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Tommy Morrison fiasco hits ESPN TV
By Zach Arnold | June 11, 2007
By Zach Arnold
Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse on the Tommy Morrison ‘MMA’ front, they do. As predicted by many writers and readers on this site, ESPN discussed Morrison’s ‘MMA’ debut on Around The Horn on Monday afternoon. Host Tony Reali stated that Morrison’s fight was not ‘MMA’ because ‘it was neither Mixed or Martial or Art’ and that “just about everything that makes MMA good was not allowed.” The three panelists (Jay Mariotti, Woody Paige, and J.A. Adande) discussed whether or not Morrison’s ‘MMA’ fight was good for the sport. (Audio here.)
Jay Mariotti said that it was horrible because Morrison made constant rule changes before the fight and that he wouldn’t take an HIV test. Woody Paige said that ‘none of us care a whit about MMA’ but that they’re talking about it because people are interested. He further said that the Morrison situation was ‘good’ for MMA because it was part of a bigger strategy to gain attention for the sport (he mentioned K-1 booking Johnnie Morton at the LA Coliseum). J.A. Adande was the only panelist who had a clue about this story (pointing out that it was held on Indian land and not under the Arizona SAC jurisdiction). Adande stressed that ‘this was not PRIDE, this was not UFC, but to the general public it was all the same.’
It was very clear after this segment on TV that the K-1 Dynamite and Tommy Morrison fiascos have given North American MMA critics a good amount of ammunition to attack the credibility of the sport. Not surprisingly, both events were promoted by outsiders who are not lifers in the MMA industry (K-1 = kickboxing, Peter McKinn = boxing). The MMA industry is facing a huge problem in dealing with outsiders (many coming from boxing) who are going to flood the market with mismatches, watered-down cards, and corrupt business practices. The question is: How do you stop it?
If the big MMA media outlets (Sherdog, MMA Weekly, etc.) and mainstream media outlets want to help out, there are plenty of avenues to do so. No one has either positively or negatively addressed our update from Monday morning about the involvement of others in the Tommy Morrison debacle. No denials or affirmations. If someone has a denial, send it my way and I’d be glad to clear the air. Outside of a couple of e-mails, I’ve heard nothing stated about the background of Peter McKinn, Morrison’s agent and Carlucci’s partner for Saturday night’s event.
Leaving this mess of a story for the relatively-small MMA blogger community to cover is pathetic. The people who earn paychecks covering this industry need to step up to the plate and start doing some hard-news coverage on this situation.
Topics: Boxing, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
This is really getting out of hand. Someone needs to expose this clown hardcore so we can put an end to his time in boxing and MMA.
“The MMA”? If you don’t know what you’re talking about don’t open your mouth. The other guys on that show said it pretty well though.
Who watched the Daily Show tonight????
I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears, but the freaking Daily Show did a segment on MMA. And they even got John Hodgeman to talk about it.
They take a pretty satirical point of view so if you do happen to see it, put your humor cap on. I thought it was pretty funny, and they actually called it MMA, not Ultimate Fighting.
Huge props to J.A. Adande.
I uploaded the Jon Stewart clip to my new MMA blog, http://mmaannotation.blogspot.com/2007/06/jon-stewart-talks-mma-on-daily-show.html
Ah, satire.. The ultimate way to put down somebody you don’t like….
Jon had to be the straight man in the bit, so I ain’t mad at him. Yes his comments were a bit harsh, but he made an observation based on the aesthetics of the sport (I should add it was an observation based upon faulty premises) but I appreciate the fact that he took the time to come up with it.
Let’s face it, the majority of critics out there who wail away at MMA do so with rather weak arguments based primarily upon shock value. Overly simplistic appeals to some kind of moral value, or the even worse that the existence of MMA is somehow a sign we are losing our morals. And they took the time to address it as MMA, how many “real” news programs can’t even get that right.
This was a piece of satire, and I had a good laugh after watching it. Plus, I love the fact they got John Hodgeman in on it. That man is hilarious.
By the way, big props to Stu for putting it up. I really got to get me one of these blog thingys.
I thought the passive aggressive martial art style bit was pretty funny.