This weekend, I decided to go through all 13,768 comments that CagePotato has received from readers since we launched seven-ish months ago, and classify them into a multi-colored pie-chart. (I also did some totally crazy, badass stuff this weekend. I swear.) The results are above. It’s possible — though very unlikely — that I left out some significant categories, so if you notice any omissions, holler in the comments section.
Steve Cofield has an interesting piece on Yahoo! wherein he lambasts the “sickos in the blogosphere” for reveling in Kim Couture’s pain after her fight in Las Vegas on Friday night. The main thrust of the article is Cofield trying to figure out what went wrong that allowed Couture to suffer a broken jaw, among other injuries, and still fight for three rounds. Cofield describes Couture as “ill-equipped to defend herself” and says that many fans left the arena that night “sickened” by what they saw.
This argument raises an obvious double standard regarding men’s and women’s MMA. Kim Couture isn’t the first fighter to suffer a broken jaw. She’s not the first to keep fighting with one either. The fact that she did so speaks to her toughness, and if she were a man we probably wouldn’t feel the need to say anything more about it than that.
But that’s not what’s happening, simply because she’s a woman. Suddenly, what would have been gutsy becomes sickening. We start looking around for someone to blame, rather than reminding ourselves that this is a tough business where people routinely get hurt and fight hurt.
It’s especially interesting that while Cofield’s show of indignation has him questioning Randy Couture’s decision not to throw in the towel, the promoter’s decision to have the women fight three five-minute rounds (normally reserved for men), and the commission’s decision to allow her to fight at all, he never even mentions that on the same card John Alessio broke his arm and then continued on to win the fight.
This makes me wonder what we’re really talking about here. It can’t be just broken bones. Not unless you believe in a hierarchy of broken bones that places more importance on the jaw than the forearm or nose or hand or any of the other bones that are occasionally broken in MMA fights.
If you go to enough live events, you’re eventually going to see someone get their jaw broken. You know why? Because MMA is a sport that involves people punching and kicking one another, often in the face. Broken bones are inevitable from time to time. Is it dangerous to keep fighting with a broken jaw? Probably. But fighting is inherently dangerous. This is nothing new.
What this is about is a visceral reaction, not an intellectual one. I think Cofield — who knows his stuff regarding MMA — is really objecting to seeing a woman hurt, which means he’s essentially objecting to seeing them fight.
It isn’t as if Kim Couture was matched up with someone out of her league. According to Sherdog, that was Kim Rose’s first pro fight, just as it was Couture’s. And it isn’t about the fact that she continued after being hurt, either.
Couture put forth a valiant effort even after being drilled early on. She even dished out some punishment of her own, despite Cofield’s characterization of the fight as egregiously one-sided. If she was unable to continue, she could have quit. She had a cornerman with plenty of experience in this business, so one has to assume that he knew what he was looking at.
It’s also not about how long the rounds lasted. If we grant that women can fight, there’s no sense in saying they can’t fight for as long as men can. Couture’s injury likely happened from the very first punch of the fight, so making the rounds two minutes shorter wouldn’t have made a significant difference.
If we take away all those red herrings, what we’re left with is an objection to seeing women engaged in violent pursuits. To some extent, I can understand that. As much as I believe that men and women are equals, it’s still more difficult for me to see a woman get hurt than a man. But you know something? That’s my problem, not theirs.
It’s my problem the same way it’s the problem of the people who object to MMA in general. To a certain kind of person, anything that results in people getting hurt, risking death, or shortening life is something to be feared and abhorred. But we recognize that while those people have a right to that viewpoint, they don’t have the right to inflict it on others who would rather get hurt, risk death, and shorten their lives than be forced to live without it.
This is the argument we make in favor of MMA. Why wouldn’t we make it in favor of women’s MMA?
Those women who choose to become MMA fighters are doing it because they want to. They’re doing it for the same reasons male fighters do it. We should at least extend them the same courtesy, whether we like it or not.
(Alessio finishes Spratt with a broken arm. Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly.)
Giving tickets away for free might not be the best long-term business strategy, but it had the desired effect for Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center on Friday night. “A Night of Combat” drew almost nine thousand spectators with its promise of free tickets and a fight card divided between boxing and MMA.
To hear the Las Vegas Sun tell it, the show accomplished its modest goals through partnerships and an “outside the box” approach to fight promoting:
In this case, by giving tickets away, Libonati created a nice crowd, which met the needs of promoter Artie Pelullo, ESPN, Channel 13 News, Lotus Broadcasting and his other partners. Each received 1,000 free tickets of their own, to be distributed among the people with whom they do business. In return, Libonati got some free publicity.
To help underwrite the show, Libonati brought on a fledgling company called MLSE — Major League Sports Entertainment — which wants to introduce its brand to Las Vegas. On Friday night, MLSE shook hands with about 9,000 spectators, so it can be assumed its needs were met.
[...]
In the end, Libonati said the T&M will break even on the boxing-MMA card, probably even make a little money. He’ll make a lot more in the long run through business relationships that were made or maintained.
“Our model is you’ve got to create more than a receipt,” he said. “This type of special event thinking is what has made us unique in our industry. By creating special events, we are able to generate revenues that are shared by the entire campus.”
This, of course, was the same event that saw Kim Couture enter with high hopes and leave with some facial reconstruction. Also that night, John Alessio won by choking out Pete Spratt with a broken arm. He broke his forearm blocking a kick earlier in the fight, then grimly soldiered on toward the victory. You hear that, Kalib Starnes?
