UFC message discipline problems: Ronda Rousey vs. Jon Jones
By Zach Arnold | April 14, 2013
Here’s the infamous interview Ronda Rousey did with Jim Rome for his Showtime program. In this clip, she’s touting the fact that she has as much sex as possible before fights.
JIM ROME: “Some boxers abstain from sex for up to six weeks before the fight. What is your philosophy on this?”
RONDA ROUSEY: “Um, on the guys or the girls?”
JIM ROME: “Both.”
RONDA ROUSEY: “Um, I mean for girls it raises your testosterone so I try to have as much sex as possible before a fight, actually. Not like with everybody, I don’t like put out Craigslist ads or anything but, you know, if I’ve got a steady I’m going to be like, ‘yo, fight time’s coming up.’ ”
JIM ROME: “That’s great. That works for you.”
Obviously, this interview didn’t harm her image with the masses. She drew a significant PPV buy rate for her bout against Liz Carmouche (w/ a good live gate at the Anaheim Pond as well), established herself as a top five PPV attraction in UFC (according to Dave Meltzer), and has now signed a deal with William Morris Endeavor to be represented in business affairs.
You would think on the topic of sex appeal and having sex with others that Ronda has a libertine attitude, would you not? Well, if you’re pushing a UFC product like The Ultimate Fighter: Real World edition, in the words of Brian J. D’Souza I guess you have to become… pliable… when the situation calls for it.
“Whatever line fits the moment is the one they’re gonna use.”
Q: “Talk a little bit about the House because you have been around it. It’s craziness, you know, I mean stuff getting broken, drunken parties. What do you think it’s going to be like when you add women to the mix?”
RONDA ROUSEY: “I don’t know because, I mean, the last couple of seasons people aren’t treating it like some reality TV show. They’re treating it like, you know, an actual documentary covering the hardest competition in sports and I expect that people are going to take this a lot more seriously than they expect. It’s not going to be as Jersey Shore-ish as a lot of people are predicting. But… I can only vouch for my team, I don’t know what the other team is going (to do). My team’s going to be angels, right, right guys? They’re going to be great. They’re going to be a bunch of winners and not a bunch of Snookis. The other team, they can do whatever they want.”
Q: “But do you think that the men will react well to women being around?”
RONDA ROUSEY: “Um, I don’t know. I mean I’m going to tell the girls, look, if you’re fooling around the house you’re going to be forever known as the chick as, you know… not being so classy in the house and the guy will always be the guy who, hey, I got laid in the house! So, um… I don’t know. I expect that the girls to be trying to hold it down and keep order more than the guys are.”
And if you think the sex angle was just some random question from the Fox interviewer, then perhaps you didn’t see the video of the media scrum or read this MMA Junkie article in which the message discipline is in full effect.
“I think that it’s going to be very similar in this season, at least on my team. I’m going to have to remind these girls that this is the first impression you’re setting for women MMA fighters because this is a lot of exposure that they’re going to be getting.
“If they’re the chick that was screwing around the house, for the rest of their career they’re going to be known as the chick that was screwing around the house. Sponsors are going to be looking at that. Everybody’s going to be looking at that.”
Let’s compare this to how Jon Jones’ fared on Saturday night.
Was he tipsy from drinking?
JON ANIK: “It will be Kelvin Gastelum against Uriah Hall. Your thoughts on the final here coming up in short order?”
JON JONES: “I think it’s going to be a great fight. You know, they’re two guys that I’m rooting for and a very mutual like. I’m just excited to see great Mixed Martial Arts.”
JON ANIK: “On season 17 of The Ultimate Fighter, Chael Sonnen takes the coache’s challenge. He wins the polling. He’s got two guys in the final. Your oppourtnity, though, to get the win that matters most comes April 27th on PPV at UFC 159. What are you going to do make sure that he doesn’t get that W that’s ultimately the most important one?”
JON JONES: “The work is already done.”
JON ANIK: “Anything to say to Chael Sonnen here before you ultimately square off in a few weeks in New Jersey?”
JON JONES: “No.”
JON ANIK: “You guys seems to get along on the show. Certianly, not in this tense moment here tonight. Jon Jones not even willing to look at Chael Sonnen. Do you have sort of a building hatred here for Chael as the fight gets closer?”
JON JONES: “No, it’s not about hate. It’s about love. I love this sport. I love trying to perform at my best.”
When it comes to public relations blunders, Jon Jones is definitely a champion. It’s frustrating to watch someone who has so much talent and so much to give always finding ways to ruin the mood for the fans who support and back him. He has this weird knack for creating artificial ceilings that he can’t break through. Every time I watch Jon Jones do an interview, I feel like I’m seeing a character from Dave Walsh’s book, Godslayer, come to life. Here you have a man in Jon Jones who absolutely should be the most prominent face of the UFC and he’s not because you can never trust what he is going to say from one minute to the next. Every time he talks, you feel as if whatever Rashad Evans said in the past about the guy being a flake is true.
So, when you pair someone like Jones up with a transparent phony like Chael Sonnen, it’s either going to be really great comedy or it’s going to be a train wreck. Either it’s explosive or a complete dud. Sonnen’s trying his best to gin up respect for Jones and put him over while putting himself over at the same time. However, as you saw on last night’s FX telecast, Jones is not cooperating at all. He’s incoherent. He rushes off camera before the interview is finished. He wants no part of promoting the fight with Sonnen.
Don’t get me wrong here. I am no supporter of Sonnen in terms of his act or his drug usage. It’s pathetic. He doesn’t entertain me. He is what he is. However, Jon Jones has to act like a professional when it comes to advertising the fight. He doesn’t have to focus on the charades at all to successfully be engaged in discussing the fight itself and what he wants to do in the fight. So, yeah, Jon Jones should take some heat and some blame for not doing his job here.
The UFC should also take heat & blame for creating the mess they did last September by attempting to book Sonnen vs. Jones at the last minute and rail against Jones publicly for declining the fight. They haven’t been very professional, either, and the hostility between UFC management & Jon Jones’ camp is evident. So, what did they do? They decided to ratchet up the circus show a notch by building a season of The Ultimate Fighter around a match-up that Jones didn’t want in the first place. And they do this in order to promote a fight that Jones has no interest in. So, when Jon Jones doesn’t cooperate with the UFC on public relations, they can’t act surprised that he’s being a jerk.
It’s like the old fable with the scorpion and the frog where the scorpion asks the frog to trust him and take him across the river only for the scorpion to sting the frog and assure mutual destruction. That’s how I feel watching the UFC & Jon Jones interact with each other now every time they are trying to promote a new fight together.
I guess trying to get fighters on the same page is like herding cats, after all.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 28 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
California State Athletic Commission top doctor preparing for more transgender fighters to be active soon
By Zach Arnold | April 14, 2013
After the fallout from Meathead Mitrione’s comments about Fallon Fox, Ronda Rousey has been taking some heat in the media for her stance on why she would be discomfortable fighting Fallon. Rousey put a reporter in his place last night when she was asked why she wasn’t punished by the UFC for her comments while Mitrione had his contract ‘suspended.’
