Taking responsibility for Amateur MMA
BleacherReport.com’s David Mayeda, Ph.D., writes in a column dated July 23 that industry leaders UFC and Strikeforce need to consider…
BleacherReport.com’s David Mayeda, Ph.D., writes in a column dated July 23 that industry leaders UFC and Strikeforce need to consider investing their profits in smaller organizations to help improve an infrastructure that bolsters safety precautions…this would be an investment in the fighters, who at the lower levels receive less reward for more risk.
Right hammer, wrong nail. Mayeda is correct in that the amateur circuit represents — and by a wide margin — the greatest danger to athletes. Matches can be disproportionate, physicals can be limited, and oversight can be negligent. Several states that sanction professional combat sports have no jurisdiction over amateurs. When you’re dealing with a sport as dynamic and threatening as mixed martial arts, this kind of structure is begging for misadventure.
Mayeda is also on point in noting that efforts by the UFC to better regulate these obscure events would hardly be philanthropic: athletes have to come from somewhere, and the more they’re protected at the lower levels, the more fit and prepared they’ll be to produce revenue for a larger organization in the future. Even World Wrestling Entertainment, hardly the refuge for those who value their health, has a hand in a developmental league: talent that does not meet their minimum requirement for deltoid size can sharpen their tools and tongues in semi-obscurity until they’re ready.
The UFC’s absence from this discussion is reasonable: they have to worry about the UFC. Not the organization per se, but the acronym — the brand.
Let’s suppose Zuffa took it upon themselves to develop a national feeder regulatory body: we’ll call it the PFC (Penultimate Fighting Championship — I’ll be here all week, gang). It would mimic USA Boxing, which seeks to protect and sanction that sport at the amateur level and can provide oversight regardless of state athletic commission involvement. While promoters would ostensibly have to abide by the rules set in place, it would be impossible to survey every bout. Mismatches would happen, officials would drop the ball, and — if for no other reason than the law of averages — a serious injury or tragedy could occur. The moment that happens, the media would draw a straight line from Palookaville to Las Vegas. It would become a UFC-branded incident. Broken spines are not a Budweiser-friendly circumstance.