By Will Gray
As a father, I try my best everyday to instill in my children principles that hard work will pay off in the end. That if you do just enough to get by, don’t be surprised if the reward is just enough to call a reward; desiring greatness requires a great effort.
This motto is not exclusive to my clan but to society as whole; athletics especially. If people wanted to pursue an athletic career for a professional organization such as the NFL, MLB, UFC – you are going to have to work for your rightful place on the team roster or promotion. When a company who promotes legitimizing a sport with mainstream apparel companies, having their champions grace a cereal box and educates state governments on their sport in hopes to lift judicial/regulatory bans signs a professional wrestler who wants to “give MMA a shot,” defecates on their current roster. This is this scribes honest opinion on the matter but it also tells children coming up that hard work and time spent practicing their craft amount to nothing; as long as you have the appeal to sell a ticket and make a profit, that’s all you need.
Not only will this attitude sour the prospects of young men and women coming up in the sport, this could led to dissension within their stable of competitors. There are countless people signed by Zuffa who we would not know by name. Some enter inside the Octagon without a Wikipedia page to list their skills, others are coming over as champions from either amateur organizations or lesser known pro companies – all to be shadowed by an individual who was known to be a money maker in another “sport” who is brought over to save a ship that appears to be filling with water. Just because one option worked for a particular time (a la Brock Lesnar coming to UFC), does not mean that MMA & wrestling marriages are always a well met match.
Now let me point out a few obvious things of Phil “CM PUNK” Brooks before he makes his UFC debut:
-He has no amateur or professional mixed martial arts competition under his belt; I will not take away from the physical toils and injuries he has suffered during his career, they are no less serious than any other injury suffered from any athlete – however the matches he wrestled were choreographed and rehearsed to an extent so you know how to adapt and improvise your positioning and body mechanics to avoid as much serious damage as you would in a real fight.
-Holding a purple belt and training alongside the Gracie family is his only exposure to one part of MMA at this point; matched against a decent striker will he be able to stuff a takedown or avoid the clinch reversal that will give opponents an advantage to either exchange short range blows or take the fight to the ground for damage to be delivered there?
-He boasts no high school, collegiate or amateur wrestling experience under his belt. Punk will be coming in almost as green as you can with professionally trained and seasoned veterans of the sport; For those comparing this situation to the Lesnar one remember one thing. Lesnar was a highly decorated NCAA wrestler and a athletic freak. Criticized he was but he had the background to give him sound footing inside the octagon.
Now to transition this over as if I were a UFC fighter who was just told last week of a new uniform deal with Reebok, I would look at this as follows: “Hmm, here I am losing sponsorship money that helps keep income flowing year round. To which is already limited since some of the sponsors who pay me can’t afford or choose not to pay the Zuffa fee to be on my banner/shorts for the three to four times a year I can fight when I am healthy enough to compete. Because we all know if I pull out from an injury that is out of my pocket due to Zuffa insurance being questionable for coverage and when I can actually use it”
It would irritate me all the more to see someone, who has already made more than enough money to survive on come in and be handed a contract (which we all know is going to be good . Someone like CM Punk is not going to risk serious injury for an $8k show/$8k win agreement), this is equal to getting spit in the face for every sacrifice and penny earned and spent for years in hopes of a shot to wear 4oz gloves that have three letters written across the top.
Competitors are not as rare to the UFC tyranny landscape like a few years ago; Bellator is slowly becoming a player in their own right, their roster may have a lot of midlevel players and veterans filling slots but they are putting out a product that can contend rating wise on the same level of some UFC PPV’s and those fights are available to a larger audience than the faithful shelling out $54.95 every month or so to watch Dana & Co. parade around and change who the “P4P King” is this week Seriously who is it?
A while back it was TJ Dillashaw. Then Barao and then I think Anderson Silva, Jon Jones used to get mentioned. Oh wait now it’s Anthony Pettis. The same Pettis that has successfully defended his title ONE TIME after having it for over a year.
So, that said – if I were Scott Coker, a reasonable and wise move is to push for Brock Lesnar who is rumored to be wanting to return to MMA. Let him come back and build himself back, facing the Bellator roster and look for other heavyweights who might want to play on Spike. Coker always had good relationships with Russian friends. Now imagine seeing Brock vs. Fedor in Bellator? My god the possibilities.
People will try and talk this up as good for business and a smart play, it isn’t. It is insulting to anyone competing in the UFC and MMA as a whole and to fans as well. This tells the fans that “we don’t care who deserves to be here, we care about who you will pay to see here”. Putting on the best fight does not always mean putting on the fight that sells tickets, but the fights people want to see.
Personally covering MMA for a few years and seeing a little of the behind the scenes action has made me dislike the sport. I tried to watch it again but after this PR attempt at making money which it is – nothing more/nothing less, it cheapens the sport that suffered a blow when the FOX deal went down and has spoiled since.
