I'm so sick of this! Apparently the Today show n Australia this morning presented a piece on MMA saying how it was nothing but senseless violence. Again, i didn't see it, but apparently the host said something along the lines of letting ppl fight on the street, and how it would be just as safe. If your as pissed off as me, send your (intelligently worded) complaints to today@nine.com.au
cheers,
Corran.
Youre just as guilty as them. They dont watch the sport at all, and then spout off bullshit about it, knowing nothing...and just like them, you didnt even watch the show and you spout off second hand knowledge of what was said....
Regardless of if you are right or not, watch a piece before criticizing it.
There is a thread on this on the Australasia forum.
With hindsight it wasn't QUITE as bad as I first put up.
My main problems were there focussing on the brutality, rather than the athletes. And also the general reaction from the people involved with the story through to the presenters.
They kept having these gasps on their face, looking 'shocked' etc. Steve Liebman the presenter is the biggest wanker ever, he was saying after the story. "Just don't go see it, that's the best way to make the brutality stop"...
As pointed out by the Aus forum though, it's a story, of course they'll dramatise/sensationalise it, but wouldn't be nice just once, to see a story on MMA come from the perspective of the athletes... I guess we can dream.
*criticism accepted*
your right, bad call on my part. