MMA on CBS - not everyone is happy

Bryan Burwell has an incisive commentary on MMA hitting mainstream TV. Great stuff. Below are some excerpts; read the entire latest bout with insanity comes to CBS in St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He's already getting beaten up for it by industry moguls.

Burwell disparages what "a distasteful freak show mixed martial arts is in this bastardized form. " It's important to realize that's the subject here - the UFC-shaped MMA that America is finding on their cable channels and now CBS, ultimate fighting/cage fighting repackaged.

I've posted my thoughts about ulimate fighting-turned-MMA, and the defense stormed even my hole-in-the-wall blog, so I can only imagine what Burwell's experiencing. I hand it to him for running his commentary. There's a rhetorical push from the MMA to silence its detractors, something that's largely absent from any established combat sport. The thinking person may question why that might be. The mentality doesn't stop within the cage, the company, or any subculture fan enclaves - it tries to extend to anyone who might object.

Quick example I just stumbled on, after writing this - troll comment on Windsor Start article on big female boxing night. Article, comments have nothing to do with MMA, yet "Ahmad" posts "Boxing is out - MMA is in."

There's a relentless redress of us boxing fans in particular, as if we're supposed to adopt enthusiasm for this enterprise because it's combat. It's weird, the idea that people should be malleable enough to be argued into liking something. I've already addressed disparities between boxing and UF/MMA. There's a notion of entitlement to boxing enthusiasts' loyalties, similar to the Democrats' sense of entitlement to third party voters who oppose the GOP. Some of the fingerprints lead to Everlast. In a short time, the company went from positioning itself as the home for true boxing afficionados--expanding their catalog to a "magalog" with profile and training articles and having pro boxers model their clothing--to merchandisers promoting MMA clothing. Who's behind that? I envision the same group of corporate heads we all see every day in our corporate jobs, sitting around a table telling their staff how the company's vision is changing with the market and that they'll be seeing some exciting changes that will really give their customers what they want. Of course we should want this - because the CEO told them we do. Then again, there's a strategic aspect as well; just as the MMA is drawing comparisons of itself with the NFL, part of mentioning boxing in the same breath is likely a vie for acceptance simply by association with established sports.

This MMA has an identity conundrum. It wants to stand as a distinct, original entity, and yet, mixed martial arts is built on existing combat forms. The UFC-turned-MMA brand has the problem of trying to distance itself from its earlier versions - ultimate fighting and cage fighting. So unless you're a loyalist, you're likely not clear what MMA is these days. Ironically, with all this to draw on, when under fire, MMA public relations tactics routinely rely on comparisons to established sports that are not part of MMA - boxing, football in the form of NFL. Marketers are in hyperdrive to forge branding, characters, and imagery for today's American MMA companies, and while there is an audience for anything, the general population will never put it on par with its hallowed megasports.

There are serious qualities of character that cause some people - most people - to instinctively disapprove of this latest incarnation of ultimate fighting. There's the celebration of barbarism. Burwell writes, "This crazed, unrestrained violence allows men with thinly padded leather on their fists to pummel each other nonstop, even when your opponent is on the ground. It allows you to knee your opponent in the groin, then while he's prone on the ground, pound him in the head, choke him, or squeeze his torso with your legs locked around him, attempting to rupture kidneys and squeeze the air out of lungs."

Then there's the profiteering. For me, I don't see a "sport" here. I see a group of rich men who are profiting from this corporate-run bloodsport. I see the manipulation of talent, of ignorance, of bodies, minds and money; I see people with families being needlessly injured; I see branding, merchandising and marketing. But I don't see anything good created. The saying goes that capitalist parasites make money off the back of the working man; when it is so literal, so deliriously proud, self-righteous and dominionist, that edict can rifle the sense of decency in anyone. It's like puppy-stomping; if you have a soul, no one has to tell you it's wrong; you just know.

Are other sports injurious? Sure. Brutal? Yup. Are other combat sports run by capitalist corporations? Of course. So what? I'm not defending them. These are the arguments I've heard, but none of that makes me like ultimate fighting/cage fighting/MMA/whatever-you-want-to-call-it any better. Between Burwell and the American Medical Association, which calls cage fighting medically and morally wrong, the detractor arguments are far more compelling. To whit, the following are excerpts from Burwell's piece.

Welcome to the American Apocalypse, a dark and sad place that celebrates the absurd and the obscene, and can't tell the difference between good ratings and good taste. Jumping headlong into this disturbing abyss comes the CBS television network, which Saturday broadcast the first of three prime-time events it calls "EliteXC Saturday Night Fights."

... All I want is for someone to realize what a distasteful freak show mixed martial arts is in this bastardized form. What I want is for sane folks to slow down this gradual slide into a post-Apocalyptic haze in which the worst elements of human nature are sanctioned and celebrated. What I want is for us to stop glorifying the most deviant aspects of our own personalities, the ones in which pit bulls, roosters and human beings can be gored, gouged and brutalized for sport, and where intelligence is a fault and the dumbing down of our society is considered a point of pride.

But sadly, instead of halting the slide, CBS is driving the bus directly into the cultural abyss by putting this on national television for the first time, instead of allowing it to wallow in a corner on cable TV with all the other cartoonish "reality" fare.

Ultimate fighting and all the other ultimate fighting leagues want the world to embrace their bloody human cockfighting as a replacement for boxing as a real combat sport, and now they have CBS as a co-conspirator in this fraud. They reason that the world has proclaimed them as legitimate, simply because their barbarism is now on network television.