My Response to Bob Ryan's Ridiculous Article on UFC 118

I have a somewhat weird habit where I enjoy reading articles from local media covering UFC events. Boston's coverage for the most part have been good. Bob Ryan, from Around the Horn fame if the name sounds familiar, just put up his article with his impressions of UFC 118. It REALLY rubbed me the wrong way and here is my response to it.

via thumbnails.truveo.com

This article really irritated me. I watch Around the Horn so I'm used to Bob Ryan not liking MMA. What bothers me about this article is that despite him actually taking the time to go to UFC 118 he didn't even give the sport a chance. He simply went in with all of his negative prejudices about how violent and savage it was and found ways to justify them.

The card ended up being pretty meh, UFC's 114-117 were great so we were due for a crap one, so he couldn't complain about the gory violence since no one was really savagely beaten. But wait he did!!

"A cage lends an air of danger and, yes, savagery. It’s a very clever concept, actually."

The cage is there, some MMA promotions use rings btw, because it's easy for people to fall out of a ring or for them to get trapped under the ropes while grappling. You can also see through a cage and it gives a bit when people contact it so that's why they use a cage. Sure it helps with marketing in some respects, but the cage is largely practical.

"They did away with eye-gouging some time back. But kneeing and elbowing are prime tactics, and, c’mon, what’s so artistic about that? If you love a flat-out barroom brawl, replete with wrestling, kicking, kneeing, elbowing and, yep, punching, then this may be the sport for you."

Kneeing and elbowing are "artistic" because they are extremely hard to execute. You cannot knee to the head of a grounded opponent(which would be the easiest way to do it) so the times when can knee someone needs to be set up. Hell most matches don't even have a knee strike landed the entire match.

As far as elbows go they also take finesse. Standing elbows are hard to execute because you need to get VERY close to land an elbow while standing which opens you to being counter punched. Elbows on the ground are more common and getting in the position to rain down elbows on someone is difficult and puts you at the danger of being submitted. Both strikes are as "artistic" as landing a punch in a boxing match.

Then of course, shocker, we get the sport compared to being a bar room brawl. These guys are TRAINED FIGHTERS. Comparing them to idiots fighting in a club is like comparing boxers to kids fighting each other after school. One is idiots being idiots and as the James Toney/Randy Couture fight showed what these guys are doing is extremely skilled competition and has nothing to do with instinct(which a drunken fight is).

Oh look more, "It's so savage and all the fans are bloodthirsty morons" stuff:

"Some of the fans may get off on the submission holds that can end bouts, but the biggest cheers come when fists are flailing with these flimsy gloves and blood starts flowing."

The two biggest pops of the night were for the Lauzon fight, as you said, and the Couture/Toney fight. Both fights spent most of the time on the ground, Toney was taken down 18 seconds into his fight. The Main Event was mostly standing and was nowhere near as compelling as both those fights. People like action(on the ground or standing) not necessarily just punching. That is what gets cheers.

I wish you would have gone into this with an open mind. This sport, like any sport, is not for everyone. I personally don't care for soccer, but I went into the World Cup with an open mind. Am I a huge soccer fan no? Not at all. Many of the World Cup games were boring, but a few were exciting and compelling. Will I go out of my way to watch a soccer match? Probably not. Will I change the channel if I see a Real Madrid vs. Man U game(Fun Fact: I have no idea if they are in the same league) coming on? If I'm not watching anything else I'll sit around and watch it. I do that because I didn't go into the World Cup thinking, "Soccer is garbage, all they'll do is run around and then when they get hit they'll fake injuries."

That is all I hoped for from someone like you. That you'd just go into the event with an open mind. Sadly even that was too much to ask for.