Or to put it another way Don King was great for ratings and the popularity of boxing, and for making money for Don king, do we think he was great for boxing and it's legitimacy
I don't think the general public understand the distinction between MMA as a sport and the UFC as an organisation at all. UFC invented the term "mixed martial arts", didn't they?
Shooto was Japan's mixed martial art and started in 85, Howard Rosenberg is said to have coined the term whilst reviewing ufc1 the UFC didn't coin it I don't think, but MMA is bigger than UFC there are other organisations using the term all over the world. And even if the general public don't differentiate between the two, UFC owners and Dana White sure as hell does, their actions from buying and then burying pride, to buying and burying strikeforce were all to line their pockets and strengthen the UFC not to better MMA
The biggest response I've seen to it has just been people saying he's a 'don' for backing up his buddy and that he was just being a man. And that response is far outstripping the people saying what he did was dumb yet alone criminal. And that is more concerning the more I think about it.
What's the story with Khabib Nurmagomedov and Artem Lobov? This seems to be one of the root causes of the situation? Edit, crazy Russians hey
Knowing Conor it was probably another case of his tendency for spontaneous combustion, combined with a God complex or something like that. As far as unlikely to see a jail cell, he posted bail so the court must not think he's a threat to society for now, but I have a feeling his reputation is going to overshadow it being his first offense. It's hard to imagine him pleading for the court's mercy after so many years of playing the bad boy. I guess we'll see...but clearly the guy needs some type of intervention. Take away the money and fame, he'd be no different than any other hooligan thrown in the pen to cool down for a while, before he really does ruin someone's life. If he'd taken out an eye the other day, which he almost did, who would sympathize? I know he has a rabid fan base who will look past almost anything he does, but his other fans with a moral conscience won't be able to settle with this unless he makes major life changes, so they'll probably just move on to cheer another fighter with a better sense of honor. I know I never really liked McGregor, and the fact that he's making Mayweather look like a saint is ironic.
Personally, I can't see Conner's antics as anywhere near as bad as domestic abuse and beating up women in nightclubs (including punching a woman in the back of the head while she tried to help her friend he had already punched to the ground). How are you grading saintliness?
I didn't say it was viewed that way, I said it wasn't "illegitimate." I see nothing wrong with people stepping into the cage to test their skills at fighting each other. The UFC had to campaign hard because there are always overly sensitive folks who are resistant to change and practically pee themselves every time something crops up which they view as the harbinger of the end of civilized society. They saw it as violence, which it is, and it made them uncomfortable. And yet they have been fine for years with other sports whose athletes aren't exactly paragons of virtue. No one ever considered banning baseball, or football. Could it be because this entire thing is because people are just unreasonably uncomfortable with the idea of violence? There's a fundamental difference between actively trying to hurt another human being for sport, even with a few controlled limits, and doing something arbitrary like trying to put a ball through a hoop, or a puck in a net. The sad sacks who dumped all over MMA before are fine with it now because they've gotten used to it and, to their minds anyway, they pacified it. I'm not condoning an unlawful assault, more in the realm that if fighters want to swear in the cage, trash talk, and throw up the bird, a la Diaz, then I have no problem with it. Kids have all kinds of bad role models that people aren't going to force to behave in specific ways so why try to do so with big name competitors? Sometimes fighter X wins, sometimes he loses, but it has nothing to do with whether he flips the bird or calls people nasty names. That's a far more valuable and realistic lesson. I think Connor should be rightly punished for breaking the law, but if someone's not breaking the law I think they should be left the hell alone.
Funny thing is that supposedly Lobov is a friend of Khabib and was seen to say he wanted Khabib to win when they were hanging out a couple of weeks ago. The suggestion was that this whole thing was orchestrated (ala WWF) in order to bolster the expected upcoming fight. I would like to be able to step back and sort out what is doggie doo and what has any basis in reality. Really I would love to see them all lose a pile of dosh for being such pillocks! Personally I don't want to do anything to put another pound in MacGregor's pocket. I think they should just jail him and quit pandering to a felon. What is it with this cult of personality that is tied to MMA? Certainly martial artists are better than this sort of stuff. LFD
My understanding is that for a while now Lobov has, as Mcgregor's friend and that being his sole claim to fame, been talking down about anyone making noise about wanting to fight Mcgregor. Lobov supposedly said before he wanted to fight Khabib, or he'd slap him if he saw him, or something like that anyway, so when Khabib saw him he told him to back it up. Nurmagamedov's own version of that is Lobov was talking about him, and he told Lobov to "keep my name out of his mouth." Although in what world anything in that video counts as a slap I have no idea. And the fact to people it seems to justify Conor's reaction is mystifying.
It's a shame its so easy to suspect it of being fixed. Especially with the pro-shot footage coming out of the bus attack yesterday. My bigger problem with it being fixed is the amount of work that would take to do. It means Chiesa, Cacaeres, etc all need to agree to lose their fights (and for Caceras who wasn't on the bus, what is he getting out of it? Can say money sure, but you'd have to pay someone a decent amount to get them to agree to lose a chance to get their name out there more), Chiesa would have had to have been cut still, and Conor did show up in court. I wouldn't put it past them to have fixed it, but it seems unlikely to me when I think about what it would entail.
Maybe it was supposed to be a fix, but Khabib wasn't supposed to hide on the bus/ or Connor wasn't supposed to hit the window? And everything from them on is real? Who knows, but what I do know is, actually breaking a window and showing glass everywhere is very very dumb.
Occam's Razor - was it fixed (see above: all that effort), or is McGregor just a douche who committed a crime?
I am very annoyed at people on Facebook saying that McGregor did anything positive. The theme seems to be "He flew across the ocean just to back up his friend" but imo he just looked like an idiot who harmed other people.
"Makes .... look like" is a figure of speech, like in Predator when Jesse Ventura said the jungle he was in "makes Cambodia looks like Kansas". Obviously there's no moral difference it's all bad, but from a sheer scale perspective, attacking a whole busload of people is way out of even Floyd Mayweather's class or tendency towards violence, and that's saying a lot! I'm surprised Conor got bail, as crazy as he must have looked in court to any judge. Imagine the judge on the docket learning they needed to adjudicate a wild cage fighter who basically assaulted a crowd of people on camera. Mayweather is like any other domestic abuser, a coward. Attacking a bus of MMA fighters was more like the Doomed Highland Charge of Calloden.
Truth be told, I don't see anything positive about getting stripped of your UFC title, which is what just happened. I was wrong, Dana White is willing to do the right thing now and then. Conor McGregor, out on bail after UFC rampage, is stripped of title: ‘This is embarrassing for the sport’
