Lebron James, Cleveland, and why MMA blows away traditional sports
Fans always want to believe that the players care as much as they do. That traditional rivalries mean something. That…
Fans always want to believe that the players care as much as they do. That traditional rivalries mean something. That the guys on the court are living and dying with them, truly feel their pain. The Cleveland Cavaliers killed that belief in their fans last night. All the emotion in the building was in the stands – on the court it might as well have been an intramural scrimmage. And that’s why I’ve stopped watching mainstream sports (with the exception of football) entirely.
In MMA, we don’t see pampered millionaires. If a fighter is as disinterested as the Cleveland Cavaliers were last night, he not only gets his ass kicked, he gets unceremoniously cut by a furious Dana White after the contest. There is no choice but to care – your well being and your livelihood depend on it. It’s one thing to jog up and down the court and put on a perfunctory effort. Hell, if you’re Derrick Coleman, Tim Thomas, or Amar’e Stoudemire you can make tens of millions without ever having to care once. It’s not every day that a sporting event paints such a vivid picture. Last night was everything that was wrong with basketball and illustrated everything that is so right about MMA. Whether anyone else recognizes it or not, our sport is something special, something pure. It’s sports at its most primal and personal. Nothing is better.