Ronda addressed the issue during a recent Inside MMA video interview:
“My take (is) that if you’re a man who identifies as a woman or a woman that identifies as a man that’s something that you can’t control, it’s not your choice, it’s just the way that you are. But being transgender… that does require a choice. But I think it needs to be a case-by-case basis.
“On Fallon Fox’s case, she went through puberty entirely as a man and, um, though I do believe that, you know, her identity definitely is that of a woman I mean just at this point in her life it’s just not scientifically possible to make her body exactly equal to that of a woman. If it was another case someone who was identified much earlier and underwent Hormone suppression and then later when they’re old enough to make the decision [on having] surgery, I think that would be much more understandable. But I think transgender fighters should be taken on a case-by-case and if you’re already developed through puberty as a man I don’t think you should be able to compete as a woman.
“But, I mean… I really try not to give my opinion on this subject until I really extensively researched it and, you know, just the bone density and the bone structure you have after you’ve gone through puberty as a man. It’s just… it is an advantage over a woman, you know, and with something like MMA if somebody kicks you and if you check a kick the difference between if the person that threw the kick and the person checking the kick gets hurt I mean it has to do a lot with the bone density and it’s just an advantage. So, that’s just my opinion and… if… I know other people before that wanted to compete in sports but also believe that they are identified as a woman and they waited until after their career to undergo the surgery because it’s just.. science hasn’t caught up yet. You can’t do a complete transformation yet after you’ve already gone through puberty.”
Which brings us to a very interesting meeting that took place last Sunday in Sacramento with some of the doctors on the medical advisory panel of the California State Athletic Commission.
Dr. Paul Wallace basically played the role of emcee at the hearing. To his right (your left) in the video embedded is Dr. VanBuren Ross Lemons and Andy Foster. To his left (your right), new CSAC doctor Dr. Karen L Herbst (an endocrinologist from UC San Diego) was basically the main voice when it came to discussing the issue of transgender fighters, a medical testing policy for transgenders, and where medical studies currently stand in terms of data collected.
It was pretty clear from the hearing that transgender fighters like Fallon Fox will be licensed in California. What was a much more interesting news item is that Dr. Wallace stated that there are several transgender fighters out there who will probably be licensed. There have been recent rumors behind the scenes of more transgender fighters in women’s MMA. Just as the UFC is now integrating the women into their matchmaking, the issue of transgender fighters competing in women MMA is here to stay and will be a serious topic to debate in the future.
The CSAC video is over 3 1/2 hours long. Start at the 14 minute mark and you will see Dr. Lemons ask Dr. Herbst some questions about what advantages transgender fighters, especially in women’s MMA, might have. He noted data claiming males becoming females after puberty maintain a 25% higher lung capacity and keep the increased sign of their bone structure. In additions to questions Dr. Lemon asked Dr. Herbst, Dr. Wallace also stressed his concerns about the rampant levels of cheating in MMA and how the issue of properly testing transgender fighters could open the door for a new level of cheating in terms of estrogen & testosterone levels.
Here’s what Dr. Herbst had to say:
“We put together this document to try and better understand the information that was available on transgenders in terms of body composition, which included bone, muscle, fat… and I just want to be really clear that there are no studies whatsoever on changes in strength for transgenders. So, because, you know, even though we know from published data that there is a change in body composition when a man becomes a woman, um, hormonally or a woman becomes a man hormonally but we really don’t know how this translates into a strength difference. That has never been tested. From the data, um, if we just go through… looking at different parts of the body, we do know that one sub-bone has developed then completed its growth then there’s no change in the bone whether you change female hormones or male hormones. We do know that there’s a change, there may be a change in the quality of bone but that would be it. We do know that a female pelvis is different than a male pelvis and that’s not going to change but also in data, um, it showed that the center of gravity was not different between a man and a woman so, again, the size of the pelvis isn’t going to matter.
“But there were two studies out of Europe that examined changed in body composition between and primarily for males becoming females because I think that’s the biggest controversy as whether a man when he becomes a woman has an advantage over females whereas a female becoming a man may have less advantage over males and that’s not a factual statement, that’s just a supposition. So, these studies showed that there is a statistically significant difference in body composition between males and females. As, you know, [the control population of] men who are born men and stayed hormonally men versus women who were born women and stayed hormonally women and when a man becomes a woman hormonally or a woman becomes a man hormonally the overlap between the two gets closer but it’s still remains statistically different. So, then the question is, is that enough for us to say that a transgender man or transgender woman is still statistically significantly different and therefore should, you know, be considered different?”
As Dr. Herbst would soon point out, it’s hard to make any claims with 100% certainty given that we’re talking about Mixed Martial Arts and how young the sport is.
“We don’t really have data on Mixed Martial Arts fighters in terms of their body compositions, so I did attend a Mixed Martial Arts fight or a series of fights and what I noticed was that sometimes in a male/male fight there was quite a big difference in height between the men, arm reach between the men and so is it possible that there is, um, in the Mixed Martial Arts community a significantly different size and height ratio that would make this information different because this was looking at a different population, this was not looking at an MMA population. That, we don’t know, and if we could get that data it might help us to answer that question. But the last thing that we looked at was if a man, um, becomes hormonally a woman, um, she then obviously loses some muscle mass. However, in studies of women who are given estrogen therapy, they’re able to maintain more muscle mass if they’re on Hormone Replacement Therapy compared to being off HRT. So, estrogen actually does help maintain muscle mass and so the question is, is that enough in a man, uh, when he becomes a woman to give him competitive advantage? And I think we can all agree that there’s wide differences between body compositions in people. So, if you have a 6’5″ man who decides to become a woman, what advantage does he have over a 5’4″ man who decides to become a woman? So, um, I think that without more data it may be hard to make some of those decisions as solid as we would want them to be.”
DR. LEMONS: “And strength, there’s absolutely no data out there on data?”
DR. HERBST: “No data. Although, um, there is data on giving testosterone replacement to men and we do know that when men are given testosterone that their strength increases and we also know that when men are deprived of testosterone that their strength decreases. But, again, in the transgender population, we have no data. To my knowledge. There may be data out there that I’m not aware and would definitely welcome receiving that information.”
Dr. Herbst then mentioned the transgender policies that both the IOC & NCAA have implemented. A comparison was then made to what Dr. Sherry Wulkan (New Jersey ACB) & the Association of Boxing Commissions came up with last year. It appears CSAC will be adopting a policy very similar to what ABC has on the table.
“We did look at other policies, so we looked at the International Olympic Committee policy which requires 2 years of hormone replacement and gender reassignment surgery along with verifying that testosterone levels fall within an acceptable level before a male-to-female transwoman can compete as a woman.
“I just want to make a clarification at this time in competitive sports there are individual competitive sports where there’s no contact from person to person such as running or track-and-field events, even gymnastics. Then there are team sports like basketball, soccer which there’s minimal contact in between individuals, so it’s not always a one-on-one individual contact — it’s more of a, you know, bouncing off team member type contact. But in this case, we’re looking at, um, grappling. So, individuals interacting with each other and… so, I think we have to keep that in mind as we review these different policies.
“So, if we look at the NCAA policy, they also require 2 years of hormone therapy and regulation of testosterone levels but they do not have a surgical requirement and, again, that’s because there’s no grappling between individuals. And then for the ABC (Association of Boxing Commissions) medical committee suggested guidelines, even though there may not be a medical committee… they made these recommendations to the commissioners and they are a little bit more complicated and I can go through them. So, transwomen undergoing sex reassignment from male-to-female prior to puberty are regarded as girls and women. So, in that case, a lot of the data out there has shown that in terms of body composition before boys and girls go through puberty, there’s really no differences. And so if hormone therapy is initiated prior to puberty, that person is considered a girl or a boy and there’s no question about that. It’s just in the individuals undergoing sex reassignment after they reach puberty that I think we’re discussing today. So, according to the ABC, individuals undergoing sex reassignment from male to female after puberty are eligible if they have had surgical, anatomical changes that have been completed. This includes external genitalia and gonadectomy. They have to have hormone therapy for the assigned sex and it has to be administered by a board-certified endocrinologist, internist, pediatrician, doctor of osteopathy, or any other specialist with experience in transsexual and transgender individuals and that hormone therapy has to be continued for a minimum of two years after gonadectomy is completed. Then, they have to have a letter from a board-certified physician responsible for the care of the patient and this must be submitted to medical board.
“For transmen undergoing sex reassignment from female to male after puberty, they’re eligible for competition under the following conditions: hormonal therapy appropriate for the assigned sex by a board-certified endocrinologist, internist, pediatrician, DEO, or other specialist, a letter from a board-certified physician. So, it seems as if, um, you know, there are some differences but in terms of we are most similar to the ABC because there’s actual grappling that goes on and so, um, I think that we would fall into the arena where there should be actual surgical changes to the appropriate sex as well as Hormone Replacement Therapy for at least two years after the sexual change has occurred.”
DR. LEMONS: “Let me ask you, can you… assuming this policy was carried out and the male, competing as a female, what kind of testing and how often would you require it in terms of would you get estrogen levels prior to the fight, they need to be that of a routine female, and how much endocrinological testing would you need prior to the fight with the possibility that somebody’s using other male hormones in addition to get a competitive edge?”
DR. HERBST: “So, let me make sure I understand your questions… so, um, in that case, everyone who fights is at risk for abuse for substances and so if you were formally a male you could be either stop using your estrogen for a period of time which may allow your testosterone levels to rise if you not have a gonadectomy and I think that’s the reason why a gonadectomy is required. So, we would set that to the side because that should not occur. However, there is the possibility of testosterone use in any MMA fighter and that includes transgenders as well. So, um, they would be treated under the TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemption) policy, so how do we follow people who have [real] male hypogonadism and are on testosterone replacement and they are required to, well, we should make, you know, confirm our policy on that but a suggestion would be that we require testosterone levels over two years so over the proceeding two years and that, um, they have to have levels within a month prior to their fight. And so that would include for a transgender in either case it would include both estrogen and testosterone levels, or should.”
If you watch the session in full, you’ll notice that two interesting names are in attendance at the meeting to speak in support of Fallon Fox and to answer questions about transgender medicine and what policy would work for California’s commission — Amy Whelan, a legal eagle for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Dr. Nick Gorton from UC San Francisco. He’s an ER doctor and a doctor who specializes in transgender medicine. He’s an openly transgender physician.
Fallon Fox’s situation has in fact turned into a cause célèbre for many political activists and a hot potato topic many inside the MMA business are trying to come to grips with. I suspect Andy Foster wasn’t planning on this becoming his first big policy change while trying to repair the California State Athletic Commission’s damaged image due to the behavior of the Department of Consumer Affairs.
Topics: Boxing, CSAC, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Regarding Fallon Fox, UFC ‘suspends’ Meathead to protect their sacred cows
By Zach Arnold | April 8, 2013
Last Sunday, the top doctors on the California State Athletic Commission held a meeting in Sacramento. A topic at that meeting was Fallon Fox and how to handle the situation going forward in the future in terms of licensing & medical testing. Fox is scheduled to fight Allanna Jones next and here is a recent interview with Allanna about that upcoming fight in Florida.
Perhaps this article (Fallon Fox and the culture of ignorance within MMA) was a harbinger of things to come. Matt Hughes, the UFC’s front man (a.k.a. “VP of talent relations”), had a… unique way of address the Fox matter.
Matt Hughes is company “management” now. He’s a face for UFC ownership. He was not suspended for his remarks.
Joe Rogan went full-tilt in a rant against Fox, a rant we transcribed due to how… blunt it was in terms of vociferousness.
“You can’t fight women. That’s fucking crazy. I don’t know why she thinks that she’s going to be able to do that. If you want to be a woman in the bedroom and you know you want to play house and all of that other shit and you feel like you have, your body is really a woman’s body trapped inside a man’s frame and so you got a operation, that’s all good in the hood. But you can’t fight chicks. Get the fuck out of here. You’re out of your mind. You need to fight men, you know? Period. You need to fight men your size because you’re a man. You’re a man without a dick.”
Joe Rogan is one of the most important faces to the general public when it comes to UFC. He and Dana do the PPV sales pitches at the end of FX shows. Rogan has been around the company forever. When it came to his comments about Fallon Fox, he was not suspended. UFC continues to parrot the “Rogan’s a comedian” line to anyone who presses them on the issue. It’s apparently worked, to a degree.
That line of excuse will not work for fighter Matt Mitrione, however. He’s a) a mid-card UFC fighter who needs UFC and not vice versa and b) he doesn’t have the money to sue UFC in Las Vegas court. So, instead, Mitrione will have his contract ‘suspended’ by the UFC for remarks he made about Fallon Fox on Monday.
Let’s compare what Mitrione said to what Rogan said in their two respective sound bytes. Mitrione’s comments in brown and Rogan’s comments in blue.
“Because she’s not a he. He’s a he,” he said. “He’s chromosomally a man. He had a gender change, not a sex change. He’s still a man. He was a man for 31 years. Thirty-one years. That’s a couple years younger than I am. He’s a man. Six years of taking performance de-hancing drugs, you think is going to change all that? That’s ridiculous.
“That is a lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak,” he continued. “And I mean that. Because you lied on your license to beat up women. That’s disgusting. You should be embarrassed yourself. And the fact that Florida licensed him because California licensed him or whoever the hell did it, it’s an embarrassment to us as fighters, as a sport, and we all should protest that. The woman that’s fighting him, props to you. I hope you beat his ass, and I hope he gets blackballed and never fights again, because that’s disgusting and I’m appalled by that.”
