Fightmania Mailbag: Women’s MMA, Trash Talking, Rampage Jackson

Even though this month hasn’t exactly been chock-full of quality MMA, that hasn’t kept fans from talking about the sport and even e-mailing yours truly with their own takes on things. This time, we open the mailbag to field comments and questions ranging from women’s mixed martial arts and the role of trash talking in the sport to whether I’m overlooking Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.

Jared from Pensacola, FL says:

Don’t you think Sarah Kaufman is crazy for complaining about her place in the Strikeforce hierarchy? Not too long ago, women fighters didn’t even have a shot to get on television in the U.S., now Kaufman’s complaining because she’s not on the show that she wants to be on. Also, I’m curious to get your take on women’s MMA as a whole. You seem to be supportive of it.

I don’t know if she’s crazy, but I don’t think it’s her best possible move. While Scott Coker and the rest of the Strikeforce/Showtime crew haven’t proven to be as vindictive as Dana White, questioning your boss(es) on television not once but twice is generally not a good idea. At first I would have been likely to support her opinion that she deserves to be on a regular Strikeforce card instead of the Challengers series. After all, women’s 145 lb. champ Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos always is, right?

However, if you look into the ratings during Kaufman’s fights, her argument holds much less weight. Kaufman seems to think that she should be on a high-profile card because she’s the champion of her division. However, Strikeforce (and most of all, Showtime) is going to put an emphasis on which fights are drawing the most eyeballs, not which ones have a fancy belt involved. I like watching Kaufman fight, but the many people who left the building early during her fight against Takayo Hashi or turned the channel beforehand are not so open-minded. I personally question the intelligence of leaving a live MMA event before the end of the show, but that’s just me. I also wouldn’t be someone who would arrive halfway through the main card of a UFC event when I have fourth row tickets, but I’m clearly not the kind of person who gets such seats, either.

I support women’s MMA in that I am willing to watch it, follow it and in that I generally enjoy watching women compete just like I do with the guys. I don’t necessarily think that women “deserve” to have spots on a high-profile Strikeforce card, in the UFC, or anywhere else automatically, though. I don’t see that as sexist, I just understand that MMA is a business and that not everyone is going to be accomodated. Now, this is different than saying that I don’t “want” Kaufman to get a good spot on a Strikeforce card or to see women fight in the UFC. It’s the word “deserve” that I have problems with. Like I said, this is a business and if people aren’t interested in seeing you fight, that’s just the way it is, whether I agree with it or not.

Carano-Cyborg (and the other fights that the two have been involved in) proved that women’s MMA could succeed under the right circumstances, but problems such as fans leaving during Kaufman’s fight against Hashi and her relegation to the Challengers series show how far it still has to go. Still, unless fans start to show more interest in her fights and in the 135. lb. division in general, she’ll be stuck in Challengers events, which is only sensible.

Jordan from Battle Creek, MI has some thoughts on trash talking in MMA…

You’ve talked a lot about the ridiculous comments of Chael Sonnen over the last few months, and there have always been plenty of other trash talkers in MMA, too. However, it seems to me that more and more trash talking is going on as time goes by, and a lot of the honor and respect that used to define MMA is disappearing. I personally don’t think it’s necessary, and it doesn’t make the fights any more interesting, either. Look at Rampage vs. Rashad, all that trash talking and then a slow-paced fight afterwards. I don’t know what can be done about it, but the trash talking is getting old.

There’s nothing that can be done, really. Unless it’s something like Frank Mir’s comments about wanting to kill Brock Lesnar from awhile back, promoters are just going to let the fighters say what they want about each other, which makes sense. Like it or not, trash talking between fighters is good for business. I know for a fact that many people who generally don’t care to see Melvin Guillard or Rich Clementi fight would love to see them face each other once more, simply because of the bad blood that exists between them, for instance.

While MMA is a sport and two fighters don’t have to dislike one another in order to compete against each other, there’s no denying that a fight can be made more compelling by bad feelings between competitors. It helps promoters to sell tickets and pay-per-views, it gets mainstream fans excited about the sport, and it even gives the fighters a bit more motivation to train and be at their best. As far as the “honor” part goes, there’s always been honor in the sport, but there’s also been plenty of disrespect. I’m pretty sure honor was already out the door when Keith Hackney used Joe Son’s balls as a speed bag way back at UFC 4.

Now, does trash talking really help fighters in any real way? I don’t know about that. For someone like Tito Ortiz, who has been able to stay in the limelight and draw out his career over several years despite only a couple of impressive wins in that time frame, it clearly helps. However, if you hope to “get into the head” of a proven competitor like Anderson Silva in the way Chael Sonnen is attempting, don’t expect much for results.

Blake doesn’t list a location, but does have a bone to pick with me:

I don’t get why you keep on crapping on Rampage. It seems like whenever he fights, you pick him to lose, and now you’re saying he doesn’t match up well with Machida? Come on. Rampage has been a top fighter for years and if Shogun knocked Machida out, what will Rampage do to him? It seems like everyone just wants to hate Rampage because he started doing movies.

Actually, I do like Rampage. I may like him a bit less than I used to, but I’m still a fan. I even named one of my cats after him. I ask of you, is that the kind of thing that a hater would do? Well, you know…unless I did that just so I could continually abuse said cat as some sort of sick voodoo experiment.

The problem with Rampage is…well, there’s more than one, isn’t there? For one, he doesn’t seem that dedicated to the sport. I know that all fighters are at least partially in it for the money, but Rampage seems as if he’s only in it for that reason. Now, if you’ve ever done something that you used to enjoy and then started getting paid for it, you know what can happen. For whatever reason, you just don’t like it as much as you used to. (No comment on whether that applies to writing MMA columns)

In Rampage’s case, he doesn’t seem to like being a fighter much at all. He hates training, hates dieting, and says he would retire if he had made enough money to justify doing so. This may not seem like a big deal…lots of people hate their jobs, right? But hating your job as a checkout worker at Wal-Mart just means that you’ll be scowling at customers all day like 90% of their employees used to. You might get a couple of nasty remarks and you may even get stuck stocking shelves if the managers don’t like your attitude. However, when you fight really tough guys for a living and your heart isn’t in it, things can get much nastier.

Then there’s his skills. Rampage’s best skill is his boxing. He defends fairly well, throws good combinations and has power in both hands. However, he is also terrible at checking leg kicks (ie: he just doesn’t check them) and has not added anything new to his striking in a long time. On the mat, he’s competent but not a danger to do anything but pound on you from the top position, and his wrestling has always been overrated, thanks to his many slams against Japanese guys with no wrestling experience and diminutive sluggers from the Ukraine. How many slams have we seen since Rampage moved stateside and started fighting in the UFC?

I think Rampage matches up well against a good number of fighters in the UFC, but Lyoto Machida isn’t one of them? Why? Well, you’ll have to wait for my preview of that fight to see why. Come on, I can’t just give that up for free already. I will say, though, that saying that “fighter a knocked out so-and-so, so fighter b could too” is foolish thinking. Machida-Rampage is a whole different fight than Machida-Shogun.

[Ed. Note:This article was edited on 7/29/2010 to indicate that it was Keith Hackney that hammered away on the testicles of Joe Son, not the other way around. Thanks to mmaff312 for pointing out the mistake.]

E-Mail Jon Hartley

Tags: Anderson Silva, Chael Sonnen, Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos, Gina Carano, Lyoto Machida, Mauricio 'Shogun' Rua, Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson, Sarah Kaufman, Strikeforce, UFC