i think people need to get a sense of humor… i mean i had difficulties to breathe from laughing so hard when lesnar did the gay cowboy

Yea, all this talking about what’s good for the sport is just a bunch of bullshit IMO. I mean nobody watched that fight…saw what Rashad did and said…“I’m never going to watch him fight again”.

It depends on your idea of “what is good for the sport” is.

If the fighters started fighting to the death, I guarantee that the UFC’s revenues would go up. Is that good for the sport? No. Your story with your cousin just proves that MMA gains more exposure that way, not that it helps the sport.

The sport needs positive exposure, and while your cousin walks away wanting to watch more MMA, athletic commissions and the rich, white people that run them are cringing. I don’t know your cousin, but I’m guessing that he’s in no position to help the sport grow, beyond adding 1 to the UFC’s PPV order count. The people that matter, in terms of making the sport grow beyond what it is now, do not like that sort of thing.

Lastly, all of your examples lack something. In all of the cases you mentioned, the person who was being humiliated had talked alot of personal trash before the fight. Tito Ortiz, Phil Baroni and Melvin Guillard all crossed the line in prefight interviews; while that doesn’t necessarily make the antics of Randy Couture, Frank Shamrock and Rich Clementi acceptable, it does make them more palatable. Griffin, on the other hand, never has a bad thing to say about anyone.

Showmanship is significantly different from trying to humiliate someone. Evans, in my opinion, does what he does not to celebrate his victory but to try and embarass the other person. That’s the sort of thing that I think hurts the sport, whether or not it’s fun to watch. Evans (or any fighter, for that matter) acting the fool after he’s won a fight is showmanship; intentionally trying to humiliate an opponent during a fight isn’t.

Steve, thanks for commenting. You are right it does depend on what your idea of “what is good for the sport”. However, I can’t think of anything better than new fans coming in to support the sport. I disagree that athletic commissions and the white people running them cringe when instances like this happen. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone from any commission say anything negatively about it. If you have a source feel free to point me to it. It’s highly doubtful that the sport will lose sanctioning or fail to gain sanctioning because of gestures made during a fight. If so, there’s more going on behind the scenes.

I pointed out how showmanship helped boxers and the sport of boxing. The athletic commissions that run boxing usually are over MMA as well(it’s like there here in NC). They never had anything to say about RJJ taunting his opponents during the fight.

The examples I pointed out don’t lack anything. It simply points out a double standard. If people are going to negate showboating or whatever, they need to do it across the board and not pick out particular fighters.

I didn’t hear/see anyone come down on Nate Diaz flexing a double bicep pose and double middle fingers after catching Kurt Pelligrino in that triangle. There was no bad blood between them either.

I personally was hoping Forrest and Wandy would win. And I genuinely feel Rampage was just as surprised as everyone else that he KO’d Wandy like he did.
With that being said, all of Whitehead’s talk just makes the guy sound jealous and bitter. Yeah, Mike your buddy’s lost, but get over it. That tends to happen sometimes when you’re a fighter- you lose.
As for Rashad grabbing his nuts, I think that was a result of being caught in a “competitive moment.” Remember, these are twou guys hitting, kicking, and grappling with each other-IT’S A F-ing FIGHT!!! Making a big deal about a guy grabbing his balls is so petty when you consider all the other questionable acts that have happened during a fight in MMA. I truley doubt that opponents of MMA will be using this in their arsenal to try and degrade and bring down the sport. When it happend, I was like “Look at this Mother F-er” and was laughing. I thought it was funny. I’m sure deep down inside Forrest did too. I seem to remember Reggie Miller doing the same to Spike Lee in a Pacers/Knicks playoff game years back at The Garden-and Lee wasn’t even in the game-and that didn’t give basketball a black eye or anything. If a guy grabbing his balls makes you that uptight, then maybe MMA, or baseball for that matter, is not for you. Much ado about nothing.

New fans coming in to support the sport is a great thing, if they’re coming for the right reasons. If people want to watch MMA to see people humiliating one another then I believe it will hinder the sport, just as a huge influx of fans that just want to see brutal knockouts hurts the sport as well.

If MMA becomes that sport that we all hope it will in America, then it’s still in it’s infancy. The vast majority of Americans still believe that MMA is dumb rednecks hitting each other until one falls down. Those who watch the sport know that that isn’t the case, but what we know or think is completely irrelevant in terms of growing the sport: we’re already watching. If one of the most talented fighters in the sport is consistently taunting opponents, it’s going to turn off the more conservative viewers. The majority of people who don’t watch MMA are the people who do not enjoy that sort of thing.