“I’m looking at a man with a dress, OK? And you don’t… you can act as a woman, I will call you a ‘her,’ I will, uh, call you ma’am. I’ll be respectful but you can’t fight women when you have a man’s frame. PERIOD. Women aren’t that wide, that generates to increased punching power. Women don’t have that sort of muscle structure. I don’t know what you’re doing, I don’t know, you mean obviously if you’re transoperational it means you removed your testicles so your body’s not producing testosterone any more. I don’t know if you’re supplementing testosterone. If your body’s not producing testosterone, why are your arms so big? What’s going on here? There’s a lot of shit going on there and you can’t fight women. No fucking way.”
“I’m glad I could make fun of him a little bit because he’s obviously got some mental issues and wants to beat up on women.”
“How about some crazy dude who wants to beat the fuck out of chicks, so he gets his dick chopped off? I mean, that’s not outside the realm of possibility. There’s a lot of suicidal fucks out there. There’s a lot of people that are like on the edge anyway. Like getting your dick chopped off, you know you’re going to pay attention to me? OK, I’ll chop my dick off, I’ll be a girl for a while. There’s people out there that are fucking crazy and you can’t let them fight girls. You just can’t. So, if this chick fights on Indian land I guess they could do whatever you want. I don’t see the Nevada State Athletic Commission allowing a woman to fight a man, though. … I don’t agree with the (Florida) athletic commission letting this happen. I don’t know. I don’t understand it. I don’t know why anybody would ever allow it. When it comes to competitive athletics, that’s where you got to draw the line.”
Smoogy sums up the double-secret probation punishment on Mitrione:
I can’t believe Mitrione broke the UFC’s secret rules. Hopefully after a week in the Box of Punishment he’ll be back to polluting main cards.
As sports writer Beau Dure stated on Monday night:
I’m sorry — I’m completely baffled by the UFC’s suspensions and non-suspensions. Can’t event comment beyond that.
Look, Dana White said far worse things about certain women than Mitrione did about Fallon Fox. Where’s the consistency?
Matt Mitrione is expendable and easy fodder for the UFC to gain cheap PR points for making an example of. Joe Rogan remains a sacred cow with UFC management and they will defend him no matter how far he goes and they will continue to do so by using the “he’s a comedian!” line. You can feel however you want to feel about the comments these men made regarding Fallon Fox but I would wisely advise you to not fall for the myth that the UFC is pushing right now in regards to how their employees independent contractors feel about transgender fighters. Proceed with caution.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 72 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Nothing changes in Sacramento
By Zach Arnold | April 8, 2013
This guy (Che Guevara) was in Sacramento… and nobody bothered to ask him a question.
Last week, I gave the politicians in Sacramento a very easy blueprint on how to make Monday’s sunset review hearing for the California State Athletic Commission relevant. Mainly, put the one guy who is most responsible for the mess in California combat sports under oath for two hours and grill him with data from the Bureau of State Audits.
Naturally, the politicians didn’t listen or do the right thing. They wanted a dog-and-pony show for the press. Just one problem… they killed the audio stream for the hearing that was posted on the Senate Daily File web site. They chose to air audio from another meeting at the Capitol instead of the sunset review. That’s like sending out invitations for a birthday party and forgetting to list the location of where the party is at or what time you should be in attendance.
(The California Channel, at the last minute, decided to pick up the option to record the sunset hearing. You can download the large MP4 video here to watch.)
So, let me give you a quick summary of what happened. The toads on the state Senate Business & Professions Committee voted against sunsetting the California State Athletic Commission. That’s the one good development. As for the two hour session, it was a bunch of pols bloviating about “how could a state agency become insolvent?” while praising the Department of Consumer Affairs for hiring Andy Foster and hoping Andy is Superman to clean up the mess that the bureaucrats have made.
Marc Ratner (UFC), Roy Englebrecht (promoter), and a representative from Bellator were in attendance. Unfortunately, the hearing proved to be a waste of their time.
Oh, did I mention Che Guevara was in Sacramento? He was right there for the politicians to put under oath and grill. If the pols wanted answers and wanted a fall guy, they had their chance. They declined. They gave him a pass. They always do. That’s how he continues to survive. Proof positive that failure always gets rewarded in politics.
However, as one door closes… another one opens up. Che’s past history of being part of the wrecking crew that damaged the California State Athletic Commission is about to catch up with him. The first domino to fall? Bill Douglas. Douglas, the former Executive Officer who DCA made sure was in place years ago, is heading to trial on April 18th in Sacramento Superior Court. He apparently is not going to accept a plea deal with prosecutors after being charged with 7 misdemeanors for allegedly trying to sabotage key members of the CSAC front office. Accepting a plea deal would kill Douglas’ chance of getting back a job with the state of California and any retirement pension. So, it’s a roll of a dice for him.
Douglas and Che were a tag team in the CSAC front office in 2009. What will Douglas say about Che during his upcoming trial in regards to their prior activities for key decisions that were made in the office? How much new material will be revealed? Remember, both individuals worked in tandem with DCA. They ran over many good people while they were in power. Eventually, one of them is going to reveal the skeletons in the closet — and my guess is that Douglas is ready to roll over on Guevara right about now.
And that’s not good news for a guy who’s desperately trying to protect an easy $60,000/year paycheck for being a paper pusher.
Back to the sunset hearing that took place on Monday. Here’s a useless press release from the office of Assemblyman Luis Alejo about today’s proceedings:
Oversight hearing discusses administrative and operational deficiencies of California State Athletic Commission
(SACRAMENTO) – Today, Assemblymember Luis Alejo (D-Salinas) participated in an oversight hearing of the State Athletic Commission organized by the Senate Business, Profession, and Economic Development, the Assembly Business, Professions and Consumer Protection and the Assembly Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media Committees.
Members of the Committees discussed with representatives from the State Athletic Commission and the Department of Consumers Affairs the results of a recent State Audit, requested by Assemblyman Alejo, which raised serious concerns with the financial management and administrative operations of the California State Athletic Commission. During the oversight hearing Alejo raised serious concerns with the fact that the Chair of the Commission, Mr. Frierson, was not present at the hearing to answer questions regarding his involvement and responsibilities as Chairman of the Commission.
“Six audits, three internal audits by the Department of Consumer Affairs and three audits by the California State Auditor, over the past 6 years have highlighted the fact that the Commission has failed on its responsibility to manage its financial and administrative operations,” says Alejo. “The sunset review report also shows the continued inability of the California State Athletic Commission to carry out its statutory duties with serious flaws and major improvements needed. It is worrisome that many of the same problems go back to 2003 and persist a decade later.”
