Biggotry and MMA

Mixed martial arts is no stranger to criticism. The arguments that the sports is barbaric and that boxing is an all-around better spot have come consistently from the moment MMA hit the mainstream, usually from the mouths of geriatric personalities of the mainstream sports media and the boxing community. Tim Cowlishaw, a successful Dallas News sports columnist who frequently appears on EPSPN’s ‘Around the Horn’, recently stated his opinion on MMA, “One guy gets on top of the other, starts hitting him in the head a few times, and the bell rings. They could call their videos Rough Man Love Gone Wild, for all I can tell.”
Continuing the theme of old, white, bigotry from those who criticize MMA, boxing promoter Bob Arum had this to say, “The UFC are a bunch of skinhead white guys watching people in the ring who also look like skinhead white guys. 90% of the people in the audience wear tattoos. For me and people like me, it is not something they ever come to see. They watched it; it’s horrible, guys rolling around like homosexuals on the ground. I mean it’s not a sport that shows great, great talent.”
We get it guys, save us the “back in our day” nonsense. You grew up watching the greats: Foreman, Joe Louis, both “Sugar” Ray’s, and Ali. But boxing is dying a slow death. Young people today are growing up watching MMA and are more likely to take a jiu-jitsu class with dreams of fighting in the UFC rather than taking a boxing class. You feel threatened by MMA, I understand. You see the sport you love declining in popularity and you feel angry and need to take it out on something. But try to remember what people said about boxing before it was known as the “sweet science”. The unknowledgeable referred to boxing as barbaric, a couple animals swinging away at each other until one of them is beaten unconscious. Of course you knew they just didn’t understand the beautiful subtleties that made your sport so great.
Well you are now the misinformed ones. You see a couple guys rolling around on the ground; I see world-class jiu-jitsu and Olympic calibre wrestling. MMA is the combat sport of the next generation, and I know that thought terrifies you but like your favourite artist growing up said “The times they are a-changin”. So either get used to it, or just keep your homophobic, ill-informed, senile fear driven opinions to yourself.