The following is the first in a three-part series examining violence in sports, and its role in society.
We all know the benefits sports bring to our world. The classic and predictable clichés abound: “Sports build character, teach athletes to bounce back from defeat, and keep kids off the street.”
I’m not denying these and other sayings hold some credence. In many cases, they do. But let’s not kid ourselves: Like all major corporations, sporting institutions have their imperfections.
In athletics, the primary commodity that is labeled with a value is the human body. Bodies are manipulated by athletes themselves and those vested in promoting their commodities in hope of maximizing a financial return.
In other words, get as much out of the body for the longest time frame possible without risking a future loss on that investment. It’s a cynical reality of capitalism, and sports are hardly immune from falling into our economy’s pitfalls.
At some point, we need to ask if our societal obsession with athletics pushed the industry too far. In addition to the outrageous salaries prevalent in some professional sports, we need to question why we celebrate—even revere—various dimensions of violence.
Are our daily lives so mundane and saturated with occupational stress that we come to crave time off simply so we may fall into the foray of sporting violence?
I have to ask myself this question all the time. My fascination with mixed martial arts (MMA) made me question if I was a violent person, sucked into the spectacle of fighting as a sport. But as I entered the MMA world, I came to learn more vividly that sports in general tend to be violent, and, further, that sporting violence does not discriminate. No matter how invincible an athlete may seem, everyone is vulnerable.
Athletes, coaches, and fans generally don’t know how serious or pervasive concussions are in certain sports. Remember former Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Trent Green's head bouncing fiercely off the ground in a 2006 game, or his head colliding with a Houston Texans lineman’s knee the following year (Battista, 2007)?
Both of those injuries were Grade 3 concussions, the most severe. Research on NFL retirees has shown that those players who sustained three or more concussions during their career were significantly more likely to fall into clinical levels of depression later in life for no apparent reason other than the concussions (Schwarz, 2007a).
And it’s not just at the professional level. About 10 percent of all youths who play football and hockey report sustaining a concussion every year. For kids, suffering from a concussion is especially problematic. If a child sustains a concussion, the younger he or she is, the easier it will be for him or her to sustain a subsequent one, and the next concussion has a greater chance of being more severe (Schwarz, 2007b).
What’s worse, athletes rarely tell others when they have a head injury out of fear that coaches and teammates will ridicule them as weak (Essoyan, 2007), so, actually, the percentage of youth suffering from sporting concussions is higher than we realize.
It’s not just sports that tend to be popular with males, either. Girls and women who play soccer sustain concussions at the same rate as football players, and the rates are very high for girls’/women’s basketball as well (Sokolove, 2008). Not to mention the fact that, in those two sports, the rates of ACL tears for females are disturbingly high. In fact, females are two times more likely than males to tear an ACL playing soccer and three times more likely playing basketball (Arendt, Agel, & Dick, 1999).
And while medical technology has made it easier for athletes to recover from knee injuries, the long-term effects of knee ligament damage can be very detrimental.
“Blowing out an ACL can end a girl’s sports career, but doctors have also suspected that the injury sets the stage for osteo-arthritis, a degenerative joint disease that typically strikes older people” (Fackelmann, 2004, p. 9D).
And even young children are suffering from torn ACLs due to an over-emphasis in sports these days (Neegaard, 2008)!
At the elite levels in gymnastics—a sport that evokes celebrated images of Mary Lou Retton and Kerri Strug among mainstream Americans—women and girls suffer from ankle, wrist, and back injuries, many of which are chronic. Said one study of gymnastics, “as the skill level increases, the load during the workout will also increase, providing more opportunity for chronic injuries” (Meeusen & Borms, 1992, p. 337).
In fact, one woman I interviewed who's transitioned from gymnastics to MMA says that, although both sports are dangerous, gymnastics was a far more risky sport (Avila, 2008). Even cheerleading can be extraordinarily dangerous.
“Of 104 catastrophic injuries sustained by female high school and college athletes from 1982 to 2005—head and spinal trauma that occasionally led to death—more than half resulted from cheerleading” (Pennington, 2007).
And let’s not forget boxing. Those who recently witnessed Manny Pacquiao pummel David Diaz into virtual unconsciousness for nine rounds must know the vicious brutality of many boxing matches (Mayeda, 2008). However, even matches that do not end via some form of knockout can have horrible lasting effects.
Due to the constant head strikes in competition and practice, 17 percent of all professional boxers end up “punch drunk” (with chronic traumatic brain injury) in their elder years (Lewis, 2006). Not to mention the fact a handful of boxers consistently die each year during or immediately after a match (Newfield, 2001).
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge sports fan, and I can see how some may read this piece as a scathing critique of our sporting culture. It’s just that, having been a competitive athlete through college, I have seen the risks.
Some may argue these risks are outweighed by the benefits sports bring to our society by way of promoting pro-social values and providing entertainment. Furthermore, people get injured doing all kinds of fun activities. It is simply important to view both sides of the coin.
Violence is exhibited in many forms. Sporting injuries are merely one manifestation of violence that our society readily accepts and too often celebrates. In 2003, approximately 205,000 children between the ages of 5 and 14 had to go to an emergency room for an injury sustained while playing basketball, and 185,000 for an injury while playing football (Hospitals & Health Networks, 2006).
To say our society does not value the inherent physical violence of some sports would be remiss. It is critical that parents, coaches, administrators, and athletes know the risks that accompany strapping on a helmet, lacing up athletic shoes, and putting on combat sport gloves prior to competition.