The California State Athletic Commission is responsible for protecting the health and safety of its licensees; boxers, kickboxers and mixed martial arts (MMA) athletes. Through the years, the Commission has become one of the largest combat sports sanctioning bodies in the nation. The State Athletic Commission came under scrutiny when the Commission announced its insolvency due to excessive spending. Reports of financial problems and administrative wrongdoing led Alejo to request the audit last July.
“The State Audit report reveals that the Commission lacks a long-term plan to deal with its financial crisis. It is unacceptable that even after fiscal problems became public the Commission’s board took 6 months to begin correcting the problem. Additionally, it was revealed that the Commission has violated state law in managing its Pension and Neurological Funds,” says Alejo.
The Committees that participated in the hearing today will collect all the information provided by the State Auditor, the State Athletic Commission, the Department of Consumer Affairs and members of the public and will begin drafting a bill to address the short-and long-term issues with the California State Athletic Commission.
Notice how the politicians are very careful not to go after the behemoth known as the Department of Consumer Affairs, the agency that basically controls the puppet strings?
To read all CSAC-related articles, dating back to May 2012, CLICK HERE.
Topics: Boxing, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 1 Comment » | Permalink | Trackback |
How not to do spin for UFC Sweden 2013
By Zach Arnold | April 3, 2013
Video courtesy of Fighters Only
“It’s our job, we have a lot of fighters on the card. No one fighter is bigger than a UFC event. And so it’s important for us then to work really hard to find a replacement.”
David Williams: Ilir Latifi’s path to victory against 13-to-1 favorite Gegard Mousasi
Meet Garry Cook, the new front man the UFC hired for European operations. He’s formerly of Manchester City FC. When you have a delicate situation on your hands like the cancellation of Alexander Gustafsson from the main event of UFC Sweden 2013, the fans are going to be very upset in Stockholm. It’s largely a one-fight show to the masses and that fight just got canceled.
So, when you talk to the media about the fight cancellation, there’s an important adage to follow: know your audience. When you speak to the press, you’re speaking to intermediaries who then communicate your message to the fans.
Which means you probably don’t want to communicate a message as tone-deaf as this.
“We looked at every option. I’ll be very clear. We always look at all the options. The guys are great at that. It goes everything from should we cancel the whole event, should we move the date, and of course none of that makes any sense. What we really wanted to do was meet Mousasi’s needs and what he wanted to do was fight. So, then it was case of, you know, who’s best suited. Lorenzo Ferttita, I think, made one of the greatest statements when I said to him, ‘What do you think?’ and he said, ‘Hey, great, another Swede.’ ”
I thought Garry did an OK job answer the press questions but it felt like he was missing the most important aspect of communicating news like this and that was what the paying fans think about how the situation is handled and what can be done for the fans. Replacing Gustafsson with a sparing partner doesn’t cut it.
Dana White’s message to writer Michael David Smith doesn’t cut it, either: “shut up dickhead this fight isn’t costing u a dime.”. Perhaps this new article appropriately sums up what is happening now: UFC fans slowly but surely learning to tune out president Dana White.
The video itself is interesting because there’s some insider baseball chatter about how 96% of UFC’s programming in Europe airs after 2 AM and how Zuffa wants new television deals in Europe where there is ‘magazine programming in prime time’ to grow the audience base there. It seems that no matter how much money UFC pours into Europe, they take one step forward and then two steps backwards.
Topics: All Topics | 34 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Sacramento sunset review for California State Athletic Commission this Monday at the Capitol
By Zach Arnold | April 2, 2013
To read all CSAC-related articles, dating back to May 2012, CLICK HERE.
The quick and the dirty on what’s about to transpire.
This Monday (between 10 AM and Noon) at the John L. Burton Hearing Room (4203) at the state capitol in Sacramento, there will be a Joint sunset review hearing for the California State Athletic Commission. It will be led by the Senate Business, Professions And Economic Development committee (powerful body in California’s state senate) and also feature non-voting members from the Assembly Business, Professions And Consumer Protection And Assembly Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism, And Internet Media committee. It is expected that Andy Foster, the new Executive Officer for CSAC, will be in attendance (along with others).
This is largely going to be a dog-and-pony show for the political press. SBP will not vote to sunset the commission. It will be largely two hours of politicians bloviating about the woes of CSAC and past members and how great the Department of Consumer Affairs is. In other words, a bunch of hot air and no real substance.
So, let me give the politicians & their staff members a heads up about how to make their sunset review hearing interesting & relevant. We know that the politicians are going to use George Dodd, the former Executive Officer, as their straw-man to beat up. However, there’s no reason for the politicians to come up with a straw-man that doesn’t exist any more. You already have a whipping boy in place at CSAC (via DCA) who just happened to be a primary cause for all the turmoil at the commission in the first place.
If the politicians want to make their Monday hearing relevant, don’t bother reading personal proclamations or spending time questioning Andy Foster when he had nothing to do with the current state of affairs. Instead, spend the two hour time frame calling up Che Guevara to the Capitol. Put him at the table, make him swear under oath, and grill him for two hours with all the numbers and facts from the Bureau of State Audits about what has happened. There’s one guy who still exists who created the mess that CSAC is dealing with today and it is the Chief Athletic Inspector, Che Guevara. He’s the guy who, according to BSA, booked over 50% of inspectors from out-of-region to shows throughout the state. It is Che Guevara who didn’t properly teach lead athletic inspectors how to calculate box offices, costing California hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. It is Che Guevara who has been disciplined in the past for his situational ethics.
If you aren’t willing to put Che under the microscope for two hours and ponder why DCA hasn’t fired him from his job, then you’re simply wasting everyone’s time with the Monday hearing.
The sunset hearing will not be televised on The California Channel. However, there will be live audio streaming from the hearing and you can click on the link provided here to listen to it when the Monday hearing takes place.
As for Andy Foster, he is going to live up to his word in terms of promising dramatic changes. Those changes are going to happen shortly, as in a couple of months.
Expect a new cast of athletic inspectors. If you’re currently an athletic inspector, your job security may be very tenuous. If the trend is your friend, then here are the following benchmarks to pay attention to regarding job security:
- A background in security, law enforcement, or firefighting
- Previous experience as a fighter or extensive martial arts training
- Not a full-time state employee
- Highly thought of in terms of qualifications by Big John McCarthy and/or Jack Reiss
If you match at least two of these criteria benchmarks, you should be OK. If you match more than two of the benchmarks, you’re set. If you don’t match any of the benchmarks, your job security is in real trouble. You’re an endangered species. You won’t be working many shows, if any at all in the future.
While I don’t know the full extent of who all the new inspectors will be, I did find out some names and the backgrounds of the individuals coming in. Expect a strong presence from the Los Angles Police Department, especially their boxing league. The names Rudy Barragan and Ivan Guillermo have been booked.
The most experienced of the new CSAC inspectors getting booked is Chris Crail. He’s worked over 100 shows as a CAMO inspector and is a BJJ brown belt with extensive training in wrestling. He will be a very good asset for the MMA shows in Southern California. Should fit right into the mix without any problems. This is a solid upgrade to the inspector corps.
