[IronMike74]

First post from yours truly. I searched to see if anybody posted this article but nobody did. Another basher of MMA. Some of what he said was true though...but overhyping fights has been around a long while though.. especially with boxing.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...e=keown/070529

Wait, that's all there is?
By Tim Keown
Page 2

Everyone had it wrong all along. The big moment for Ultimate Fighting, the moment the sport found itself ushered from the smoky basement to the big ballroom, wasn't Saturday night's bout between Chuck Liddell and Rampage Jackson.

Like every big-time American sport, the big moment came in the week or two leading up to the bout. That's when UFC 71 -- it only sounds like a spy plane -- got its sport all the validation it needed.

Liddell on the cover of ESPN The Magazine and another fighter on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Extended and serious coverage of the bout on every outlet, not just ESPN. For fans of leg whips, kicks and punching a dude when he's down, it was the equivalent of Joe Namath's hanging poolside with a bunch of reporters before Super Bowl III. It was money in the bank.

So who cares if the main event was short, dull and puzzling? Jackson hit Liddell and he went down, so Jackson hopped on him and pounded him a few more times before the ref called it. And ... that was it?

I'm probably predisposed to disliking this kind of fabricated sport, but I watched for the first time, and I watched with an open mind. In my case, the pre-hype won. The reality, though -- just like every other overhyped event -- didn't measure up.

(For one thing, throughout the preliminary bouts there was way more nuzzling and cuddling -- lengthy cheek-to-chest action -- than I ever anticipated. Barefoot guys in swim trunks listening for a heartbeat -- this is the sport of the future?)

Even the aftermath was more interesting. Speculation in Vegas, starting with a local newspaper column, focused on Liddell's training. Apparently he was seen at the trendiest clubs doing the trendiest things in the week leading up to the bout, raising skepticism about how seriously he was taking his work.

And that, fans of UFC, is a compliment. It's the kind of second-guessing your sport receives when it has finally hit the big-time.

[Jake Vig]

the way they made rampage look like a Tall can with all the promotion on chuck Im not suprised

[hankd]

I emailed him earlier today...no response yet....

Quick ending happen in REAL fights. I guess the only way to guarantee many rounds, crazy comebacks, and Rocky scenes is to make it fake...or maybe introduce a standing 8 count and see if MMA can catch boxing in # of deaths...

[Dreago]

Someones on a payroll...

[Mr. Dead Sexy]

Like it or not, we do reporters favors when we draw attention to their stories. It's out in the open (for the most part) that the MMA community is fairly close, and tends to stick together, for the most part. So if a reporter writes a story and one person doesn't like it, it snowballs from there, and they've done their job, without some realizing they're helping by calling said reporter "A stupid *** lol" rather than hurting him.

[Targaryan]

Whatever, this guy has no clue what he's talking about. He calls it a "fabricated" sport. This guy has no fucking clue what a real fight is like. Sometimes ina real fight a guys gets KOed quick b/c he got punched in the head. I'd rather see 1:45 KO than a 15 round snoozefest like De La Hoya/Mayweather(which this fool probably thought was the greatest fight in combat sports history). Sports media is really starting to come around to MMA, fools like this need to not be allowed to write about something they really don't know about.

[bgbuckeye]

Good article. It wasn't actually good in the terms that I liked it, but I was glad I could read it. Everyone that was at my house barely paid attention to the prefights even though some were awesome. They only knew Chuck and wanted to see a knock by him. They kept saying stuff like they brought this bum off of the streets or from some league outside the UfC that wasn't that good. I tried to educate them the best I could but they just wanted an entertaining fight. A fight that would ahve been a war was what this sport needed, but it missed the boat. I may take a few years to get there again.

Maybe a Randy vs Fedor Fight could get the nation to all be viewing this sport again.

[MajinFajita]

Look, sometimes we're going to have to agree to disagree with old school boxing enthusiasts. Some people can watch and appreciate both but this guy is not one of them.

Personally I find 90% of boxing dull. A lot of circling, footwork, working the jab and maybe 45 seconds of real action in a 3 minute round. 12 to 14 rounds of that. I realize this is somewhat of a strawman argument but for an mma fan like myself who sometimes flips to the Fight Network to see some boxing, the "highlight" fights that I see are just what I described... But there are some spectacular KO's that can occur without a doubt!

I agree with Targaryan, an uneducated viewer should not write a published article about MMA, in the same way someone like myself should not write an article about boxing, curling, cricket or chess!