The Election Season and MMA
Here's a new reason why I love this sport-- it may well be the greatest proxy by which the diverse peoples of the United States can truly beat the hell out of each other.
I was just watching a video interview of Matt Hughes talking about the community in Iowa where he's opening his new "H.I.T. Squad" gym, when it struck me-- very few sports have athletes that represent where they're from quite as much as MMA.
Franchise-based professional sports have long been the benchmark of territorial pride in American culture, but most if not all of these games are only superimposing any sort of true regional significance on the athletes and teams they're comprised of. These contests are most always "wars by proxy," played out by mercenary professional competitors who hang their hat in a given place based on franchise distribution rather than personal preference.
It's MMA where you can actually watch a God-loving Iowa farm boy with wrestling background and conservative values square off with a wise-talking Long Islander who runs a Jiu-Jitsu gym. Where you can whet your philosophical desire for meritocracy by watching the middleweight golden boy of the flyover states get his nose broken by a former office clerk from Curitaba, Brazil. Without having to force the awkward bridge of actual cultural camaraderie with one's athletes based on a uniform, there's a horse for everyone in the MMA game.
For me there's Kenny Florian, a Ben-Stiller-esque Communications Major from Boston College who entered his Lightweight title fight dressed as a Kurosawa Ronin to the theme from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," (he later acknowledged this as a nod to the Kurosawa-Leone thematic interplay of the '60s).
Or there's BJ Penn, the laid-back hapa-Hawaiian mutt who's often accused of allowing laziness to hamper his true potential.
Others I live with might find something to cheer for in Chuck Liddell, a lifetime Californian and graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, or the hard-punching network-engineer Joe Lauzon.
For all of us there are equally strange and diverse standard-bearers to choose. The overarching fact is that without the money in MMA to truly buy people out of their lives and locales, there are very few pastimes that can more accurately reflect the depth and diversity of the American people across the board, and their channeled potential dislike for one another in the right situation.
I was just watching a video interview of Matt Hughes talking about the community in Iowa where he's opening his new "H.I.T. Squad" gym, when it struck me-- very few sports have athletes that represent where they're from quite as much as MMA.
Franchise-based professional sports have long been the benchmark of territorial pride in American culture, but most if not all of these games are only superimposing any sort of true regional significance on the athletes and teams they're comprised of. These contests are most always "wars by proxy," played out by mercenary professional competitors who hang their hat in a given place based on franchise distribution rather than personal preference.
It's MMA where you can actually watch a God-loving Iowa farm boy with wrestling background and conservative values square off with a wise-talking Long Islander who runs a Jiu-Jitsu gym. Where you can whet your philosophical desire for meritocracy by watching the middleweight golden boy of the flyover states get his nose broken by a former office clerk from Curitaba, Brazil. Without having to force the awkward bridge of actual cultural camaraderie with one's athletes based on a uniform, there's a horse for everyone in the MMA game.
For me there's Kenny Florian, a Ben-Stiller-esque Communications Major from Boston College who entered his Lightweight title fight dressed as a Kurosawa Ronin to the theme from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," (he later acknowledged this as a nod to the Kurosawa-Leone thematic interplay of the '60s).
Or there's BJ Penn, the laid-back hapa-Hawaiian mutt who's often accused of allowing laziness to hamper his true potential.
Others I live with might find something to cheer for in Chuck Liddell, a lifetime Californian and graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, or the hard-punching network-engineer Joe Lauzon.
For all of us there are equally strange and diverse standard-bearers to choose. The overarching fact is that without the money in MMA to truly buy people out of their lives and locales, there are very few pastimes that can more accurately reflect the depth and diversity of the American people across the board, and their channeled potential dislike for one another in the right situation.
posted by Liam at
1:42 PM
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