Few professions allow, nay - encourage, their practitioners to be so constantly and egregiously wrong as that of Mainstream Sports Columnist. Their entire careers are predicated on comforting their fellow old white men’s opinions that all change is bad, the NBA is full of “thugs,” and baseball statistics are the worst thing to happen in sports, ever.
(Would you call either of these men gay to their face?)
Such professional contrarianism has been lucrative for Dallas columnist Tim Cowlishaw, who has played his whitebread opinions into a daily gig yelling at his colleagues on ESPN’s “Around The Horn.” Not content to hate everything new and changing about the nation’s mainstream sports, he has now decided to focus his bland, toothless vitriol on the fastest-growing sport in the country: MMA. And he might have just, finally, gone too far.
It’s a column that’s been written a thousand times, by a thousand different hack writers: take some combination of 1) MMA is too brutal, 2) Dana White is too vulgar, and 3) boxing is better, throw them in a blender, and send to editor. There’s nothing new to see here…wait, what’s this?
I can’t say I’m a fan of ultimate fighting because the times I have tried to catch a fight on cable or once on pay-per-view, they weren’t terribly entertaining events. One guy gets on top of the other, starts hitting him in the head a few times, and the bell rings.
They could call their videos Rough Man Love Gone Wild, for all I can tell.
Now, here’s the thing. I’m not an MMA fan. I don’t find the fights particularly interesting, and I think all the Affliction shirts look kind of dumb. There’s nothing wrong with MMA, per se, it’s just not my thing. A lot of people don’t like baseball, either. To each their own. But one thing that’s never crossed my mind until now is that mixed martial arts is somehow … homosexual? And that’s a bad thing? Strong words coming from the guy who, just today on ‘Around the Horn’ was accused of having frosted tips by Tony Reali. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
While I have quite a few gay and lesbian friends (and proudly live in one of the “gayest” ZIP codes in the country), I suspect that many of the fans and participants of mixed martial arts might not take too kindly to being accused of wishing to engage in “rough man love” by anyone, let alone a doughy suburban newspaperman. I’d be interested in seeing a group of wrestlers and mixed martial artists discuss the matter with Cowlishaw over a cup of coffee. I’m sure he’d have no problem saying that to their faces.
8:26 pm on September 18th, 2009
MMA is nothing but goon porn, and I’m sure some goons are gay.
MMA has a niche audience and that’s all it will ever have. It’s never going to challenge the big sports leagues.
2:08 am on September 19th, 2009
Goon Porn? Because other sports like boxing or the ever popular sport of football are not violent. 250lb men colliding with forces severe enough to break necks, cause permanent brain damage, render formerly graceful athletes incapable of walking..
8:15 am on September 19th, 2009
mma is getting bigger and keeps doing so
face it people, who ever talks about boxing anymore?
11:46 am on September 19th, 2009
yes, mma does look gay. admit it, sweaty men wrestle each other. but so does football with tight pants, QB taking the ball from behind the center, slapping each other on the backside.
mma, boxing, football are all brutal sports. all difficult.
mma appeals to younger, less affluent, groups with disposable income. the same target WWE goes after.
no, it is not for intellectuals. it is blue collar workers, kids. not people who become doctors, engineers, accountants, etc..
it is interesting, a bit of a freak show. but there is nothing special about mma. it has its market. there will always be kids and blue collar workers, people with disposable incomes.
this coleslaw guy is nothing special. just more proof that journalism has been dumb down as many other things in society. say something outrageous and get free publicity.
3:32 pm on September 19th, 2009
Saying that anything (specifically MMA in this case) looks gay is nothing more than quick dismissal of a sport you don’t understand. If all you see is two guys rolling around on the ground being gay, with a couple punches here and there, you’re not noticing the often constant battle for positioning to submit an opponent or effectively neutralize an attack. There are many complicated techniques that fighters utilize (see the recent Couture vs. Nogueira fight).
Also, to state that MMA is not for intellectuals and merely for “blue collar workers” and kids is dead wrong. Look ringside at any UFC event and you’ll see several big name movie stars; that’s certainly not blue collar, and definitely affluent. As for myself, I’m an engineer, and I’m sure there are plenty of doctors and accountants that enjoy a good MMA fight just as much as an NFL game.
To compare MMA to the WWE is ridiculous. WWE is completely staged; all outcomes are decided beforehand. If the UFC or any other MMA organization suffered the same ailment, then wouldn’t the most popular fighters be the most successful? That’s not the case; Chuck Liddell and Forrest Griffin are great examples of that.
1:23 pm on September 20th, 2009
I agree, I’m gay as a duck and that’s the only reason I watch MMA. When those big sweaty goons get to grapple and stare each other to the ground means my lightning bolt are ready to strike some thunder in those a-holes. Luv the drama factor as well, really makes it like a big male soap opera and I luvvvit.
8:58 pm on September 20th, 2009
MMA is the quickest growing sport in this country, maybe the world, and is going to continue to get bigger and better. I’m an attorney, my best friends are surgeons and engineers and we all love MMA. We order almost every fight. We’re men…we love violence and we love to fight. We all used to be big boxing fans and grew up as kids watching guys like Hagler, Leonard, Duran, Pryor, Hearns and Tyson…when fights were exciting. MMA gives fans that same excitment now. If you get a guy running for a whole fight or bs’ing, the UFC will get rid of him. Guys finish fights with KO’s and submissions. It’s all real. I used to box as a kid and a teenager…I train at an MMA gym now…it’s much harder…there are dozens of different ways you can get your blocked knocked off, or be submitted.