Anatomy of a witch hunt
Wednesday's minor hysteria in Boston over the banning of a mixed martial arts event in the city was a prime example on how sloppy, badly reported work has affected the mainstream media.
In case you missed it, several media outlets reported on the decision by the city to stop a planned MMA event at the Roxy nightclub scheduled for Saturday.
Now first off, let's get a basic understanding of what exactly is mixed martial arts.
MMA is a combat sport that blends aspects of ju-jitsu, boxing, wrestling, and several other grappling and striking martial arts forms. Events such as the Ultimate Fighting Championships are sanctioned by most states in the country, including Nevada and New Jersey, home of two of the most influential athletic commissions in the country. California, one of the last big holdouts, is on the verge of sanctioning such events.
The sport has gained major popularity in several areas in North America. UFC pay per view events frequently sell out in Las Vegas; a huge crowd recently flocked to the big arena in Honolulu for an MMA event; and UFC has sold out Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut. There are smaller groups around the country that regularly run successful shows, including TKO Promotions in Quebec.
And the Ultimate Fighter reality TV show on Spike TV was a ratings hit.
Mainstream media recognition of MMA is long overdue. Competitors like Randy Couture, Chuck Lidell, and Tito Ortiz are every bit as worthy of recognition as athletes in other big-time sports, and it is time for newspapers and cable outlets to make room for big UFC events they way they do major boxing events.
Yes, MMA is a violent sport. The potential for injury is there. Blood loss is a common part of the mix and broken bones do happen.
And that is different than other sports . . . how? How many professional boxers have died over the years? One boxer in Los Angeles is currently in a medically induced coma after a fight in the Staples Center on Saturday night.
An arena football player died on the field this spring. Major spinal cord injuries are an accepted, inevitable fact of life in pro football. Same goes for hockey, and for that matter, you could get killed with a pitch to the head in baseball.
But no one is calling for the banning of any of the above sports, except boxing, and they are just as wrong in going after boxing as they are in MMA.
Of course, there was little such analysis in yesterday's media reports. Just screaming headlines and tired references to human cockfighting.
There were enough of them to obscure the fact that no one has died in a sanctioned MMA event.
According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, there have been two deaths in unsanctioned MMA over the past decade, one in the late 1990s when an American who traveled to a show in Russia and was beaten to death when an official wouldn't stop the fight; the other occurred recently with an inexperienced fighter at an unlicensed show in South Korea. But the show in Boston was sanctioned by the Massachusetts Boxing Commission and was going to be run by a reputable promoter.
Sanctioned MMA rules vary by organization, but Ultimate Fighting, the biggest group, has a round system (three for regular fights, five for championship bouts) with judges making a decision on a 10-point must system in case the fight goes the distance. Fighters wear gloves that cover up to the knuckles, which enable grappling; dirty tactics like eye gouging, shots to the groin, and stomping on someone while they are down are not allowed.
Yes, a move called the triangle choke is allowed. It is a standard judo move that has been used forever; Bostonian Jim Pedro used it to win an Olympic medal. Referees have the power to stop a fight and tend to the err on the side of being overly cautious. Fights can be stopped for excess blood loss, like boxing. As UFC grew and matured as a sport, it developed these rules in order to gain Nevada sanctioning.
They also do legit steroid testing -- Maine's Tim Sylvia was stripped of the UFC heavyweight title after testing positive last year.
It would have taken, oh, about 10 minutes of legwork to figure all of this out, but then, that would get in the way of a good tabloid hook, so why let the facts cloud things?
And that's just the stuff they missed.
Then there's the stuff that's flat out wrong. The AP story mentions 10 deaths in Toughman competitions in the past 25 years, and the death of a professional wrestler in Taunton, MA, last weekend.
Toughman has no connection to mixed martial arts. Zero. None at all. They may as well have also mentioned that people get struck by lightning and killed on golf courses while they were at it.
The mention of the pro wrestling death was even worse, because it was an accident in a staged performance, sort of like when Owen Hart died on a wrestling pay per view in 1999, but on a much smaller scale. Linking this with a story on the banning of an MMA event is stunningly irresponsible.
Then there's the simple shallowness of reporting on this story. If I was the person who had been assigned this story originally, I might have asked city licensing chief Patricia Malone a few questions beyond regurgitating a press release and heading off to the races with tabloid trash. Based on the logic she used to ban the MMA show, saying it was "extremely dangerous" and "incites the crowd," I would have laid out some examples danger and/or incited crowds:
*Local boxer Bobby Tomasello was killed in a fight at the Roxy in 2000. But there was no movement to stop boxing at the Roxy. The very same Roxy that now can no longer run MMA shows, which has never had a death in a sanctioned fight. Why?
*Travis Roy was paralyzed in a hockey game at BU several years ago. Why isn't Patricia trying to ban college hockey in the city? And for that matter, a North Quincy High kid died during a game about a decade ago. Why is high school hockey still legal?
*What about that arena football death? Shouldn't we make sure no arena football team tries to set up shop at the Fleet?
*And, oh, there was that pro wrestling death in Taunton last weekend. Is wrestling the next to go?
*And hey, we saw how the people were incited when the Sox beat the Yankees and the Cardinals. Quick, ban the Red Sox!!!!
The idea of banning any of those events seems silly, as it should. And yet, an event with no history of death or "extreme danger" gets summarily banned in Boston at the same time the rest of the country is beginning to understand it and let it thrive.
I actually did try to ask Patricia Malone about the logic of her decision on Wednesday. I called her office. I was told to call the mayor's press liaison and go through them. No answer. Tried emailing. No reply. Emailed again. Got a reply right around the end of the day, just when public workers go home for the night, a form-letter looking email saying they will "look into it," without addressing my questions.
But then, at least I tried. And did it from my apartment in Seattle. The reporters in Boston who worked on this story don't appear to have done much digging beneath the surface. But hey, there's a news cycle beast to constantly feed, so who has time for accuracy or analysis? No wonder public trust in the traditional media is so low.
<< Home