Injury prevention means preparing for the risks beforehand. And, to be frank, we need to value athletes’ health more than we value the violence permeating our sporting world.
David Mayeda, PhD, is lead author of Fighting for Acceptance: Mixed Martial Artists and Violence in American Society, the first political book on mixed martial arts, based on in-depth interviews with 40 mixed martial artists, including Randy Couture, “Rampage” Jackson, Dan Henderson, Guy Mezger, Chris Leben, Antonio McKee, Frank Trigg, and Travis Lutter. The book’s Forward is written by Jason “MayheM” Miller.
Part two, "Sporting Violence: The Coaches and Parents," will be posted Wednesday.
Non-internet References:
Arendt, E.A., Agel, J., & Dick, R. (1999). Anterior cruciate ligament injury patterns among collegiate men and women. Journal of Athletic Training, 34 (2), 86-92.
Fackelmann, K. (2004 October 7). Girls’ knee injuries have later consequences. USA Today, p. 9D.
Hospitals & Health Networks. (2006). Youth sports: a trip to the injured lists? H&HN: Hospitals & Health Networks, 80 (9), 22-22.
Lewis, R. (2006). Why haven’t we banned boxing? Neurology, 6 (23), 5-6.
Meeusen, R., & Borms, J. (1992). Gymnastics injuries. Sports Med, 13 (5), 337-356.
Newfield, J. (2001 November 12). The shame of boxing. The Nation, p. 13-22.
Schwarz, A. (2007a May 31). An answer to help clear his fog. The New York Times, p. D7.
Schwarz, A. (2007b October 2). Girls are often neglected victims of concussions. The New York Times, p. A1, A20.
Sokolove, M. (2008). Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women’s Sports. New York: Simon & Schuster.
I recently read two excellent articles by Danny Acosta and Sam Sheridan that support mixed martial arts (MMA) in the midst of what has been a
period of MMA bashing. True, MMA has endured its share of harsh, often
times unfair media criticism for quite some time, and this will not
stop any time soon. Nevertheless, these past few weeks have been
particularly brutal. In support of Acosta’s and Sheridan’s work, I
thought I would offer some additional input.
MMA has been fighting to gain acceptance in the
mainstream sports world for well over a decade. Not surprisingly,
while clearing another hurdle by debuting on network television, MMA
was simultaneously met with an array of journalists (both sports and
non-sports oriented), who bashed the sport while citing virtually no
research.
The general public frequently relies on
journalists to provide both accurate and objective information. As we
all know, the media plays a colossal role in shaping public opinion.
Consequently, it is essential that the information fed to us is precise
and that media figureheads who present their opinions are
well-informed. The logic behind this is so basic that it hardly needs
to be stated and provokes the question of why credible media would
offer unfounded reports and opinions.
Reaction to CBS’s airing of MMA on primetime
television prompted journalists to make a number of unfounded
statements, both before and after the May 31, 2008 event. Here are
just three examples from various media outlets that have different
reach and target audiences:
Example One: “If what's going to happen on CBS on Saturday night were to happen out
on the playground, somebody would be jailed before the nightwas over
... An article in ESPN The Magazine that's overwhelmingly favorable
about MMA describes it as ‘human cockfighting.’” (Scott Pierce, May 30, 2008, Deseret News; note: typographical error was in original article).
Response: Asserting that someone would be arrested for carrying out a MMA move on
another in a playground illustrates Pierce’s ignorance and lack of
doing his homework. Had he interviewed any MMA instructors for his
story, he would have found that just like traditional martial arts
schools, MMA coaches explicitly tell their students not to
use the lessons learned outside of the schools. The latter half of his
above statement reads that ESPN The Magazine describes MMA as “human
cockfighting.” Pierce’s statement here is flat out inaccurate. The
ESPN The Magazine story stated others (namely John McCain) previously
referred to MMA in that manner. It is amazing that the Deseret News’ editors let him get away with such sloppy journalism.
Example Two: “...whatever this is, it sure isn’t in the same realm with boxing. This
is boxing like the demolition derby is auto racing” (Bryan Burwell, June 4, 2008, NBC Sports).
Response: Truthfully, with the exception of the Carano-Young and Lawler-Smith
matches, I did not appreciate EliteXC’s debut on CBS either, at least
from a planning and production standpoint (I do respect a majority of
the athletes). However, in this article, Burwell also says he has
watched the UFC and WEC, so he claims to have at least some additional
MMA exposure. In addition to the overall tenor of his essay being
laden with exaggerated analogies and lacking of any objectivity or
research, his article insinuates that MMA is more barbaric and
dangerous than boxing (he also brings up football in his essay). MMA
is dangerous; I have no qualms with that statement. However, about 17%
of all pro boxers end up punch drunk (with chronic traumatic brain
injury; Lewis, 2006). That is about one out of every seven! Research
shows that retired NFL players who sustained three or more concussions
while in competition are significantly more likely to end up with
chronic depression in their post-sporting years (Schwarz, 2007). And
it is not just men’s collision sports where we see high injury rates.
Research has shown that female teens who play basketball are eight times more likely to tear their ACL’s than their male counterparts, and that
females in other sports, such as soccer and gymnastics have
significantly higher rates of ACL tears than males (Mann, 2001).
If Burwell would like to question our overall sporting culture as
dangerous and exploitive, that would be fine. But his choice to only
target MMA demonstrates his choice neither to contextualize sporting
violence at a broader level nor to do the research which shows that a
multitude of sports have high rates of severe injuries, which can have
life-long effects.
Example Three: “Television has always been a business. It’s been about money from day
one and I don’t have any problem at all with that part of it. So from
a business point of view, CBS made a good decision. They got good
numbers with their key demographic – young men. But there’s a big
difference ... between good ratings and good taste ... in the long run,
this kind of stuff that cheapens and coarsens and dumbs down the
culture is also gonna harm us ... one of these days, somebody is gonna
get killed in this sport, and the executives at CBS are gonna hope it
happens while they’re broadcasting the match...” – Fox News Analyst
Bernard Goldberg (The O’Reilly Factor, discussing EliteXC’s broadcast on CBS).
Response: Likewise, it is clear the use of extreme hyperbole is a tactic being
utilized here by Goldberg, again, based solely on his personal
assumptions with no supportive research. He states that television is
a business about money. Seems his own opinions and the way he expresses
them are colored by a desire for increased ratings as well.
It is not difficult for journalists to do a little
research or to utilize the resources at their workplaces do some
research for them. Isn't conducting research a prerequisite for
professional journalism? Or do these journalists care more about
making off the cuff statements that resonate with a more conservative
demographic than they care about reporting accuracy?
A few interviews I have conducted with mixed martial artists present a different perspective:
Antonio McKee (11/21/2006): For the politicians that call it human cockfighting, I don’t think that
if you surfaced up some of the dirt that the politicians are doing,
people would accept them as politicians ... The politicians make the
laws, the rules to support their campaign, whether it’s hurting the
poor people or the rich people. There’s always gonna be a victim. And
in this game, because I believe they don’t benefit from it yet, they’re
gonna call it human cockfighting. What’s the difference from boxing?
You get in a boxing match and you beat the [hell] out of each other
with a glove ... I think people gotta open up their capacity of
thinking and look at the big picture, not the small portion that
benefits them.
Randy Couture (9/26/2006): Well I think that anybody that takes the time to get past that initial
impression or to take a closer look at what’s going on when these
combatants step into that cage [will] realize there’s a lot more to
it. It’s not just human cock-fighting; it’s absolutely a sporting
event like any other sporting event. It just happens to be in a
combative environment. So people get hit. People get knocked out.
You know, it’s no different than boxing or kickboxing or any other
Olympic martial arts combative sport. So I don’t think those arguments
hold water for very long ... As far as other sports go, people want to
talk even about the sport of wrestling and all the weight cutting, but
no one mentions all these over weight football players that drop dead
from these two or three a day practices ... But because it’s a revenue
sport and it’s so much in the public eye, people don’t mention it as
much. And it’s kind of irritating and they’ll pick on our sport for no
particular reasons.
Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson (9/24/06): And in our sport, we can give up any time we want. We can give up if
we’re too tired, you know what I’m sayin’. If something’s hurt, we can
give up. In boxing, you’re not allowed to give up like that. That’s
like, looked down upon. So that’s why my sport, in my sport there’s
more to it than just trying to knock somebody out, you know, you can
try to get the referee to stop the fight by just getting [your
opponent] to not answer anything, and submitting him, and stuff like
that ... football [is] way more dangerous. Rugby, you ain’t got no
damn helmets on, or pads. I think my sport is probably safer than
soccer.
One might argue that the above quotes are biased,
given that they are being expressed by mixed martial artists
themselves. However, expertise by those in sports medicine have
advocated that MMA is not nearly as dangerous as the mainstream media
portrays it to be (see Part One and Part Two interviews with Dr. Johnny Benjamin).
Yes, MMA has its problems, as do all sports and
non-sporting organizations. Unfortunately, mainstream journalists are
attempting to create a moral panic over MMA by communicating
embellished rhetoric in hopes of bumping up their own ratings. Before
questioning MMA’s strategies used to entice viewership, perhaps first,
journalists should look at their own work and ask if it is based on
objective research, or simply on unfounded, ratings-motivated hype.
David Mayeda, PhD, is author of Fighting for Acceptance: Mixed Martial Artists and Violence in American Society,
the first research-based book that examines MMA from a political
standpoint, based on in-depth interviews with 40 mixed martial artists,
including Antonio McKee, Randy Couture, ‘Rampage’ Jackson, ‘MayheM’
Miller, Dan Henderson, Guy Mezger, Chris Leben, Frank Trigg, Travis
Lutter, and Chris and Mike Onzuka.
Non-internet Resources:
Lewis, R. (2006). Why haven’t we banned boxing? Neurology, Vol. 6 (23), 5-6.
Schwarz, A. (2007 May 31). An answer to help clear his fog. The New York Times, p. D7.
Politics cut across all social institutions, even those which we too frequently
feel are immune from political underpinnings, such as athletics.
Obviously, this will be all the more transparent when this summer’s
Olympic Games commence in Beijing, China. Among the innumerable
variables that have played into American sporting politics, race has
always been a major factor, and boxing exemplifies this racialized
history as well as any other sport.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Jack Johnson
won boxing's heavyweight crown, making him the first African American
to do so. With his athletic success, Johnson found himself the most
hated man in America. Flaunting an affinity for white women, Johnson
was characterized by white America as an example of African Americans’
so-called danger in society as a whole to white women’s “purity.”
Thus, boxing promoters at that time worked desperately to find “the
great white hope” who could dethrone Johnson and symbolically prove
African Americans’ alleged racial inferiority. They were
unsuccessful. Instead, Johnson was arrested in 1913 and charged with
offenses falling under the White Slave Traffic Act of 1910, known more
commonly as the Mann Act. According to Sammons (1990), “the law was so
worded that any man who crossed a state line with a woman other than
his wife and had sex with her could be prosecuted” (p. 43). Not
surprisingly, white men committing the same offense were never charged
with this crime.
Skip up to the 1960s and the era of Muhammad Ali.
Like Johnson, Ali was initially despised by conservative white
America. Ali, however, was hated more for his open disdain for
American prejudice and his association with the Nation of Islam.
Hence, the strategy used to bring down Ali was to identify a more
politically compliant African American heavyweight boxer who would
defeat Ali and symbolize what conservative Americans wanted from the
general African American populace during the Civil Rights Movement.
After the U.S. government stole what would likely have been Ali’s best
sporting years, Joe Frazier (who was hardly patriotic) and George
Foreman were utilized, ultimately unsuccessfully, in this manner.
By the time the 1980s rolled around, boxing began
to expand in racial dynamics, seen first through the emergence of
Mexican and Chicano boxers. From Roberto Duran to Oscar De La Hoya,
boxing saw a huge surge in the number of prominent boxers whose
familial ties were rooted in Mexico. And in the years following,
boxing’s international composition grew to the point where today, the
average American sports fan barely recognizes names of those who hail
as champions in the “sweet science.” Moving from heavyweight (the
Ukranian, Wladimir Klitschko) to junior lightweight (the Filipino,
Manny Pacquiao), boxing’s various organizations are comprised of many
athletes who do not resonate strongly with large pockets in American
society.
It is in this internationally-based era that mixed
martial arts (MMA) has entered the mainstream combat sport world. If
one looks through the ranks of the Ultimate Fighting Championship
(UFC), currently the largest and most successful MMA organization, one
can clearly see the racial and international diversity that
characterizes MMA:
* 155 lb. Champion: “The Prodigy” B.J. Penn (Native Hawaiian)
* 170 lb. Champion: Georges “Rush” St. Pierre (French Canadian)
* 185 lb. Champion: Anderson “Spider” Silva (Brazilian, of African descent)
* 205 lb. Champion: Quinton “Rampage” Jackson (African American)
* Hwt Champion: Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira (Brazilian)
When we account for the athletes’ composition and
the organization’s relatively small size, the UFC could very well be
the most racially and internationally diverse sporting organization in
the world. Of course, the UFC is not the only MMA organization.
On Saturday May 31, 2008, we witnessed an
over-hyped but widely viewed match between Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson
and James “The Colossus” Thompson. Slice, an African American from
Miami, toppled the British Thompson in controversial fashion. For the
purposes of this discussion, however, it is critical to examine how
through Slice, the MMA organization, EliteXC, is nurturing horrendous
racial stereotypes in order to drive ratings. Touted for his
underground street fights posted on the video sharing network,
YouTube.com, EliteXC has literally referred to Slice as an “internet
sensation.” Furthermore, EliteXC President, Gary Shaw, even made the
claim that Slice was "...the closest I've come to Mike Tyson" (Arritt, 2008).
Unfortunately, Tyson’s history in and out of sport cannot be
separated. Together, Tyson’s feared athleticism and criminal behaviors
have perpetuated deleterious images of African American men that rest
in Darwinian (i.e., supposed innate) racial stereotypes.
The Darwinian
drama has been kept alive by black athleticism in general and by black
prizefighters in particular. What the public career of Mike Tyson has
cost black Americans is incalculable in the literal sense of the term,
but it is reasonable to assume that his well-publicized brutalities in
and out of the ring have helped to preserve pseudo-evolutionary
fantasies about black ferocity that are still of commercial value to
fight promoters and their business partners in the media. (Hoberman, 1997, p. 209).
The obvious tie between Slice’s street fighting
past and his current endeavor in MMA further cements unfair notions of
African American men – that those who are big and athletically gifted
(a stereotype in itself) are also a menace to society (see also Granderson, 2008).
Even more noteworthy about Slice’s introduction to
mainstream America was that his competition against Thompson was
marketed by EliteXC and CBS and shown as the main event on MMA’s first
live broadcast on network television to over six million viewers.
While the more savvy MMA aficionado knows how intelligent and
insightful Slice is (he went to college on an academic scholarship), the inexperienced MMA viewer was introduced to Slice and
MMA predominantly via Slice's violent masculinity and physicality.
True, other men and women competed on this fight card who are of
various ethnic backgrounds, but it was Slice who competed as the main
attraction.
African American intellectuals have long held
mixed feelings about their ethnic groups’ perceived success in certain
sports. Elijah Muhammad, for example, felt that sport “harmed the
black community ... that white America had intentionally encouraged
blacks to participate in games in order to divert their attention from
the real source of their problems and keep them from advancing...”
(Wiggins, 1997, p. 166). And as hinted at above, the
over-representation of African Americans in some sports carries on the
belief that African Americans can make it athletically but not
intellectually.
The danger with Slice is that his marketing
revolves almost exclusively around a violent identity and directly ties
his past and present together as one continuous and inseparable violent
trajectory. Therefore, dismissing Slice’s intellectual capabilities
and continually mentioning his violent street fights still watched on
YouTube does the African American community a horrible disservice. In
fact, many in the MMA community feel that when traditional values of
martial arts are infused in MMA, the sport can have positive effects on
society that discourage street violence (Mayeda, Onzuka, & Onzuka, 2008).
Clearly, however, Slice is not being promoted in this manner. Instead,
promoters are simply using Slice to increase viewership largely by
relying on violent, racist impressions of African American men that
still resonate with far too many Americans.
Is is absolutely crucial that MMA organizations
and media partners think more clearly about the ways they are selling
their sport. If in fact they are arguing that MMA should be respected
as a sport and not correlated with ugly street violence, then they must
stop making such associations. In fact, they need to tangibly
illustrate the opposite - the numerous ways in which MMA is starkly
different from street violence. Moreover, MMA promoters and
organizations need to think more critically about the ways such violent
associations further racism and other forms of discrimination. Yes,
violence sells and racism sells. That's precisely the problem, so stop
perpetuating the problem simply to rake in more money.
David Mayeda, PhD, is lead author of the book, Fighting for Acceptance: Mixed Martial Artists and Violence in American Society,
the first politically- and research-based book on MMA, based on
interviews with 40 mixed martial artists, including Randy Couture,
Quinton Jackson, Dan Henderson, Guy Mezger, Antonio McKee, Jason
Miller, Frank Trigg, and Chris Leben.
Non-internet References:
Hoberman, J. (1997). Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Sammons, J.T. (1990). Beyond the Ring: The Role of Boxing in American Society. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Wiggins, D.K. (1997). Glory Bound: Black Athletes in a White America. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press.
In the Sunday May 18, 2008 edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, there was an important article on the recent development of adolescents in Hawaii who have been planning and holding fights and posting them on the internet, namely through the video sharing Web site YouTube. These fights were said to be happening predominantly out of school and sometimes for money. The article even stated that some of these teens’ parents were encouraging the fights as allegedly seen in the YouTube videos. The phenomenon, vividly visible in the attached picture, reminds us to some degree of the movie Never Back Down, which exploited mixed martial arts' (MMA) rising popularity. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin article can be seen HERE. In addition to parents occasionally supporting these youth fights, the article is particularly germane given Kevin (“Kimbo Slice”) Ferguson’s recent rise in fame in MMA and his underground YouTube fight videos from yester-year, especially because of the EliteXC MMA fight card that will be televised on CBS this coming Saturday (May 31, 2008).
Interestingly, the article briefly noted that some school officials were turning to Hawaii’s MMA community to help stop the fights. Consequently, Chris and Mike Onzuka and I authored THIS LETTER that was published in this past Sunday's edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (May 25, 2008). Obviously there are many community facets and organizations that can initiate responsibility in curbing youth violence - parents/families, schools, non-profits, the media, etc. Research has shown that no one entity alone will have a significant impact on reducing or preventing youth violence; there must be collaboration. Should MMA organizations be obligated to take responsibility as well, much like traditional martial arts schools? To read the article, click HERE, or just read below.
YouTube fight videos conflict with Mixed Martial Arts values
Last Sunday's Star-Bulletin article, "FIGHT! Student brawls posted online stir safety concerns," clearly raises serious concerns about a new online method by which teenagers are trying to gain attention and self-esteem among their peers.
We found it encouraging that, as the story says, some public schools are turning to the mixed martial arts (MMA) community in addressing this emerging social problem. Obviously, the YouTube phenomenon has exploded in the past few years and provided teens with an avenue to quickly express themselves. At the same time that YouTube has become so popular in our society, so has MMA, and unfortunately, there have been some unintended consequences.
Clearly, some of the teens engaging in these fights and posting them on YouTube are emulating the structured competitions seen at live MMA events and on television. It does not help that Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson, infamous for his underground street fights seen so frequently on YouTube, is headlining the first MMA event that will be aired live on network television at the end of this month. However, we would like to clarify that these fights posted by some of Hawaii's teens on YouTube do not by any means represent MMA. Moreover, responsible MMA coaches, promoters, fighters, and fans will all agree that such actions go against everything the MMA community stands for.
Responsible MMA coaches and gym members teach minors and young adults attending their classes that engaging in fights outside of the gym is irresponsible and illegal, and those who continue to engage in such actions will be asked to leave the gym permanently. We also would like to stress that MMA skills should be taught by qualified instructors in a safe, supervised setting with rules enforced that prevent injury or animosity. The hallmarks of all martial arts are discipline and self-respect and these actions show a complete lack of regard of those character traits.
Conversely, the fights posted on YouTube clearly lack any kind of structure or respect between opponents and the many safety factors that are provided by legitimate promoters such as doctors at ringside, a qualified referee and ambulances that would otherwise prevent a horrible tragedy.
Finally, we encourage youth and parents to look to responsible MMA gyms as examples. While Kimbo Slice is known more for his underground street fights than his MMA skills, it is the MMA community that helped to stop his street fighting ways, as he now is training with reputable coaches who ardently discourage street violence. Likewise, we feel highly confident in saying that most, if not all of those local youth posting fight videos on YouTube are not students learning various combat sport skills at responsible MMA gyms.
If you know your child is engaging in these behaviors, get him or her to start attending classes at one of Hawaii's conscientious MMA gyms. There are many of them out there and they are eager to help.