Up North, a man named Gene Fields is getting booked and the new, hot name getting booked for shows is a man named Hanley Chan. He’s a CAMO inspector who has a background in security. He’s already starting to work shows and will work the upcoming UFC event on April 20th at the HP Pavilion in San Jose.
So, yeah, a lot of changes are coming at a quick rate and I would expect to hear a lot of noise from those who are about to get pushed aside. The shift will be quite dramatic.
Topics: Boxing, CSAC, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | No Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Bob Arum says Golden Boy/Showtime marriage is only strengthening the opposition
By Zach Arnold | April 1, 2013
When HBO cut ties with Golden Boy and allowed GB to marry with Showtime, I wrote an article stating that it’s now Golden Boy & Showtime vs. HBO & The Field and that was Ken Hershman, the former Showtime boss, is doing at HBO is no different than what he was doing at his old perch. The only difference is that HBO is HBO and Showtime is Showtime.
With Tim Bradley vs. Ruslan Provodnikov (at the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA) and Mike Alvarado vs. Brandon Rios II (in Las Vegas) this past month, Top Rank has had a nice little streak going here. Bob Arum has indicated that holding a fight with Mike Alvarado headlining in Denver is not out of the question.
When Kevin Iole asked Arum about the hot streak Top Rank is on, Bob brought up the subject of the Golden Boy/Showtime marriage and how The Field is basically having to work together to make the fights that the fans want to see.
“Fans want to see action and they want to see exciting fights. That’s what the fans want to see. Now, some people who are involved in boxing want to sign fighters and have them fight tomato cans and have networks pay to show those fights and it goes on and on and on. That’s not what the fans want. The fans want Bradley & Provodnikov. Lou DiBella is going to be doing a fight a little later this year with (Gennady) Golovkin against (Matthew) Macklin. I’m a promoter, I love boxing… but that fight I would pay to see! I mean, that’s going to be a hell of a fight!”
Arum’s announcement of Golovkin/Macklin came as news to the press in the room. Golovkin defeated Nobuhiro Ishida over the weekend in Monaco.
(Grantland: Matthew Macklin vs. Sergio Martinez and the racial politics of boxing)
“So, I think that it’s not only us at Top Rank, I think that other promoters who don’t have a sinecure from a particular network also have that type of mentality. So, I think it’s great, great news for boxing fans because we’re going to give them competition. Goddamn, you see some of these games in March Madness where in the last four seconds somebody sinks a basket and wins the game and it’s like a nail-biter, right till the end. Well, that’s why fans love to watch it. Fans love to watch boxing if it’s exciting, if it’s competitive, and not if it’s appearance fights.
“Now, for years, we were fed a steady diet of this kid (Andre) Berto with guys that nobody remembers their names. That cost millions of dollars to one of the networks and what they did get from it? [Nothing.] And what did their subscribers get? The finger! (media laughs) And some guy who used to be in the music business raped HBO and hoodwinked the public and that hopefully now is over… except maybe (for) the network that gives out sinecures. But they’re second, so who cares? Nobody watches them anyways.”
A reporter then asked Arum about Oscar De La Hoya claiming that he canceled his HBO subscription.
“Oscar is absolutely, you know, one of the brainiest guys that I’ve ever known and he probably did it while he was putting on those, uh, kind of leggings. (media laughs) No, I really mean it, who the hell is Oscar De La Hoya? He’s a moron!”
If The Field continues to work together and remain united against the Golden Boy/Showtime marriage, then one fight we may end up seeing is Andre Ward vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. I suspect JCC Jr. will consider fighting Ward on home turf in Oakland. Anywhere but Nevada at this point. It will be interesting to see what fights promoters like Lou DiBella, Gary Shaw, and Danny Goossen are able to produce in tandem with Top Rank (Todd DuBoef, Carl Moretti, & Brad Goodman) in the coming months. Next stop: Macau (Venetian Casino & Resort), this coming weekend w/ Brian Viloria vs. Juan Francisco Estrada and Roman Martinez vs. Diego Magdaleno for HBO.
Topics: Boxing, Media, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Urijah Faber 4-to-1 favorite against Scott Jorgensen
By Zach Arnold | March 30, 2013
Nick Kalikas and his crew at MMAOddsBreaker.com have released the odds for the upcoming April 13th fight between Urijah Faber & Scott Jorgensen that will air on FX. UFC has three major shows in April with stacked cards and Faber/Jorgensen kicks off the hot April string of fights.
To summarize what Nick and his guests had to say about the betting line, Faber is a -420 favorite and climbing. He could get as high as -500, which means he’s a parlay play more than he is a straight play.
“Any Jorgensen can do, Urijah does it better.”
Here’s video of an interview that aired last night on HDNet AXS TV with Scott Jorgensen about the upcoming fight.
“This fight with Urijah is an interesting match-up because we’re buddies, we’re close friends. He’s the guy who talked me into fighting but we both made up our minds that we’re going to step inside the Octagon on April 13th and beat the hell out of each other, so…”
“I did think it was kind of, you know, I thought he was kind of messing with me at first but… when I got the first text or the phone call from OUR manager, you know, Urijah and I share a manager, and uh… I basically just said, all right, well, that’s what they want, that’s what we do. I have never and I will never pick a fight. I won’t turn a fight down, I’ll take whatever they throw at me. As far as is it going to affect the fight, you know, Urijah and I both coming from a wreslting background, it’s what we’ve done all our lives. We’ve competed against friends. I’ve competed for years against friends and you separate it when it’s game time, you go in there and take care of business and then after, you know, Urijah and I are going to go throw an afterparty together, so…”
“It was my senior year and I wasn’t even wrestling at the tournament. I’d been out with an injury. It was at the Reno tournament of champions. He was coaching at UC Davis. I was there just supporting my teammates at Boise State, just out there watching the tournament because I couldn’t wrestle and he was fighting and he had his shirts and everything and I was talking to him, you know, and he was like, ‘oh, you should try it, you know, you’re done after this year, you know, you should try it and I think you’ll like it, you’ll do well with it,’ and I was like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, and you know, I went and finished the season, did not finish in the All-American realm like I wanted to at the NCAA tournament and… like, literally, we flew home on a Sunday, Monday I went and found a place to start training and it slowly progressed into this. It started as a hobby, you know, I just wanted to do it just to try it and you know four fights later of picking fights from, taking fights from 155 all the way down to 145 I guess at the time and then the opportunity to go fight for Elite XC popped up after about my fourth or fifth fight and I took it. That was my first fight at 135 and I’ve been here since and you know I went from Ekite XC to the WEC to now being in the UFC, you know, and I like to think I grew up in Zuffa, you know, I got I think 13, 14 fights under the Zuffa banner and so, you know, I feel right at home inside there.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
California State Athletic Commission board gets two new members
By Zach Arnold | March 28, 2013
To read all CSAC-related articles, dating back to May 2012, CLICK HERE.