Positive exposure is far more important than simple exposure at this point of MMA’s growth, in my opinion. If the sport is ever going to grow to the point of rivalling the big three (baseball, football and basketball), it needs to be friendly to the folks who aren’t watching it. I agree that Roy Jones Jr’s taunting of fans hasn’t “turned off” his fans or supporters in boxing; I don’t think that means that his actions were good for the growth of the sport, however. I think you’re more likely to win over fans to boxing by showing the public Jones’ 1984 Olympic matches than his pro fights where he taunted his opponents. Both are wonderful examples of his in-ring brilliance, but the pro fights have the downside of potentially “turning off” a large percentage of potential fans.

As for the double standard, I do think that it exists, but not in the examples that you’ve listed. Again, all the fights/taunts you mentioned had very specific precursors which made many people feel like it was justified. If Griffin had, prefight, been spouting off about personal issues or even went over the top of normal pre-fight hype, I don’t think you’d have this much backlash. However, Griffin was always respectful of Rashad and his abilites and Rashad didn’t show the same respect during the fight. It’s easy to say “I respect this guy” after the fight when your camp has pointed out you’re going to lose fans/sponsors when you mock an obviously popular champion; but in the heat of the moment he was mocking someone who is – at least on camera – one of the most genuinely respectful and popular fighters in the business.

The big distinction that I make is whether or not a fighter is celebrating or genuinely trying to embarass another fighter. Nate Diaz’s fight is a perfect example of this. I obviously don’t know Diaz, but when I watched the fight I always took his flexing/double birds to be him celebrating his victory, not a taunt aimed at Pellegrino. At the very least, if he was taunting Pellegrino it seems like he would’ve aimed the birds towards his opponent, not just thrown them up in the air. To me, that’s fine (forgiving the strategic error that you probably shouldn’t go crazy until after you’ve been declared the victor!). If a fighter wins a fight then dancing or other assorted antics are fine. Anderson Silva dancing or doing bad kata is an example of someone clearly celebrating, not taunting. Brock Lesnar being an ass at the end of the Herring fight, though, is an example of someone trying to humiliate their opponent, not celebrate their own success.

In the end, it’s all in the eye of the beholder; in my opinion, though, there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed. I can’t speak for others, but as someone who thought Rashad’s actions were uncalled for I think that it’s perfectly justified to believe that they were out of order.

p.s. Nate Diaz’s brother is a much better example of people who hold double standards, in my opinion. Nick repeatedly taunts fighters in an effort to “pump” himself up during fights. He has his fans, though, and many of them take offense when his opponents say anything slightly disrespectful, ignoring the fact that Diaz is as disrespectful a fighter as there is today.

Steve, I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one man. I don’t see it as Rashad trying to humiliate his opponents. He’s always respectful during the pre-fight hype, and always respectful during the post fight interviews. Even after the fight you could see him and Forrest giving one another props etc. I think it’s just something he does to get himself going, you haven’t heard Forrest say he was offended by it.

I think doing antics after a win(ala Tito Ortiz) are more of a fighter trying to humiliate his opponents, moreso than what Rashad did during the fight.

Great post Kelvin.

Fighters making gestures during a fight is nothing new. And pro boxers have been doing for years. A lot of it has to do with gamesmanship.

A guy cathes you with a good shot and you don’t want to acknowledge it. So you mock the guy as if to say “That’s All You Got”!

I actually have more of a problem with antics that take place after the fight, then the one that happens during the heat of the moment. And even the after the fight stuff is not big deal. If two guys just spent trying to beat the hell out of each other. I think we can give them leeway for gestures and celebrations.

Steve Cantwell’s post-fight celbration bothered me because his opponent was clearly injured. So I felt some restraint would have been called for. But it still was not the worst thing you can do after the fight is over. Does the name Mike Kyle ring a bell?

Oh, and by the way, Mike Whithead is clueless. Someone should point out to him that the left hook Silva got nailed with was a combination of two things. First, Quinton Jackson has a really good left hook. Second, Silva like Chuck Liddell has always thrown wild loopy punches. This leaves you open for counters by a fighter that throws tighter, more compact punches.

So if Silva got knocked out by a “lucky punch”, it’s the same “lucky punch” that Dan Henderson scored with. You would think a pro fighter would know this.

mike whitehead comes off sounding like a bitter, jealous jerk in that video. good luck waiting for affliction 3, buddy. they didn’t put you on the card because nobody cares about you as a fighter, it must suck to see people you were on the TV show with get famous while you can’t get fights.

rashad’s gesture, coming after forrest’s assault, was just to let him know it didn’t hurt him/psych himself up/try to psych the other guy out. the psychological part of fighting plays a huge part in these matches.

i’d take more offense to kalib starnes calling people ‘faggots’ after the quarry fight, or quarry’s blatant mocking/insulting of starnes. i thought quarry’s actions were funny, though, especially the screech/saved by the bell hand-on-head hammerfists chasing him around the ring. that match was ridiculous.