Last weekend I missed the MMA championship bout between Gina Carano and Cyborg Santos, but watched what I could find on YouTube. The steel-cage event headlined at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, was billed as a breakthrough for women, and aired on Showtime pay-per-view. Now controversy rages. On AOL Fanhouse, commentator David Whitley did that predictable squeaking that conservative males always do when they’re sure that women have overstepped in sports.
Just prior, the IOC had greenlighted women’s boxing for the 2012 Olympics. But Whitley has his issues. He wrote: “The ancient Greeks who started the Olympics treated women like property. Now we’re letting women treat themselves like animals.”
Whitley insisted that he’s up to speed on equal opportunity. “I’m all for equal pay, a female president and my daughters growing up in a misogyny-free world. I just don’t care to see them in a boxing ring.” But then Whitley added the also-predictable objection to women serving in uniform. And he finished by comparing a women’s boxing match to watching a snuff film or a dog fight.
That did it for a whole ring-ful of pro-MMA commentators like Zak Woods of Watch Kalib Run, who ripped into Whitley.
Meanwhile, everything happened pretty much the way it’s supposed to in boxing. Challenger Cyborg trained for five years. The HP Pavilion was packed. Reigning icon Carano got a huge ovation when she came out — only to be mauled to a TKO in the first round by Cyborg. Both women made a lot of money.
Way back in the worm-eaten woodwork of Whitley’s attitude is the unspoken homophobia. Women who do a no-no in sports are still seen as unfeminine and unnatural, ergo lesbians. And Whitley didn’t have to watch. Nobody held a gun to his head. But he evidently watched the alleged “dog fight” himself.
on Aug 19th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
MMA is commercialized sadism. Might as well go back to the Coliseum days and feed some people to the lions for entertainment.
Unlike any other sport, there isn’t any other goal but to badly injure your opponent into submission. It isn’t sport; it’s glamourized barbarism.
on Aug 20th, 2009 at 4:09 am
Lucrece, pathetic outdated view.
The aim of MMA is NOT to injure your opponent into submission. Most fighters will want to avoid injuring their opponent when they attempt to win, as they are only human, and feel guilt if their opponent suffers a bad injury.
Lukily in MMA, bad injuries (beyond cuts and bruises) are relativly rare.
Secondly, how is it any different from boxing, tae-kwon-do and judo, where your aim is to physically better your opponent?
MMA is just a mixture of those sports, nothing else.
on Aug 20th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Yeah, and you just MIGHT make your opponent give up by making faces at him?
Watching UFC, what do you think the audience is there for? What do they shout for? They get entertainment from the violence and blood.
Boxing is even more despicable, since its even more poorly regulated.
Physically better your opponent? Try wrestling.