relation to team sports whilst MMA adheres to the standard combat sports rule where a fight can be stopped if the bleeding is affecting the contestant’s vision or is seen as an immediate health risk, subject to the referee’s discretion Health experts have condemned UFC plans to introduce the contentious sport into Australia. "It's madness. If this was the animal world, the RSPCA would come down on you like a ton of bricks," said leading neurologist Professor Mark Cook of St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne.
The concept of free will is rather important to this quote. If animals are thrown into a pit and forced to fight to the death against their will it is essentially cock fighting, however if you have two animals fighting to the death of their own volition then it’s called a nature documentary. By the way, madness is dogs and cats living together, not two consenting adults punching each other for money.
"This is the last thing we need to be importing," said Professor Rob White from the University of Tasmania. "UFC may have an even bigger impact than other forms of violence because it is a blood sport where we make heroes out of people who bash each other."
As opposed to making heroes out of sportsmen who evacuate their bowels in hotel stairwells and glass their girlfriends? I do like the blood sport reference by the way. Would be nice to see a fighter cut a promo saying “You break my record. Now I break you. Like I break your friend”. That and I think monkey style is an underrepresented fighting style in this day and age. I’d also like to see the octagon replaced with that whacky mattress looking thing that was tilted up at each end, although that is too similar to that whole YAMMA contraption that was such a horrendous failure.
Overall with this article I would have liked some clarification as to whether their issue is with combat sports in general or just MMA. It is a tiny detail but I do believe it is a rather telling one, I can understand somebody being for or against the whole spectrum of combat sports but things can get very complicated once you start debating the merits and safety of one vs the other.
I’d also like to point out at this stage that this article was written by no less than 3 people, which is never a good sign. In comparison, Herbie: Fully loaded had 4 credited writers and several ghost writers and was pretty much the beginning of the end for Lindsay Lohan; however you could make the case that she was doomed regardless of her choice in child friendly car themed movies. I’m digressing here but my basic thought is that out of three people you’d think one of them would have spent 5 minutes on Google fact checking.
There is bound to be a lot more discussion, debate and conjecture in between now and when the UFC show eventually takes place in February. The UFC and their fans will probably be accused of everything from hedge burning to virgin sacrifice and in turn the detractors will most likely be accused of being virgins. Regardless of which side of the debate you are on at the very least do a little bit of research and try to understand where the other side is coming from. Who knows, we may actually learn something.
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