The bad news is that Eugene Hernandez, the current Vice Chairman of the commission, had his term expired and the battle was lost to keep his job. That’s what happens when you have nasty politicians in Sacramento who hold grudges (in this case, a smart guess would be that he lost his job because he didn’t go along with Denise Brown’s program in getting George Dodd fired. You either go the DCA way or you get canned.)
This leaves us with John Frierson (CSAC Chairman), Dean Grafilo (SEIU guy from Sacramento), Dr. VanBuren Ross Lemons (Sacramento doctor), and Dr. Christopher Giza (UCLA doctor). Now, you can add two new names to the board.
Mary (Alice) Lehman, 49, of Palm Desert, has been appointed to the California State Athletic Commission. Lehman has been a civil appeals attorney at the Law Offices of Mary A. Lehman since 1995. She was an attorney with Gray Cary Ware and Freidenrich LLP from 1991 to 2002. She was a professional boxer from 1999 to 2002, ranking as high as number nine in the world for her weight class. Lehman earned a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of San Diego School of Law. This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $100 per diem. Lehman is a Democrat.
Martha Shen-Urquidez, 50, of Oxnard, has been appointed to the California State Athletic Commission. Shen-Urquidez has been CEO of USAsia since 2007. She was cross-cultural affairs expert for the Beijing Olympics Organization from 2006 to 2008, senior protocol officer with the California South Bay Economic Development Partnership from 1994 to 2001 and court appointed arbitrator at the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles from 1994 to 1999. Shen-Urquidez was a judge pro tem for Los Angeles County from 1994 to 1998, attorney and training expert with multiple police departments in Southern California from 1989 to 2004 and an attorney in private practice from 1986 to 2005. She served as a credentialed boxing judge from 2000 to 2001. Shen-Urquidez earned a Juris Doctorate degree from Whittier Law School. This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $100 per diem. Shen-Urquidez is a Republican.
All in all, they’re not bad choices. Martha is sharp and will be an ally for Andy Foster. Mary Lehman of Lehman Appeals in Coronado (San Diego) is a former boxer and an attorney. The big question is whether or not they will work with Andy Foster or will they become… pliable… when Sacramento comes calling on a decision and a politician at the Capitol doesn’t want the board members to go along with what’s best for California combat sports.
Regardless of the new appointments, the real problem for the California State Athletic Commission remains the stooges at the Department of Consumer Affairs (Denise Brown, Awet Kidane, legal nitwit Doreathea Johnson, chief athletic inspector Che Guevara) and budgetary issues that arise every year in the California Legislature in regards to who gets what in the Governor’s budget.
Topics: Boxing, CSAC, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Robert Guerrero’s no good, very bad day in New York
By Zach Arnold | March 28, 2013
The good news for Robert Guerrero is that it appears his May 4th fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas is still going to happen. The bad news is that after that fight, he may get the Plaxico Burress treatment from the state of New York and spend time in jail after being arrested on gun charges at JFK Airport.
He had an unloaded gun in his possession while trying to board a flight to Las Vegas. Bloviating Queens district attorney Richard A. Brown was quoted as saying the following:
“I hope that Mr. Guerrero fights better than he thinks. For anyone who hasn’t gotten the message, let me be crystal clear: You cannot bring an unlicensed weapon — loaded or unloaded — into this county or this city. And if you do you will be arrested and face felony charges.”
Guerrero presented a locked gun box to a Delta Airlines ticket agent. So, for his honesty (and idiocy), he got hammered. When you go into the land of Michael Bloomberg, you kind of know what you are getting into. Maybe if his name was David Gregory, he wouldn’t have been arrested. The Washington D.C. way of gun law enforcement. Instead, Rikers looks more like a possible temporary home for The Ghost. Ask Lil Wayne about what kind of experience that is. Just don’t drink the sizzurp.
As Michael McCann of Sports Illustrated adroitly stated, “Robert Guerrero chose the worst state to bring a gun to.” Kevin Iole at Yahoo Sports states that he doesn’t think Guerrero will spend a day in prison. I’d beg to differ on this one. Guerrero’s fight with Floyd Mayweather makes him a more visible name and for media-hungry prosecutors, it makes the boxer a prime target for throwing the book at in order to make an example out of someone. Keith Kizer, who worked in Nevada’s D.A. office before heading to the athletic commission, is already wavering about whether or not Guerrero will still fight Mayweather.
Guerrero’s high-profile arrest is the latest in a string of gun-related arrests at JFK amongst travelers, and the nature of who just got arrested here will certainly bring in political groups like the NRA to the mix in regards to the 2nd Amendment. Gun control remains a hotly-contested political issue in the United States, especially New York state with their new gun laws. California is also poised to pass their own new gun laws as well.
In other crime blotter news, Rory Markham was arrested on a felony assault charge in Iowa.
Topics: Boxing, Media, Zach Arnold | 2 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Fertitta corporate board member is a member of the Nevada commission’s steroids & drug testing panel
By Zach Arnold | March 28, 2013
When it comes to the issue of the testosterone plague in Mixed Martial Arts, we know who helped let the genie out of the bottle. The UFC may be saying all the right things publicly about wanting to put the genie back in the bottle, but they helped create the environment we have today in combat sports for testosterone usage (via permission slips). The athletic commissions simply followed where the winds were blowing. The Nevada State Athletic Commission is the worst offender.
Last Thursday, the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s Steroid & Drug Testing Panel held a meeting to bloviate about what to do next with fighters using testosterone. Damon Martin published the following article: Nevada Commission Discussing Possibles Changes to Testosterone Policy and Testing Levels
Instead of changing the rules on Thursday however the commission instead voted to do further investigation into the normal levels of testosterone ratios in fighters that compete in their state.
The idea presented by the commission during their meeting was to conduct a study of a wide range of fighters either past or going forward to determine what a “normal” level of testosterone ratio would be. Most fighters test under the legal limits, but the commissioners in Nevada are trying to get a sense of what level under 4:1 they are testing at, on average.
The study conducted will be internal only for the commission and not for public consumption.
The main voice on the NSAC steroid & drug testing panel is former NSAC Chairman Dr. James Nave, a long-time veterinarian. When Marc Ratner, former NSAC boss, was talking with Dr. Nave last week about how the NSAC should be not as heavy-handed in punishing fighters who test positive for marijuana on drug tests, one interesting factoid was omitted about Dr. Nave’s relationship with the Fertitta family which runs the UFC.
Dr. James Nave happens to be on the board of directors for Station Casinos. Yeah, that Station Casinos. Take a look for yourself with this Business Week graphic:
Business Week claims that at age 67, Dr. Nave’s total calculated compensation is $102,000. Take a look at his bio — he’s been on the board of directors for Station Casinos since June 2011. So, while the testosterone plague has grown… and grown… and grown in MMA, Dr. Nave is on the NSAC steroid & drug testing panel board.
