For this post I was privileged to stumble upon a magnificent article voicing the opinions both against and for mixed martial arts and whether or not it is too violent. Obviously as always, my biased opinion lies in favor of the sport.

To begin, the man named Jasper Hamill talks about the “bad side” of mma. For the first four paragraphs he expresses his person concern while around an event. His downfall seems to be that he only expresses his personal concern for his own safety, and never gives any indication that any other person there has this terror that he experiences.  He then goes on to talk about how the fighters “don’t seem like the kind of guys who would get in a street fight” (Hamill). In his whole paragraph he never seems to give a real reason why the sport should be banned or why it should be considered too violent. He merely offers his opinion that it is too rough for him.

Providing the side for a positive look is Stef Lach. He begins his segment by assuring his audience that he does not “have a problem with anyone being opposed to violence” (Lach). He does however have a problem with “the irrational reaction to Mixed Martial Arts by people who have no idea what the sport involves” (Lach). He reminds the audience that Hamill could not even call the sport horrible after he visited the gym and went through a practice session. There is very little  convincing to do as Hamill has done most of that for him. He also points out that many people who are supposedly against mma for the violence resort to calling the ground game ”somehow homoerotic” (Lach). This has been something I have experienced as well. When people do not look at what a sport entails they will get the wrong impression about how it was made to be.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/life-style/real-lives/for-and-against-mixed-martial-arts-1.1136649?5758

This week is an extremely important event for the UFC and mma in general. This Saturday November 12, the UFC will be “on free television, the heavyweight championship of the world, just like it did when men like Ali and Frazier were stars” (Ryder). This is a chance for the sport to take a huge step forward for public opinion of the sport.

                We know that boxing events “were cultural occurrences” (Ryder), and this was made in part because the sport was made free on TV for anyone to watch. Since this was the case, people all over the nation were more inclined to watch the event and take sides to who they believed would win the fight. With the premier event for the UFC being the heavyweight championship, the stakes are high and people will choose the fighter they want to win. Participation of this sort will lead to an incredible amount of growth for the sport.

                Ryder argues that none of the fighters are big enough to “literally divide a nation or divide the globe”. I would like to make the counterargument that when mma is seen on free television by millions of people around the world, that loyalties will be drawn and we will see the same effect as “the glory days of heavyweight boxing” (Ryder).  Yes it will take time, but the glory days of mixed martial arts are yet to come.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/930543-mma-joe-fraziers-death-shows-mma-has-a-ways-to-go

I was able to find a very interesting article this week concerning injuries in mixed martial arts. This study was done “between September 2001 and December 2004 in the state of Nevada” (Journal of Sports Science and Medicine 136).

                Over three years this study followed “171 MMA matches involving 220 different fighters” (Journal of Sports Science and Medicine 136). This allowed them to get a good grip on the trends of injuries. What they came to find was that face lacerations were the most common injury over all taking 47.9%, followed by hand injuries, and finally nose injuries. These are all common injuries in any combative sport especially boxing. The surprising fact for me was that there were more MMA injuries than boxing injuries. I had always been under the impression that MMA was in fact safer than boxing, but MMA shows 28.6 injuries per 100 fights while boxing sits at 17.1 injuries per 100 fights. (Journal of Sports Science and Medicine 140)

                What the authors came to find on the positive side is that during the study MMA showed no major injuries such as traumatic brain injury. These injuries however are more prevelant in sports such as boxing and kickboxing. With knockout rates much lower in MMA than in boxing, this makes sense.

                In all “MMA events must continue to be properly supervised by trained referees and ringside physicians, and the rules implemented… must be strictly enforced” (Journal of Sports Science and Medicine 141). If these rules are followed in the years to come there should be little to no worry of significant injuries occurring in mixed martial arts.

http://www.jssm.org/combat/1/18/v5combat-18.pdf

As much as I want to keep on the side of defending fighters in mma, this story cannot be seen from any other angle except the one portrayed. Heavyweight fighter Brett Rogers was arrested under a warrant for “third degree felony assault in a domestic violence incident against his wife” (Al-Shatti). No matter what background a person comes from, this is unacceptable.

                Dana White, UFC owner and Zuffa official, “immediately terminated the 30-year-old from the Strikeforce heavyweight roster” (Al-Shatti). This was a good move because it shows that the president the UFC believes in justice, and that leagues will not tolerate uncontrolled violence outside of the sport.

                In a way this is sort of a rhetorical appeal to the audience of the sport. It lets them know that things will not get out of hand under their control, and if something bad happens, they will take care of it. This reminds me of Andrew’s blog on “Violence Developed within sports” when he talks about the fight between two football teams. In the same way the NCAA will be praised for suspending 10 players, Dana White will be praised for terminating Roger’s contract.

              The last thing to look at is whether or not the sport is what led to this violent act. It is safe to say that the sport gave him the tools to carry it out, but it would be controversial to say that the sport made him a violent person. If a baseball player were to hurt someone with a bat one would say the sport gave him the tools: his bat, strength, and swinging technique, but no one would say the sport made him violent. Similarly, mma gave Rogers the tools to hurt someone, but it is his actions that led him to prison, not his tools.



http://mma.sbnation.com/2011/10/25/2513387/brett-rogers-arrest-warrant-strikeforce-mma-news

Many blogs focusing on mixed martial arts tend to focus more on news and happenings within the mixed martial arts community. With the UFC being the most recognized and highest level of competition at least within the United States, if not the world, most blogs are concentrated around this league. The two blogs I found are indeed very similar, but it is the subtle differences between them that mean the world as far as determining what audience would visit them.

                The first blog is called bloody elbow. This blog seems to be centered around attracting big time mma fans, and relaying the latest and greatest news to them. There are posts about all the upcoming bouts, and general opinions circulating the web. As I said before, this would cater more to the fan that is very into mma. The reader definitely has to know about the rules of the sport as well as some history to fully grasp the blog. They don’t seem to care to much for catering to an uninformed crowd.

                The second blog I chose, mmamania, does indeed focus on the same aspects, as far as news goes, but they present it more in a way for the general observer to enjoy. This blog is more filled with video clips, and repeated stories varied slightly for a different approach. It allows the audience to understand what is happening and follow along much easier than bloody elbow. This blog is definitely geared more toward the casual fan.

                Neither of these blogs looks to be reaching anyone outside the United States, Canada, and perhaps the UK. The audiences are different in that bloody elbow is for individuals more involved with the sport, and mmamania is geared toward casual observers. It is impossible to say that either of these blogs are trying to reach actual fighters, but bloody elbow would be more geared toward this audience

                

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/

http://www.mmamania.com/

Visual Rhetoric

This clip features a man named Joe Rogan who currently commentates at all UFC events. The message here is clear, that mma is not overly violent, and “people are babies”. The first strategy used in this video is an appeal to a higher power. Obviously Joe Rogan is not in a position of authority over the normal viewer of this video, but he does have high connections in the UFC and is up close and personal with hundreds of fights a year. For this reason the video maker is appealing to an authority on the subject. This proves effective because people will listen to someone they believe has greater knowledge than themselves. If a person is that knowledgeable on a subject, then what they say must be the right opinion.

                Another strategy used in this video is the attempt to make violence “a very real part of life”. Rogan sets up this statement by saying that sex, food, and sleep are all parts of normal life. Joe puts violence on the same level as these three things. By doing this he is essentially saying that just as people need to eat and sleep, they also need violence. Going along with his theme of violence as “a very real part of life”, Rogan says “there’s never been a death in the UFC, and even if there is, you know, people die, you know, everybody dies, people die every day”.  Even as Joe admits to the sport as being physically violent, he reduces the effect of violence into an everyday, normal occurrence that should not be taken out of proportion.

                Through these strategies Joe Rogan is able to reduce the negative opinion of physical violence in mma to a normal part of life that should not be scrutinized. 

Before the Action

This week was interesting when I came across a video clip with BJ Penn talking about trash talking in the UFC. Unfortunately I will not be able to give a link, as the video was quickly taken down. In the clip however, Penn talks about his upcoming fight with a man by the name of Nick Diaz.

Normally before fights in order to hype them up, the UFC will put on interviews of fighters either trash talking one another or explaining how they plan to win. In this clip Penn tells us that he does in fact respect Diaz as a mixed martial artist, and wants the best for him. He also claims that the UFC told him to trash talk, in order to hype the fight, and he did end up saying some things hence the reason he released his own video explaining it wasn’t true.

This concerns me because the “prefight interviews” are the only thing that a large amount of people see. When they watch these interviews they are bound to believe that mma is a group of violent, angry fighters. It seems to me that the organization should allow competitors to express their respect for an opponent. With that said, violence sells. People will look at the interviews and decide based upon how much the two seem to dislike each other, whether or not it will be a good fight.

My question is: Is this a safe marketing move? I understand that yes, the added violence will sell pay-per-views, and tickets, but will it damage the nature of the sport? If mma is perceived as a disrespectful, violent sport, it will likely never be widely accepted.