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What European UFC fans will miss out on if Setanta Sports shuts down
By Zach Arnold | June 10, 2009
Stateside, there isn’t a lot of talk about the UFC 99 card. In Europe, however, the focus is on a heated undercard match between Marcus Davis and Dan Hardy. Here’s a preview of what they’ve had to say to each other leading up into Saturday’s fight:
“He’s a fake Irishman, basically. A plastic Paddy.”
“He’s banging on about this Irish thing, Irish this, you know he’s got his Irish flag over his shoulder and his kilt when he comes out. It’s a cool gimmick.”
“You know, he keeps going on about Ireland this, Ireland that. The only time he’s been to Ireland is when the UFC has flown him out there to fight. You know, he always says, please I want to fight in Ireland, I want to fight in Ireland. If he likes the place that much he should buy his own plane ticket and go there on Holiday some time.”
“I mean, He’s going over there, he’s beating British guys which I don’t like in the first place, and he thinks he has some hold over the country, got a fan base there, it’s a second home. It’s nonsense. He thinks he’s going to win UK fans by beating me? It’s not going to happen. I’m fighting for that fan support more than anything.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Setanta will outlast Saturday, won’t they?
WON’T THEY?!
(and yeah, while the Dan Hardy soundbites echo the sentiments of pretty much every Brit MMA fan I’ve spoken to, very few actually care about this match. While it could be Hardy’s breakout match if he were to win, most don’t see that happening.)
As someone of Irish heritage myself, I find it incredibly annoying that so many Irish-Americans feel the need to make a huge deal about it non-stop. They’ve never been to Ireland, hell probably haven’t even been to Boston. But they feel the need to gloat about their bloodline. My dad was actually born in Ireland and doesn’t make nearly the same big deal about it that some 18th generation Irish people make.
Wow, we all have big heads, need to make a lot of effort to tan and have alcohol problems. Now that’s something to flaunt!
Mark,
Don’t ever go to Boston. It’s an entire city that will annoy you. And it’s a generally angry bunch. I thought the Sox winning the World Series in 2004 would make them nicer… but nope. They even more angry now.
“As someone of Irish heritage myself, I find it incredibly annoying that so many Irish-Americans feel the need to make a huge deal about it non-stop. They’ve never been to Ireland, hell probably haven’t even been to Boston. But they feel the need to gloat about their bloodline. My dad was actually born in Ireland and doesn’t make nearly the same big deal about it that some 18th generation Irish people make.”
But what I don’t understand is that this type of thing is mocked and reviled but basically everyone in Canada or the US of other ethnic decent (I guess everyone really) does the exact same thing and no one seems to say anything about it (Italians, Serbians, Portugese, Croatians, etc. – they act like they’re still from there or something and superficially seem like they’re more loyal to that place). Or at least if they do they’re called a “bigot”.
Like is it any different than Cain Velasquez and his “Brown Pride”? I’m pretty sure he was born and raised in the US.
We’re all Irish on St. Patrick’s day.
Yeah you make a great point Gaijin. If you call Marcus Davis a Plastic Paddy, no one will blink an eye. Except for maybe those Irish-Americans who are also Plastic Paddies. Calling out someone for acting like they are more in tune with their heritage than the culture they grew up in is often considered bigoted and racist but how bigoted can the truth really be? I hate seeing people of my ethnic group who barely have much genuine connection with their “motherland”/”fatherland” acting like they are more part of their ethnic group than the culture they were raised in. It looks tacky.
That said, I could have sworn that it was OK to call Oscar De La Hoya a Plastic Mexican though. Didn’t Freddie Roach (whose as white as you can get) call him that? Which is a fair assessment because DLH is a Plastic Mexican. Mexicans hate him and see how disingenuous he is. Mexican-Americans love him though. As for Cain Velasquez, I don’t know enough about him to make an assessment. But Roger Huerta looks like a Plastic Mexican as well and strikes me as very Americanized just like DLH and Tito Ortiz. And I’ve seen Mexican and Mexican-American MMA fans say that Roger can’t even speak their language properly.
Tecate on St Paddys day. Guiness on Cinco de Mayo.
wrong Zack, Tecate every day.
I’m glad someone called shenanigans on Davis. I’m from Boston, and of Irish descent and this whole super Irish pride scene is played out to the fullest. If you were born here, and you live here, you are American. Here’s to Hardy ending this gimmick with his fist.
Scott Smith did not get a medical suspension.
Seems like Missouri is keeping with the trend that unless a fighter is KO’d or broke something, they can fight when they want. It is a bad trend.
Well I assume they’d have to go through some sort of after fight testing no?
And they would still have the onus of passing all pre-fight medicals…so wouldn’t you get caught on either end?
The post-fight testing and pre-fight medicals can only tell you so much. For instance, you can test to see if a brain is bleeding, but you can’t tell if it’s a little shell shocked and needs a rest period before going back out. Medical suspensions are a safety net to protect fighters from themselves and force them to take time off to properly recover after a fight.
Si, I don’t know why none of you are interested in this bout – Davis is better than everyone Bisping has ever faced, bar Rashad. Similarly, dispatching Gono is more impressive than anything Bisping has done.
Absolutely nothing against Bisping but I’m just trying to say that if Hardy wins this one it will be an extremely impressive start to his UFC career.
I’m from Boston and in Boston and the only thing I’m angry about at the moment is 45’s ridiculous slander of my fair city.
And Marcus Davis. I hate that bastard. Gives us all a bad name.
Boston is great outside of the fucking endless Big Dig. I’ve played a bunch of shows in Boston and have some great friends from there. I also almost got killed seeing the Dropkicks there, what is to hate?
Boston rules.
Never been there, but a good Irish town is good enough for me.
I’ve lived in MA, outside of Boston… So my so-called “slander” is based on experience. For a city, Boston has a lot of great things going for it. It’s the people there that make unbearable.
I should state, I am a Yankees fan… But it is rather pathetic that I could not go into a restaurant with a Yankees hat on and get even decent service. And the number of angry comments I would get on the streets for wearing a hat? Horrible!! And don’t tell me it’s the same in NYC. I have been to NYC with people who wear Red Sox gear, and they never get angry and crazy people swearing at them or being rude to them. In fact, they are treated no different then everybody else.
So I guess I stand by my comment that Boston is generally an angry bunch.
I think your experiences would be true as an outsider in any of the big three sports cities on the East Coast: Boston, NYC and Philly.
Unless you’re one of them, most of the local sports fans almost uniformly come across arrogant, insufferable and ignorant.
45, this is not a shot at you at all, but I’d have to say Yankees fans are the absolute worst, with what they feel is their inalienable right to expect a championship every year — not to mention the fact that the organization tries to buy it by spending more than anything else. Then there are the Jeter fans; I still don’t know how anyone can be so blind to the fact that he’s a terrible fielder and not that great at the plate either. He’s certainly not remotely good enough to justify his fanbase.
^THIS. EMPHATICALLY. (re: Jeter)
I agree almost wholeheartedly (I say almost, because I think you’re underplaying Bisping – he started overrated but seems to be developing into a very good fighter) – my point wasn’t that this wasn’t a test and potentially huge coup for Dan Hardy, more that Marcus winning was almost inevitable, and Hardy hasn’t been around long enough to develop a rappor with the fans.