From Boxing To MMA: Race and Racism In American Sport

It is in this internationally-based era that mixed martial arts (MMA) has entered the mainstream combat sport world. If one looks through the ranks of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), currently the largest and most successful MMA organization, one can clearly see the racial and international diversity that characterizes MMA:

  * 155 lb. Champion: “The Prodigy” B.J. Penn (Native Hawaiian)

  * 170 lb. Champion: Georges “Rush” St. Pierre (French Canadian)

  * 185 lb. Champion: Anderson “Spider” Silva (Brazilian, of African descent)

  * 205 lb. Champion: Quinton “Rampage” Jackson (African American)

  * Hwt Champion: Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira (Brazilian)

When we account for the athletes’ composition and the organization’s relatively small size, the UFC could very well be the most racially and internationally diverse sporting organization in the world. Of course, the UFC is not the only MMA organization. 

On Saturday May 31, 2008, we witnessed an over-hyped but widely viewed match between Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson and James “The Colossus” Thompson. Slice, an African American from Miami, toppled the British Thompson in controversial fashion.

For the purposes of this discussion, however, it is critical to examine how through Slice, the MMA organization, EliteXC, is nurturing horrendous racial stereotypes in order to drive ratings. Touted for his underground street fights posted on the video sharing network, YouTube.com, EliteXC has literally referred to Slice as an “internet sensation.”

Furthermore, EliteXC President, Gary Shaw, even made the claim that Slice was "...the closest I've come to Mike Tyson" (Arritt, 2008). Unfortunately, Tyson’s history in and out of sport cannot be separated. Together, Tyson’s feared athleticism and criminal behaviors have perpetuated deleterious images of African American men that rest in Darwinian (i.e., supposed innate) racial stereotypes. 

The Darwinian drama has been kept alive by black athleticism in general and by black prizefighters in particular. What the public career of Mike Tyson has cost black Americans is incalculable in the literal sense of the term, but it is reasonable to assume that his well-publicized brutalities in and out of the ring have helped to preserve pseudo-evolutionary fantasies about black ferocity that are still of commercial value to fight promoters and their business partners in the media.

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