Earlier this week I read the second half of one of the best interviews in quite some time on mixed martial arts – an interview carried out by Pramit Mohapatra of Dr. Johnny Benjamin (2008 May 12). While this interview covered a variety of important topics, a major thread running through their discussion focused on the topic of fighter safety and the way mixed martial artists are treated, or more pointedly, the way they are defined. At one point in the interview, Mohapatra bluntly stated to Dr. Benjamin, “If these promoters look at their fighters, even in the most callous terms, as commodities they should want their commodities to last longer.” Benjamin replied, “The problem with it, after knowing enough promoters, [the promoters think], ‘I’ve got to pay for that’ ... They think about this bout alone. The shortest of short-term. How do I fill up the arena tonight? And, guess what, if a guy gets hurt, I got 15 guys that will take his place…How do I put butts in seats tonight for the least amount of money possible?”
Part of the fallout of living in a capitalistic society is that darn near everything gets turned into capital. Furthermore, within a capitalist system, class conflict is inherent and exploitation is probable. It is the nature of capitalism. Marxist theory is not terribly complicated: “...the capitalist class makes its profits by paying less in wages than the value of what the working class actually produces” (Messerschmidt, 1986, p. 32). It affects athletes in all sports to varying degrees, and mixed martial arts is no exception – athletes are dehumanized and reconstructed as human capital.
It’s a practice that too many promoters virtually admit, even finding it difficult to circumvent terminology that exemplifies this coarse reality. In a discussion on steroid use in MMA, UFC President, Dana White, flat out said he was managing a problematic business of selling humans: “When what you’re selling is human beings competing against each other, there are always going to be issues, man. Personal problems. Contract issues. There are always problems” (Hockensmith, 2007a). This notwithstanding, White also claimed in a separate interview, “At the end of the day, we don’t want guys who are unhappy fighting with us” (Hockensmith, 2007b). And some have argued that within MMA’s most dominant organization, its athletes, on average, are paid relatively well (Iole, 2008).
Obviously, not all agree with this stance. It is something Tito Ortiz has openly dissented with for years. But even Ortiz could not get away from defining himself in dehumanized terms. A little over a year ago in a March 2007 article by Dave Doyle, the Huntington Beach Bad Boy referred to himself as a commodity: “I know I am a commodity ... I know I am worth money, and the UFC makes money off me.” Reiterating his unease with the UFC’s compensation levels, the outspoken Ortiz more recently stated of other UFC fighters (current and former), “There’s a lot of guys who don’t have voices as big as mine, and who want to speak out, but they don’t” (Wagner, 2008). Fighters Ortiz mentioned, perhaps unfairly (Caplan, 2008), included Randy Couture, Tim Sylvia, and Georges St. Pierre.
The real problem is Ortiz, Couture, Sylvia, and GSP do not by any means represent most MMA fighters. In fact, the vast majority of MMA fighters in North America, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, and so forth do not even compete in the UFC, which again, arguably compensates its athletes fairly well, or at least well above the average. Most MMA fighters, in fact I would argue the vast majority, get paid very little (and sometimes nothing at all) for stepping into a ring or cage to compete, not to mention all the training that precedes competition, where injuries more commonly occur. When I interviewed fighters for Fighting for Acceptance, numerous interviewees who were competing at the lower levels expressed their discontent on this issue. In separate interviews, I asked interviewees if promoters were looking out for their best interests. Said two interviewees, whose identities shall remain anonymous:
Interviewee 1: No, promoters are exactly that, you know what I mean? They’re promoters, so they figure you know, they’re gonna look out for themselves first and foremost because, and I can understand that because if I put all my hard earned money into doing a show, I wanna make a profit on it because it’s a business venture, so you know, I feel they’ll look out for us just to make sure we’ll make it through the fight, but beyond that point, there’s not too much love from promoters.
Interviewee 2: ...they do just enough to get us you know, comin’ back, that’s it. You know, they’ll put our picture on a piece of paper. You know, that’s about all the promotion we get out of it. It’s their show, not ours, you know. They’re makin’ the money, and we’re getting’ a little living out of it.
This is not to say that all MMA promoters are unethical or do not care about fighters. In fact, I have come to know a few promoters who run smaller shows that truly do care about the athletes competing in their shows, as well as other social issues relevant to MMA. However, smaller organizations often lack the monetary capital to provide top tier safety measures, insurance, and facilities. Thus, it is in these shows that certain precautions are even more critical (actually, they are critical in all MMA competitions). Rookie MMA fighters and older fighters need to be properly conditioned by their coaches. Research shows that in MMA, injuries increase with the number of rounds that transpire, as well as with fighter age (Bledsoe et al., 2007). Mismatches, in which one fighter is significantly more experienced than another, cannot happen. Referees who are working in the smaller shows should actually be more experienced and/or be more aggressive in stopping matches quickly, given that the athletes tend to be less experienced and skilled in defending themselves. And in perhaps the hardest part, fans and corners need to respect referees when they stop matches immediately after flash knockouts (Trigg, 2008; Avila, 2008; see also interview with Dr. Benjamin, cited above).
And of course, the larger MMA organizations cannot be absolved. Organizations such as the UFC, EliteXC, Affliction, and HDNet Fights need to set the tone by providing top-tier safety measures, while also promoting a culture that does not define athletes as inhumane and expendable commodities. I anticipate some people will respond by thinking, “That is unrealistic, it will never happen. Everybody is out to get theirs.” Well, keep thinking that, and guess what ... you're right. It never will.
