What do you want from the MMA media, gossip or analysis?
Robin Black: “At the sport’s height, a parasitic gossip-based type of journalism took root, and it was the vehicle with shaped the perspective of the average fan.”
Mixed martial arts is long on adrenaline, and short on conscience.
There are exceptions. Manager Alex Davis has a done a series of articles for MMAJunkie writing powerfully about what’s right and wrong. UFC color commentator Joe Rogan recently implored Brendan Schaub to consider whether the heath risks in the sport are worth it, and mused that the potential damage from the sport makes him question how much longer he will be color commentating.
However, with every few exceptions, no one in the MMA space speaks regularly and soberly and compellingly about ethics. There are dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of individuals that rail against Dana White’s take home pay and gambling habits, or against whatever it is that is reflected in Jon Jones’s sometimes erratic tweets. But that is not what a conscience does. That is just more sound and fury, signifying nothing.
A conscience makes you think. It guides you to a non self righteous, better place than you were before.
Robin Black, current Fight Network fight analyst, former glam rock star, and recently retired fighter, recently charged on the UG that the MMA media too often play to the lowest common denominator.
He’s right. I do.
I don’t yet know what I’m going to do, but I’m thinking about it. For once.
ANALYSIS at WAR with GOSSIP
From: Robin Black
Member Since: 10/10/07
Posts: 4317
As I watch the gossip monger hold his microphone in front of a famous entertainer while hanging on every word in “anticipation” of his UFC debut (despite the fact that the famous entertainer has never sparred), I wonder how we got here.
Mixed Martial Arts is such a beautiful sport. It pits the greatest athletes against each other in poetic mortal combat. It is the greatest sport on planet Earth. It is simple yet complex, violent yet elegant, terrifying yet inspiring.
How did we get to the point that spectacle is more important than this incredible sport and art?
I honestly blame the “journalists”.
At the sport’s height, a parasitic gossip-based type of journalism took root, and it was the vehicle with shaped the perspective of the average fan.
Unfortunately this predominant form of journalism was based on conflict (real or artificial), innuendo, rumors, PPV revenue, “twitter-beef”, and the like. It did not focus on the sport itself. It was not analysis. It was nonsense.
As this type of garbage journalism influenced the consumer, a type of audience was created. An audience with much more interest in the gossip around the sport than in the sport itself.
This gossip was presented with more importance than the wonderful art. The gossip shaped the world around the sport.
If you have the incredible gift of working in media covering this great sport, please start talking about the sport itself. Present technique. Discuss the contests. Look at the athletes (their skills and attributes, not just their ‘rivalries’). Analyze the match ups. Look at the fights themselves.
If you work in MMA media and you are part of the group that, in my opinion, is ruining this sport know this: I am not your friend.
I am currently on vacation in Mexico. When I return it is my mission to be part of a group that will change how this sport is covered. In 2015 analysis will trump gossip. Sport will trump spectacle.
I absolutely adore my job analyzing Mixed Martial Arts for Fight Network. We work hard to try our best to ignore the trend in Mixed Martial Arts media and focus on the sport, not the gossip and BS.
I’ve been very proud to be part of the “analyst niche”.
But now its time to grow the niche. Make analysis the norm and make gossip the fringe. The way it is in every other sport.
Its time to go to war.
We must turn our backs on the gossip. Don’t look at it. Don’t share it. Don’t even click on it. Shrink it. Stomp it. Stamp it out.
Let’s all share the beauty of Mixed Martial Arts. Let’s share the skill. Let’s share the art. Let’s share the technique. Let’s share the elegance of combat.
If you have the gift of working in this sport, please join me in a quest to change it.
Let’s be part of the solution.
In 2015 Analysis shall trump Gossip.
Much love.
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Image courtesy of FightWorld.tv