Tara LaRosa — who you may know either as the best female MMA fighter in the world, or as that broad who can’t stand Gina Carano — just signed a landmark deal with the Kentucky-based American Fight League that could pay her between $500,000 and $750,000 for four fights over 18 months. LaRosa (15-1) holds notable wins over Shayna Baszler, Roxanne Modafferi, Amanda Buckner, and Julie Kedzie, and most recently competed in the Bodog Fight organization (if you can call it that); she reportedly negotiated with Affliction, the IFL and EliteXC before inking the deal with the AFL. “Since I definitely have a really big contract, it sort of raises the bar as to what others can get,” Larosa said in a Sherdog interview. “If I get paid higher, everyone else gets paid higher. That’s what I’m hoping for.”
The AFL’s new focus on their women’s division has caught the attention of Kim Couture, who makes her pro MMA debut next Friday in Las Vegas against Kim Rose. Couture told MMAWeekly that she’d also been in negotiations with the American Fight League and will likely sign with them soon: “There are a couple of leagues coming up that are building up the women’s league. The American Fight League, they just signed Tara Larosa “They’ve contacted me. And they’ve got a few other girls getting ready to sign with them, so I’m more headed that way.”
The AFL has only put on two small-scale events in its brief existence, which featured Diego Saraiva, Junior Assuncao, and Rory Singer. The league recently made headlines for signing former WWE pro wrestling star Bobby Lashley to a multi-fight contract.
Jens Pulver may have said that there would be no trash-talking leading up to his WEC featherweight championship match against Urijah Faber on June 1st, but Faber’s implication that Pulver has stopped evolving with the sport certainly comes close. Our favorite part: Jens punching out the cadence of his words at 1:58. This fight is going to kick so much ass…
Also: Check out this teaser clip for the upcoming first episode of Outside the Ring, hosted by Marika Taylor; for more Marika, go here.
…in which “Sugar Free” defeats Jessica Cruz via ground-and-pound TKO in round three, landing some stiff jabs along the way and narrowly avoiding being Shonie’d at the 1:15 mark. We can only hope that one day Randy and Kim have children who rebel against them by devoting their lives to poetry and visual arts.
“…we’ll see what happens. I think it’s going to be an interesting fight. Fedor just fought a pretty tall opponent in Hong Man Choi, so obviously he’s been in that mode of dealing with a guy that size, but I think Tim is a little more seasoned fighter than Hong Man has proved to be. But Hong Man wasn’t easy so it will be interesting to see how Emelianenko deals with him and a pretty good indicator for me, having just fought Tim this last year, as to where I stand and how things might go if I finally get the chance to fight Fedor.”
How hard was it for Randy to swallow this one down? He’s spent the past few months in a battle of words and lawsuits after leaving the UFC mainly so he could be the one to fight Fedor. Now Big Tim is allowed to leave the UFC and almost immediately starts negotiations to fight the Russian heavyweight. Dana White gets to sport his devilish grin for another day…
— The Natural’s wife — fresh off her first MMA win — chatted with FightHype about her win, her future in MMA, and her husband’s future in MMA. But she also attempts to make us feel sorry for her because she has to shoulder the cross of the Couture name.
“I think it would probably be cool to go through this experience without the last name Couture.”
We look forward to the comments from Potato reader, Kim Couture is a c***.
“We’re talking to Joe (Silva - UFC Match Maker), and we’re starting to look for a fight. If you win 4 or 5 fights in a row, you’re pretty much guaranteed a title shot, so I figured maybe Okami or Bisping would be a fun fight for me.”
Would another fight with Anderson Silva turn out any differently than his last meeting with the middleweight god? Of course not. But we’d be into both Okami and Bisping — and wins over both wouldn’t be something the UFC could ignore. Leben is 18-4 overall, but is 3-3 since he met Anderson Silva in the summer of ‘06. He’s got two wins in a row and if he needs 4 or 5 W’s in a row, that’d probably put him in line for a title shot sometime next year. Provided he doesn’t get KTFO by his drunken friends first.
— In a match where the loser may have to re-think their current career path, Kendall Grove and Evan Tanner have been booked to face each other at the Ultimate Fighter 7 finale on June 21st in Las Vegas. Grove, the middleweight winner from the third season of TUF, has dropped back-to-back contests against Patrick Cote and Jorge Rivera, while Tanner has lost three of his last four UFC matches, most recently a second-round KO loss to Yushin Okami at UFC 82. By the way, Tanner’s blog is back up, after being taken down temporarily in the wake of his gambling bender post.
— Kenny Florian will join Mike Goldberg in the broadcast booth at UFC 83 (April 19th, Montreal), filling in for Joe Rogan, who will be unable to attend due to previous obligations. We look forward to a new voice constantly correcting Goldberg, as well as less references to the “rape choke.”
— Kim Couture won her first MMA match on Saturday in Portland, Oregon, taking care of Jessica Cruz via ground-and-pound TKO at 1:43 of the third round. “It was a good fight for Kim because Cruz was scrappy,” Randy Couture said. “You don’t want your first fight to be too easy, but you don’t want to be over your head either. It was a perfect first fight.” Speaking of Randy, he addressed his future in a new interview with MMAMadness, saying “More than likely, I will end up signing with HDNet and Affliction. Realistically, that is the best option.”
— You know that skinny, nerdy looking new UFC ref who handled the Hamill/Boetsch and Maynard/Edgar fights at UFN 13? Well, apparently he has an open marriage.