Non-internet sources: Bledsoe, G.H., Hsu, E.B., Grabowski, J.G., Brill, J.D., & Li, G. (2007). Incidence of injury in professional mixed martial arts competitions. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, July, 136-142.
Messerschmidt, J. W. (1986). Capitalism, Patriarchy, and Crime: Toward a Socialist Feminist Criminology. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield.
David Mayeda, PhD, is author of Fighting for Acceptance: Mixed Martial Artists and Violence in American Society, a sociological and politically-based book based on interviews with 40 mixed martial arts athletes, including Randy Couture, Antonio McKee, Guy Mezger, “Rampage” Jackson, “MayheM” Miller, Chris Leben, Travis Lutter, and Frank Trigg.
When I first started working on Fighting for Acceptance,
my primary concern with MMA's exploding popularity was with the
glamorization of violence. I was living this odd hypocracy that I was
keenly aware of - being a professor who did work in youth violence
prevention, while simultaneously being seduced by the obvious violence
entrenching MMA. As I became more familiar with the MMA game, got to
know various competitors, and contextualized MMA within our broader
range of violent sports and violent media, my initial concern decreased
substantially. The dissemination of violence is still a big concern of
mine. However, I now feel the MMA industry, if reformed in some
significant ways (especially in the media), can actually serve as one
of the most effective youth violence prevention industries in the
United States, and likely in additional countries where MMA is growing.
As I became more involved in conducting research for the book, a new
concern began brewing in my mind, one that toyed with my morality. I
was getting to know these men who I was interviewing on a more personal
level. Most of them, I only met once, but via the interviews, I was
still exposed to multiple levels of their humanity. They were not just
fighters. They were also fathers, husbands, boyfriends, sons, community
volunteers, and so on. These are sides we rarely see in the dominant
MMA media. Furthermore, I actually became close friends with a few
interviewees. I trained a little bit with them, and have now begun
working with some on community service projects.
In seeing these men on a more humanistic and complete level, my
concerns with the glamorization of violence were accompanied by a
concern about their future lives. MMA is such a young sport, and
although it is surely less dangerous than the masses assume, we still
do not know the long-term deleterious effects the sport may have on
fighters, especially those fighters who continue competing after they
have aged out of peak competitive form. I became particularly concerned
about the issue of concussions. Recent research on NFL retirees has
shown that former players who sustained three or more concussions
during their career (albeit those being reported concussions), have a
much more significant chance of being chronically depressed in their
old age for no apparent reason.
How many times have you seen a MMA competitor display signs of a
concussion in mid-fight, but continue competing? In between rounds, did
his/her corner, the ringside doctor, or the promoter step in to make an
evaluation that truly sought to protect the fighter's future well
being? Would the fans be sympathetic to a fighter "quitting" because of
a possible concussion in mid-fight?
Worse yet, the legions of mixed martial artists out there put their
bodies and minds on the line for a meager amount of money. We see the
fighter purses in the larger MMA organizations, and some of those
purses may look pretty hefty - hefty enough to cover medical insurance
and the innumerable other expenses that ensconce our daily lives. But
if a fighter walks out of a fight with $1,000, does that cover the
months of training that went into preparation for that fight? What if
s/he doesn't walk out? And as you likely know, in most of the smaller
shows, there are fighters who are seduced by the potential glamour and
unlikely economic fortune, who will fight for a few hundred dollars, or
even for free.
I began wondering if my friends truly knew the risks. I worried, and
still worry about them. We've seen more and more MMA athletes who train
as true professionals, where MMA is their sole job - as competitors and
trainers. But the reality is, most MMA athletes still work jobs outside
of the MMA industry and train when they can, while also managing family
lives and other social obligations. What happens when MMA competitors
get matched up who are uneven in experience and skill level? Or when a
competitor is too run down and fatigued from being spread too thin?
Again, MMA is safer than the general populace believes. But it is
still a violent and risky sport that is evolving at an excessive pace.
The industry must prioritize fighter safety over ticket and
pay-per-view sales. MMA promotions must compensate fighters adequately
and fairly, and educate fighters on all the health risks they face in
competition and training, and encourage fighters not to push through
head injuries. Likewise, fighters (like other athletes) need to come to
terms with the possibility that MMA may not lead to a long-term career,
especially not a lucrative one. Sure, we see those like Randy Couture,
Dan Henderson, Junior Seau, Brett Favre, and Vinnie Testeverde thriving
in collision sports well past a normal athlete's prime. They are, no
doubt, the exceptions who have an innate athleticism and durability
even the most successful athletes cannot match, as well as the fortune
to evade career-ending injury. We're not all so lucky.
Last week, I argued here that the discontent being directed towards Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson
was unwarranted and should be shifted towards EliteXC and its
president, Gary Shaw – the forces that are ultimately driving
Ferguson’s newfound attention. Since my blog entry appeared, a number
of related occurrences have transpired. First, Bas Rutten also defended
Ferguson on Inside MMA,
even stating that disgruntled fans and fighters should point their
fingers at Bas himself and Ferguson’s management if they wanted someone
to blame. Additionally, Chuck Liddell made a second public statement on
the Dallas radio show, “Rear Naked Radio” (reported on MMAJunkie.com),
simply reiterating his initial argument that Ferguson has yet to prove
himself as legitimate MMA superstar given his lack of high level
competition and therefore is unwarranted in receiving this recent level
of attention. And finally in the most significant development, numerous
MMA media outlets announced that Ferguson was in line to grace the
cover of an upcoming edition of ESPN the Magazine, notably a magazine that featured Liddell on its cover in May 2007.
