Mainstream Media Coverage of MMA is Still Inadequate, Lazy

The sport of MMA has changed a lot in the last several years, especially since the marriage of Spike TV and the UFC helped bring the sport to mainstream acceptance.  However, you wouldn’t know that from reading the same tired stories from mainstream journalists and media outlets.  Although many sports fans, even those who are only casual MMA fans, are comfortable with the rules and happenings of the sport, the story that you’re likely to read within the pages of a mainstream newspaper or sports magazine doesn’t accurately reflect that.

How many times have MMA fans been excited to see an MMA article or a topic on a show such as ESPN’s Around the Horn, only to be disappointed by how lacking in analysis and depth the coverage ends up being?  Seriously, how many times have we read the same recycled story of how the UFC reformed itself, was bought by Zuffa (these events are sometimes presented in the opposite order, see: “The Zuffa myth”), and now is the fastest growing sport in the world?  How many times have we read the same tired quotes about how “the sport had to evolve to survive” or how “MMA fighters now have to train in every discipline to be successful”?  Is there anyone who really doesn’t know those things by now?

One can imagine this conversation taking place between an editor and a writer when a mainstream publication must lower their standards to actually acknowledge the sport of MMA:

EDITOR:  Hey Smith, we need you to write an article on mixed martial arts.

WRITER:  On what?

EDITOR: You know, ultimate fighting.  With the small gloves and the guy with the Mohawk, where they can do anything they want to each other.

WRITER: Oh, that.  But I don’t know anything about ultimate fighting, or mixed martial…whatever you called it.

EDITOR: Well, I need something.  Just write about the growth of the sport, or something.

WRITER: I’ve got it.  “Ultimate Fighting Punches and Kicks Its Way To Popularity”.  I can talk about how it used to be a freak show with no rules, and how much it’s changed.  That’ll be a completely fresh and not at all outdated approach.

EDITOR: Sounds great.  Make sure not to watch too many fights or do any research.  And assume that the reader knows nothing at all about the sport and doesn’t respect it either.

WRITER: Freak show with weirdo athletes, wild-wild west, no research necessary.  Got it.

The truth is, while UFC pay-per-views and television shows get huge buy rates and nice ratings (with other promotions experiencing somewhat lesser success), the mainstream media still portrays the sport as either the new kid on the block or as a passing fad that isn’t worthy of serious coverage and analysis.  Sure, it’s nice to see stories in magazines like Sports Illustrated, or coverage on SportsCenter or other ESPN shows.  However, when will we get over the hump and start seeing some real coverage, instead of tired debates over whether the sport has what it takes to get even bigger, or (for God’s sake) whether MMA will supplant boxing as the preferred combat sport of the world?  Wouldn’t you rather see a heated debate on ESPN about whether Chuck Liddell has what it takes to beat Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, or whether Shogun can rebound from some disappointing performances and serious injuries?  How about some coverage regarding whether the UFC will ever be able to sign Fedor Emelianenko, instead of another lazily-written puff piece about “the rise of the sport”?

Even when we do get some rare coverage in a mainstream magazine like Sports Illustrated, it is often poorly done.  Consider the recent article written by L. Jon Wertheim about UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar, which was included in the March 30th issue of SI.  Wertheim is seemingly incredulous that “MMA purists” exist, and takes the time to inform readers what “tapping” means.  He does so after describing the Lesnar-Mir bout, which lasted all of a couple of minutes, in this fashion: “Lesnar took him down at will and landed concussive punches.”  You would think that it was a three-round war, instead of a fight that was over in the time it would take to have a bathroom break.

Most dubiously, Wertheim writes this sentence, which easily could have been written regarding a Royce Gracie fight in 1993: “The fight [Lesnar-Mir] helped extinguish the notion that an MMA bout is simply a sanctioned street brawl, devoid of tactics.” 

Really?!?  We just now figured out that there are tactics involved in an MMA fight?  We didn’t learn that when Gracie used the guard and his submission skills to beat men who outweighed him by one hundred pounds?  We didn’t learn that when we saw Kazushi Sakuraba, an undersized former pro wrestler in Japan, ascend to the top of the MMA world in Pride?  No, after fifteen years of MMA in the United States, we finally learned it in the Lesnar-Mir fight, which apparently was an instant classic for the shocking revelation that it caused: this sport that we’ve been watching for over a decade isn’t just about street fighting after all!  Don’t you guys feel better now that you’ve learned that?

It’s amazing that something like that can be printed today in a magazine that is on the level of Sports Illustrated.  Hey, maybe the fight simply made Wertheim realize that MMA fights are about tactics and not just sheer brutality.  Perhaps he didn’t know otherwise before viewing the fight so he could write his article.  In that case, um, why did he write the article?  We regularly see the work of former Sherdog.com editor Josh Gross on SI.com, couldn’t he have written an article about Brock Lesnar instead?  One that would have informed casual fans while not insulting the intelligence of those who had already known that MMA existed?

It’s time for the mainstream media to stop dumbing down their coverage of mixed martial arts.  Let’s start with assuming that the reader of an MMA article knows about such fundamentals of the sport as what a “tap out” is, for instance.  I know that it may require some extra work for journalists who still think of the UFC as a niche sport or a no-rules gorefest, and it may require some extra effort from publishers who don’t have a single writer on their staff who is knowledgeable about the sport, but it’s about time to give MMA its due, isn’t it?

 by Jon Hartley for Fightmania.com

Tags: Brock Lesnar, Chuck Liddell, Fedor Emelianenko, Royce Gracie, UFC