The case for fighter scuffles
I personally would have a lot more difficulty defending someone who makes fun of people’s looks while they help cancer victims than I would defending someone who decided to punch them in the face for doing so.
Historically, only the boxing, the UFC, and the WWE have been able to do great numbers with pay per view television. The WWE is now largely out of the PPV business, having the leap to a pay digital network. And the organization never broke the 1,000,000 buy mark in North America.
Dave Meltzer, who knows more about MMA pay per view numbers than anyone not working for the UFC, says that the McGregor vs. Diaz rematch at UFC 202 did about 1,650,000 buys, breaking the record.
Meltzer points to the bottle-throwing shenanigans at the UFC 202 pre-fight media event as the source for the new record. The Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier shoving match had a similar galvanizing effect on PPV buys. It is a little strange that a tiny physical tussle before an actual fight can get fans so excited. However, the UFC is as real as it gets and when it gets so personal between fighters that ordinary boundaries of propriety are broken, apparently fans part easier with their money.
So tussling is good for business, and fighters know it. Four times in the past week, fighters got into near brawls.
Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier got into it at a UFC press conference in Dallas. Then Michael Chiesa and Kevin Lee went at it. And then Amanda Nunes shoved Valentina Shevchenko away with a fist. In the latest, at the UFC Fighter Retreat this weekend, Cris Cyborg punched Angela Magana in the mouth.
Some fans are uneasy about the extracurricular shenanigans, but in a recent article for FloCombat, Elias Cepeda said he has no real problem with any of it, and explained why. His reasoning is briefly excerpted below but does not it justice, so read the entire thing here.
Certainly, the wisest thing is almost always to walk away from any slights or any potential physical confrontation that one can, outside of a sporting context especially. Still, I’m uninterested in singling out any of these fighters for vilification.
For Chiesa, mentioning his family was a line he could not abide his opponent crossing. I can’t fault him for that. I also can’t fault Lee for punching a man who just threatened him and then angrily charged him.
Daniel Cormier seemed to have a similar line about mentioning family, claiming that his nemesis Jones had spoken about his children before the light heavyweight champ went after the former title-holder.
Magana chose to make fun of Justino’s appearance on social media, grabbing a photo of Justino at an appearance with children suffering from cancer and comparing it to a horror movie villain. Justino’s own father is currently fighting cancer, and it takes a strange mentality to make fun of someone as they give a little sunshine to sick cancer patients as Magana did. I personally would have a lot more difficulty defending someone who makes fun of people’s looks while they help cancer victims than I would defending someone who decided to punch them in the face for doing so.
We should all aspire to a reluctance to react violently to mere insults. Still, “fighting words” exist, and those who spew them should be ready for the reactions they can understandably provoke.