Again, I stand by my initial contention, that Ferguson is not the
primary source of blame in this MMA media circus. However, Liddell’s
statements are not without merit. Sports, especially the combat sports,
are filled with examples in which promoters and other media
conglomerates push for an individual’s rapid rise in the business
because of their marketability while other, perhaps more deserving
fighters, must merely watch the media train zip by. And this is hardly
a new phenomenon. As far back as the 1950s, the combat sports were
manipulated by the media. During this time, watching boxing on
television was so popular that it severely reduced attendance at actual
events, and eventually the lack of gate attendance depleted the number
of professional boxers with adequate experience. This led to match-ups
that were based more on hype than skill for far too many participants.
As boxing historian, Jeffrey Sammons writes of that time,
“...television’s role in boxing raised the issue of who was in control
of the sport.” Sound familiar?
Today, numerous MMA fans, fighters, and us internet writers are
asking the same thing – who is really in control of the sport? When
somebody with a 2-0 MMA record over pedestrian talent makes the cover
of ESPN the Magazine, it will surely upset some of those in the
industry. When I showed my blog entry about not blaming Ferguson for
his hype to my good friend, Dr. Huy Nguyen, he responded by saying,
“All really great points ... in the end, it does still upset me that
Anderson Silva, B.J. Penn, or GSP don’t get ESPN stories.” Moreover,
Virginia-based MMA promoter and mixed martial artist, Mike Troxel,
wrote to me regarding the displeasure that some MMA fans will have of
Ferguson being on the ESPN the Magazine cover, “I think you’re
right. There will be a lot more hating on Kimbo (and I think there
should be). In my opinion he personifies every typical stereotype that
non-fans have about MMA and that sort of image should be the last thing
shown in a sport that is trying to be legitimized in the eyes of all of
America.”
Considering Nguyen’s and Troxel’s comments, I couldn’t help but
think more carefully about the ways promotional powers and media
entities manipulate the industry in order to spike ratings. Let’s also
recall what is not being highlighted about Ferguson. How many readers
know that Ferguson was an all star football player for Miami Palmetto
High School, but who attended the University of Miami on an academic scholarship (see SubmitToMMA article)? Despite not graduating from college, Ferguson is a highly
intelligent individual. Unfortunately, that side of him is rarely, if
ever, displayed in marketing pieces, further distorting the image of
athletes in general, especially minority athletes. The other angle not
making big waves in the MMA media is how Ferguson’s move into MMA has
stopped him from engaging in illegal behaviors, which began when he
worked as a bodyguard for RK Netmedia, a Miami based pornography
production and promotion company. Said Ferguson of his move from
backyard brawler to MMA in a 2007 interview for SI.com with FightTicker.com’s own Pramit Mohapatra, “In a backyard fight, I
used to enter those things high. I was smoking before I went out to
fight. Definitely it’s different. It’s not the same.” While Ferguson
may or may not be a model citizen now, he has surely made significant
improvements. Yet these behavioral changes take a back seat to his
YouTube scraps, or rather, don’t even make it out of the trunk in most
promotional pieces.
Now let us return to one MMA athlete who is not making it into to
the American mainstream sports world, despite being considered by many
as MMA’s future – Georges St. Pierre. GSP is widely considered by MMA
fans a genetic phenom, who has all the physical tools and a strong
enough game in most combat sport disciplines to rule the welterweight
division for years to come. Add to this a string of victories over Josh
Koscheck, Matt Hughes, and Matt Serra, and fewer are questioning GSP’s
mental focus in competition. But most importantly, it is critical to
highlight GSP’s comments in recent interviews. After Pete Sell
attempted to criticize GSP by comparing him with MMA fighter, Matt
Serra by saying, “GSP is the type of guy that if they were in a bar GSP
would back down from a fight while Serra is down for whatever” (interview with FightTicker.com contributor Bryan Levick),
GSP responded in a way that exemplifies how MMA does not have to be
associated with violence out of sport. Said GSP in an interview for The Winnipeg Sun,
“Of course I’m not going to fight in a club. It’s just not my thing. If
it doesn’t involve me personally or my family, I will avoid it. I
believe if you’re a good person and treat people nicely, that incident
wouldn’t arise. I think those situations happen to people who are
uncomfortable with themselves. Or try to look tough or act like
fighters. You attract what you look like. I don’t have anything to
prove. When I fight, I do it for a living.”
To this end, GSP is also in the process of developing the GSP
Foundation, which will focus on working with at-risk youth. As quoted
in a UFC.com story,
GSP stated, “It’s important for me because it’s time for me to give
back to society ... I want to use my name, my credibility, and my
stature as a professional athlete in mixed martial arts to help the
young kids. I’m going to focus on the kids and the teenagers because
growing up I had problems, and if I can help somebody who was like me
when I was young, it will make their lives better.” Granted, GSP does
not represent all mixed martial artists in terms of work ethic,
athleticism, or morality. Still, considering his overall athletic
success and charitable goals, the fact that he is not receiving the
ESPN spotlight is absurd. When MMA fans, fighters, and promoters wonder
why MMA is still not as mainstream as we would like it to be, just look
at who’s being promoted, how they’re being promoted, and who’s not.
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