The Fascination of What’s Difficult
An aging ex-champion has the audacity to go into the ring in clearly addled condition and take people’s PPV money to get knocked out in a matter of seconds? In a big hyped rematch no less? Man this is just further indication that the UFC is all about money and hype. This sport is slowly dying.
I can’t help but feel that, had it been a boxing match, I would have seen a lot more criticism of Saturday night’s Liddell/Jackson UFC debacle along the lines of the above paragraph. A disappointing high-profile fight in the boxing arena is always immediate cause for a spirited round of the standard, embittered elegies that seem to pop up everywhere in the media whenever the topic of boxing comes up.
For the time being, it seems the MMA universe is spared such scrutiny, no doubt a function of its relative youth. Boxing carries with it the burden of its history – it’s hard to argue that the sport has diminished considerably as a cultural force when you look back and see that once upon a time a big prizefight could draw, oh, 140,000 people or so to a stadium (Dempsey/Tunney II), among them senators, former Presidents, robber barons and just about every other boldface name in existence.
Of course, the UFC has no such glorious past to be juxtaposed against its comparatively tawdry present. It’s a young sport on the rise, unhampered by the burden of expectations, because people don’t even quite know what to expect from it yet. But I warn you – all too soon it will face much of the same kind of criticism that boxing does. Soon it will fact the hard facts about fighting as entertainment. I haven’t watched quite enough UFC fights to know this for sure, but I have in my life watched countless boxing fights, not to mention an equal number of judo and taekwondo matches. So I feel like I’m qualified to make this generalization about the combat arts – a great fight, whatever the form, is an exceedingly rare thing, and you can’t hype it into existence or make it happen merely by putting it on PPV.
As expectations rise and hype gathers around these UFC events, disappointment is inevitable. Then I suspect that the sport, just like boxing, will be left with its cadre of genuinely devoted fans, those of us who understand that the fact that great fights are so rare and mercurial is exactly what makes them so truly great. It all comes down to what a grizzled old fight fan of another era termed “the fascination of what’s difficult,” the pursuit of which has driven much greater men than us completely out of their gourds.
The fascination of what’s difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart. There’s something ails our colt
That must, as if it had not holy blood
Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road-metal. My curse on plays
That have to be set up in fifty ways,
On the day’s war with every knave and dolt,
Theatre business, management of men.
I swear before the dawn comes round again
I’ll find the stable and pull out the bolt.
May 28th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
I am not sure who wrote that opening quote but they clearly aren’t MMA fans if they thought that was a bad fight/event. First off, and I hate to sound like a broken record here, but for 40 bucks I got 6 great fights. I don’t care if some last 48 seconds or 5 minutes. For 3 straight hours I was thoroughly entertained.
Now, as for the main event, sure I told everyone that I had feeling Rampage would win but I after seeing it actually happen I was just as shocked had I predicted a Liddell victory. The most amazing part of the fight was that Rampage beat him at his own game. No one expected that considering how their last fight went down 4 long years ago. And to call Liddell an aging champion is a little off. It’s not like he won a bunch of decisions leading up to this fight. All his title defenses were won via KO or TKO.
I have yet to read one negative review of this show from true MMA experts/fans. They are all universally praising this show because not only was a new champion crowned but a new star was born (Houston Alexander), and the main undercard fight (Burkman vs. Parisyan) more than lived up to the hype. And had this event truly not lived up to the hype every sports fan out there who hates the fact that UFC is getting so much love in the press would have been quick to rip on it (considering they actually watched the PPV). There are more people out there that want to see this sport fail than succeed. That’s why it took ESPN this long to cover it and why HBO is stalling on doing so.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:34 am
This was the first fight I ever saw, maybe because it was the first one retransmitted on french tv. People in Europe are much bigger fans of K-1 than of MMA. And frankly, I’m just glad I didn’t pay to see this. 2 minutes and a single punch and the fight is over. I hope next time it lasts longer. I was feeling bad for the commentators because they didn’t get to talk about the smaller fights. They hyped this thing for 20 minutes and it’s done in 2.
And in the words of my mom after the Tyson-Mcneeley fight “Over already? Don’t ever wake me up for this again”
May 29th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
OKLAHOMA CITY — Micheal Ray Richardson, a former University of Montana and NBA player whose anti-Semitic comments to a newspaper last season drew a suspension from the CBA, was hired Thursday as the head coach of the Oklahoma City Cavalry.
Richardson coached the Albany Patroons to the Continental Basketball Association championship series but was suspended after Game 1, when the league began investigating a report that he told the Times Union of Albany he had “big-time Jew lawyers” working for him.
Richardson, 52, was cleared by the league earlier this month and allowed to return to coaching, but Albany had already decided not to renew his contract.
“It was totally blown out of proportion,” Richardson said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “It’s over. Life goes on, you know what I mean? It was totally, totally, totally false.”
Richardson said he has a lawsuit pending against the newspaper but is looking forward to a new start and another chance to win a championship.
“I really want to win it this year. I really, really want to win it,” said Richardson, who was suspended for the final two games of the Yakama Sun Kings’ three-game sweep. “I was so close last year, but I really want to win it this year.”
Baron Hopgood, the owner of the newly formed Cavalry, a CBA team, said he considers Richardson cleared of any misconduct and views him as a proven CBA coach who understands the strategy needed to win in the league’s system.
“I like those type of edgy individuals because they get the attention of the players and the media,” Hopgood said.
The fourth overall pick in the 1978 NBA draft, Richardson was a four-time All-Star before he was banned in 1986 for violating the league’s drug policy three times. He played eight seasons with the New York Knicks, Golden State Warriors and New Jersey Nets.
Richardson won a CBA championship as a player for Albany in 1988. He has also played in Europe and said he lives in southern France.
“The object of the game is to win. I want to win,” Richardson said. “Every quarter of every game I want to win.”
Hopgood said the Cavalry intend to play in Oklahoma City until the city becomes home to an NBA franchise. The CBA has already given permission to the franchise to move to a location in Texas if that occurs.
It’s not clear where the Cavalry will play its home games. Hopgood said that the team would use Oklahoma City University’s Abe Lemons Arena, but OCU athletic spokesman Rich Tortorelli said Thursday night that would not be the case.
“We’re not here to try to compete with the NBA,” Hopgood said. “We’re just here to keep the excitement, as a conduit until the league comes.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
There was a pretty negative article about this on Deadspin today, with the implication being that regardless of how good the action was for the hardcore, it’s never good when a “star” gets hyped up and then gets knocked on his duff by somebody that nobody was really talking about.
Of course the true MMA fans are going to be happy about it, for the same reason that boxing fans would be happy about a similar lineup of fights for a PPV broadcast. With MMA getting its big push, the question is how the market reacts, which is not the hardcore types.