MMA's Greatest Asset Is Also Its Biggest Downfall

Today, I would like to talk about the fans of MMA.  MMA fans are some of most passionate sports fans I have seen in my life.  They often get into heated debates on who's the best fighter, or which promotor's the best, etc...MMA fans' loyalty and enthusiasm is arguably the sport's greatest asset.

So why do I think that MMA fans could also be a downfall, as suggested in my title?  Now I am only talking about what I have seen from MMA fans in the underground.  They probably only represents a small portion of the hardcore fans.  

However, they are the most vocal and sometimes it's a double-sided sword.  Some of these fans aren't the most civil of fans, they would say anything they think they need to say if they think that you are wrong.  

Go to Sherdog and look up any "pound for pound" related threads, within 10 replies, the thread suddenly becomes an insulting battle.  It's not uncommon to see comments like "you are a fucking retard", "GTFO", "troll", "fail", "your mom didn't breast feed you when you were a child?", etc...

On the one hand, it shows how passionate these fans are; on the other hand, it gives a bad image to MMA fans, and therefore, the sport of MMA.  And really, as soon as those insults start rolling in, people would get so engaged in the war of words that they forget what the thread was originally about.

Secondly, I follow a lot of sports, and I can positively say that a portion of hardcore MMA fans are the most disrespectful bunch I have seen.  By disrespectful, I am talking about respect for other sports.  Some MMA fans like to pretend that other sports aren't sports, or they do not respect athletes of other sports, and that includes some of the high-profile fans of MMA.  

Take Joe Rogan for example; I remember him calling a fight night card and during one of the fights, the fighters were sort of in a stalemate trying battle for better ground positions.

As a pretty serious MMA fan, I was eager to see how each fighter would improve his position, but I can see why casual fans would find it boring.  Then all of a sudden, Rogan said something along the line of "I love ground battles, some people say it's boring, BASEBALL IS A MILLION TIMES BORING!"  

Then I heard Mike Goldberg chuckled uncomfortably.  I know that Goldberg used to cover other sports and is a huge sports fan in general, so at that point, I dare to say that he was uncomfortable with what Rogan had said and didn't want to add any fuel to the fire.  

Some hardcore fans always want to see Goldberg fired, but I like him a lot more than Rogan.

Another instance of high-profile MMA fan disrespecting other sports was after UFC 75, it was the eve of the US Open Tennis Final, I was listening to "Beatdown After the Bell" on Sherdog, at the end of the show, Jordan Breen asked TJ De Santis, "So are you gonna watch the US Open Final tomorrow? It's Roger Federer vs Novak Djokovic."  Instead of just saying "no", TJ had to say "no" with so much disdain, as if he thinks Jordan is even foolish for watching tennis, let alone asking if someone else is also watching it.  

Then he said, "who's this Federer guy? Is he the FEDOR of tennis?" "Pretty much," replied Breen.  I mean that was funny at the time, but thinking back after seeing so many instances of MMA fans dissing other sports, I think it was a bad move on TJ's part.  

Ironically, with TJ "obviously" being the more devoted MMA fan, Jordan Breen is the guy with more knowledge in the sport.  So being disrespectful of other sports does not mean that you are gonna be great at your own sport.

The most recent case of MMA fans not appreciating other sports, or athletes of other sports is Shaq's promotional video for WEC "Cerrone vs Henderson".  When I first watched it, I thought "Fantastic, this will get more casual fans interested in the sport if such a high-profile sports star is promoting it."

Just in case if some of the hardcore MMA fans are reading it and they have no clue who Shaq is, he is a four-time NBA world champ and three-time NBA Finals MVP, and NBA is an American basketball league, and basketball is played with a round ball and the purpose is to get the ball into a hoop, and a hoop is a hoop.  

So watching that video got me pretty excited and then it all went downhill when I started reading the comments posted on the video.  "big goofy nigga", "wow shaq has no clue wtf hes talkin about", "Shaq is an attention whore." 

So instead of welcoming the good promotional move on WEC's part, these fans have to pretend MMA is a little secret fad that only belongs to them.  It's almost as if they like MMA because no one else knows about it and they want to keep it that way.  

I might be over-reacting here, but some of these hardcore fans have to come to terms with the fact that MMA is growing, and more people are going to become fans and there is no stopping it.  MMA is not your exclusive boyfriend who you do not want to shard with anyone else.  In fact, if you truly care about MMA, you want to share it with as many people as you can to bring it into the mainstream.

Anyway, I am only talking about a small portion of MMA fans here, but because they are the most vocal, they are often perceived as the representatives of all of us civil MMA fans.  With this article, I am running the risk of getting seriously hated on but I don't care, I just want to share my thoughts on this issue.