Note To Gina Carano and Rampage Jackson: Fighters Aren't Actors

MMA has officially gone Hollywood.

With major movie roles being given to Quinton Jackson, Randy Couture, and Gina Carano, it seems like every fighter is trying to get out of the fight business and into acting.

I can understand why.  It's a lot easier on the body to pretend to be a tough guy than it is to actually step into the cage and put your body on the line.

It might even be more profitable if you can be successful at it, however, for every successful case of an athlete becoming an actor, there are plenty of dismal failures.

In the case of Randy Couture, the move to acting makes sense to some degree because he's likely no longer going to be fighting for titles anymore anyway, and is nearing the end of his fighting career.

Even then, his future in acting is unclear at best.  In Redbelt, he wasn't really required to do much acting, and seemed to be playing a version of himself as a fighting commentator like he used to be for the UFC.

In Scorpion King 2, he had to do a lot of acting.  The results were abysmal.  Part of that was probably due to the poor direction, and lack of proper editing, but nevertheless, the stench of that movie is something that I've tried to forget.

Overall though, Couture's abilities as an actor are unproven at best.

Furthermore, he is probably going to be limited to taking tough-guy roles in action flicks. At 46-years-old, one wonders how much longer he is going to be credible as an action movie star, especially when he's competing for roles with other old tough guys like Mickey Rourke who have the acting abilities to pull it off.

Gina Carano is in a different position.  She does have a few decent wins under her belt, but fell short in the biggest fight of her career.  She might be able to be successful as an actress or entertainer of sorts, but it is still far from a sure thing.

If she is focused on acting instead of training, I don't think that she will ever be able to cement much of a legacy as a fighter.

Quinton Jackson is perhaps in the best position, as he already has a legacy as a fighter, and is still in his physical prime.  However he loses valuable time in his fighting career by acting while he should be preparing to face Rashad Evans.

Jackson does have a larger-than-life persona that leads people to believe that he will be good in the role of B.A. Baracus.  However, just having a personality doesn't mean that he is going to be able to take on another one.  I feel that there is a big possibility that Jackson's  B.A. Baracus might end up coming off more like a bad impersonation of Mr.T than a new presentation of the character.

Besides from these few specific cases, I am troubled by the general idea of fighters abandoning the sport for acting.  You don't see other sports figures taking significant time away from their sports to go and start acting.

Lebron James, Peyton Manning, and Sidney Crosby aren't going to be taking any seasons off to star in a feature film any time soon, so why should MMA fighters like Cung Le, Roger Huerta, Quinton Jackson, Gina Carano, and Randy Couture all leave fighting for acting?

I think a lot of this move compares to professional wrestling, where Dwayne Johnson and Hulk Hogan have moved on successfully into acting.  Fighting seems kind of like professional wrestling, so I guess this makes some sense.

But there is a big difference between fighting and pro wrestling.  Pro wrestlers are essentially really huge actors as their fights are scripted.  Fighters, while they may occasionally show off some personality, are still fighting for real, and do a lot less acting.

Plus, if John Cena takes time off from the WWE to go act in a movie, it's not going to adversely affect his chances of recapturing the WWE Heavyweight Title.

One of the things that disturbs me the most though, is when fans of fighters are now actually cheering for fighters like Georges St.Pierre to leave MMA and go off to pursue acting careers.

I'm a big fan of Georges St.Pierre.

That is, I'm a big fan of Georges St.Pierre the fighter.

Georges St.Pierre, the actor?

Not so much.

Thankfully, Georges St.Pierre knows his place and has embraced his role as a fighter, seeing acting only as something he does as a hobby.

It's time for other fighters to start embracing their roles as fighters, and leave acting to the professionals.

Professional wrestlers, that is.