Is Dr. Nave someone who is going to change what is happening in regards to how Keith Kizer and associate Dr. Tim Trainor handle which fighters get to use testosterone and which fighters should be suspended for elevated levels of testosterone on drug test results? No, but the conflict of interest and dog-and-pony-show aspect to what is going on right now with the UFC & the Nevada State Athletic Commission is foolish. You couldn’t find a better example of what a charade UFC’s PR campaign is right now to try to convince you that they really, really care about the testosterone plague in combat sports. They care so much, they built their main reality TV show this season (The Ultimate Fighter) around the most high-profile testosterone user of all in order to build him up for a main event PPV match at the end of April… in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Addendum: The fight was originally scheduled to happen (at the last-minute) in Las Vegas but was canceled. This upcoming fight is happening in Newark, New Jersey.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Behind the scenes, many are upset about ESPN’s Down’s Syndrome fighter video
By Zach Arnold | March 27, 2013
In private conversations, many important players who are involved in the fight industry (both boxing & MMA) are upset by what they saw with ESPN profiling Garrett Holeve, a young man with Down’s Syndrome who is participating in amateur MMA fights. However, there is trepidation of speaking out in public due to fear of retribution & backlash.
On Sunday night, we posted the following item: Florida allows young man with Down’s Syndrome & Rheumatoid Arthritis to do MMA fights
Last Thursday, ESPN PR posted the following pitch for their Sunday night video feature on Garrett Holeve:
Garrett Holeve, 23, was born with Down Syndrome and has spent the last three years training his body and mind for the rigors of MMA fighting. While some question the decision to allow Holeve to engage in such physical competition, the sport has given him a sense of fight – a belonging, purpose and acceptance – that extends beyond the ring. Tom Rinaldi reports.
“He’s got all these problems you know, all these limitations. But he keeps driving through, he keeps fighting through you know. And you can’t ask more from a person than that” – Rodrigo “Baga” Ramos, Garrett’s coach, on the motivation Garrett provides to the other fighters at the gym.
The fight involving Garrett Holeve that ESPN aired was from February 23rd, 2013 in Sunny Isles, Florida at the Newport Beachfront Hotel.
When ESPN aired the feature on Garrett Holeve, I knew what the reaction would be on social media and what the reaction would be inside the fight industry. Here’s a clue: two very, very different and vociferous responses. Amongst sports fans on social media, the video package was heralded as a profile-in-courage and something to be celebrated. Take this comment for example:
Pls RT this inspirational story of strength,courage,determination & how far 1 can go if u believe …..
Writer Daniel Serrano characterized the ESPN video this way:
Holeve’s father said people called him sick for letting his son fight, accusing him of exploiting Holeve and putting him at unnecessary risk. I say he’s a hero, because if he really wanted to, Holeve’s father could have prevented his son from fighting. He could have made a compelling argument as to why his son wasn’t ring-ready and should be barred from competition. But he didn’t.
Instead, he treated his son like a human being. He didn’t look at him like a disabled kid who needs to be coddled and protected from the real world. He honored his son’s decision and training and let him fight.
This item Jordan Breen wrote (January 8th, 2013) titled Should Garrett Holeve, MMA fighter with Down Syndrome, be given a fair fight? pretty much is the opinion that as long as Garrett isn’t involved in a full-fledged pro MMA fight, the situation is OK.
Inside the industry, however, a lot of individuals are angry and terrified by what they saw on television Sunday night.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Florida, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Bob Arum: Nevada’s athletic commission members are racist conservatives who want Mexicans deported
By Zach Arnold | March 26, 2013
No enjoys watching Keith Kizer squirm under pressure more than yours truly and the man rightfully deserves the political heat he is attracting. The $900,000 fine by the Nevada State Athletic Commission is going to turn out to be a pyrrhic victory.
MARCOS: “Junior’s been in the news recently. For our viiewers, I wanted to get your reaction to what happened with him and his fine due to the marijuana result he had with the Martinez fight.”
BOB ARUM: “Well, in the almost 50 years I’ve been in boxing, this was the stupidest decision that I’ve ever seen an athletic commission come down with. I mean, to fine somebody $900,000 USD or anything like $900,000 USD for smoking a joint 10 days before a fight is, to my mind, ludicrous.”
MARCOS: “Do you feel the commission was trying to make an example out of Junior to tell other people that might think of doing it, hey, don’t do it?”
BOB ARUM: “The commission didn’t know what it was doing, doesn’t know what it was doing, and… why should they be imposing any kind of fine on somebody that smoked 10 days before, pot, which is legal in so many states? I mean, let’s go into this century. Have you smoked it? You Goddamn right you smoke it. Do I smoke it? You damn right, I smoke it. I mean, let’s be honest, let’s be real. What they should be looking at is performance ehnahcning drugs — steroids, testosterone. There, throw the book at somebody who violates. For smoking pot? Are you out of your mind? It’s a traffic ticket in most places.”
MARCOS: “Given, you know, with that… what do you feel a commission should do when that situaiton comes up, you as a promoter, what have you tried to do to kind of stem this? It seemed that a lot of people reacted the same way as you have, saying that the fine is way too much.”
BOB ARUM: “They shouldn’t fine anything. They shouldn’t test for marijuana. If it comes up, as long as the guy didn’t smoke a joint before he went into the fight, what the hell difference does it make? What effect does it have? I mean, are they cops, are they policemen? What about… what happens if they said that if you had a drink 10 days before we could fine you, I mean, this is nonsense. This is now the 21st Century. I mean these people, look… the problem in Nevada is you have a commission that’s a bunch of conservative Republicans that would like to deport any Mexican that lives in Nevada and isn’t a citizen. It’s that mentality that’s not accepted by the American public. I mean, it’s a hard thing to say but it’s really true. You can’t believe in your heart that if that was a commission made up of Democrats, particularly liberal Democrats, that they wouldn’t have just laughed at that and maybe fine the guy $1,000 USD.”
MARCOS: “You really feel that given Junior’s status and his race that had an effect (on the) decision, say if Chavez was a white fighter, a Mike Lee or something like, you feel would have been not as much the fine as was given to him?”
BOB ARUM: “I really think that Julio (Cesar) Chavez Jr. being a Mexican national allowed them to come down with what is an outrageous type of fine which violates the Nevada Constitution and the U.S. Constitution. There is in both constitutions a prohibition against excessive fines and they violated it. $900,000 USD for smoking a joint which, at most, is a traffic ticket in most places is ludicrous and absurd and it’s excessive and it will be overturned by the courts.”
MARCOS: “I feel the majority of boxing fans would agree with you on that point given Junior…”
BOB ARUM: “It’s got nothing to do with boxing fans! It’s got to do with citizens, with the public. It has nothing to do with boxing. This is an outrageous decision and it’s an outrageous penalty.”
Topics: Boxing, Media, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |