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Garbage media
By Zach Arnold | July 18, 2007
By Zach Arnold
A couple of months ago, allegations of dogfighting surfaced against NFL QB Michael Vick. I warned that the media would immediately try to lump MMA with dogfighting (examples here and here).
With a Federal indictment handed down yesterday against Vick, I suspected that the MMA/dogfighting comparisons would surface – again. I was right.
Now you have to understand, Mike Vick never really had actual dogs fights. He used to make Peter and PitBull fight because Peter is a wannabe boxer and Pit Bull wants to become a UFC fighter. All Mike Vick was doing was helping his dawgs reach their goal of becoming professional fighters.
Eugene Kane, columnist for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, says that supporting MMA is as bad as supporting dogfighting.
I think Vick should be punished if he’s involved in dog-fighting to the degree in which he’s being accused. BUT I am puzzled why the so-called ‘sport’ known as Ultimate Fighting is gaining popularity at a time when society is rejecting the staged vicious competition between animals.
What are we saying, it’s OK for human beings to attack each other in a savage way but not animals??
The author’s e-mail is [email protected]. You can contact the paper’s editors here or you can send a letter to the newspaper here.
Michael Vick may be out of a job soon. Anyone who tries to lump MMA in with dogfighting should be out of work as well.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Zach,
I couldn’t agree with you more on your last point. I wonder what those writers would do if they say a Shinya Aoki or old-school Sato fight with insane (and beautiful grappling) skills.
Why would they drown or hang dogs that did not want to or could no longer fight? These are the most damning aspects of the new allegations coming out against Vick and his dog fighting buddies. Any attempts at trying to attack MMA to deflect damage against Vick or dog fighters as a whole this time around are going to be very reaching.
I think, at this point, most people are looking beyond the actual “dogs fighting” aspect of this whole thing. As brutal as it is, what Vick was doing to these dogs and the massive amount of carcasses found on his property is the real story here.
I feel that pieces like Eugene Kane’s will be the exception, not the norm.
Obviously Eugene Kane doesn’t watch enough MMA to know what he’s talking about, so I’ll make the assumption that Eugene Kane is The Undertaker’s little brother, because I don’t read enough of his columns…
…Is that fair :D.
These comparisons have existed for a very long time, and they will persist because there are people that just plain don’t have the stomach for reality.
The reality is that life itself is a no-holds-barred fight at times. Biologists will tell you that the existence of the species depends on survival of the fittest. Sounds like game on to me (biology was my degree in university).
MMA fighters are willing participants in a regulated sport. Dogs in pitfights are not. One is a contest between highly skilled and trained athletes. One is a terrible cruelty of putting two tortured and often starved animals in an enclosed space. The next time someone wants to make one like the other in print, they should have the sense to realize that the dogs were never offered the choice.
Fighters want to fight. Dogs don’t. Simple logic that these critics fail to grasp.
Same old debate with the same old argument. Quite simply their logic is flawed and MMA is no different than boxing which has been accepted for forever. It must just take time for them to open up their minds and accept something new.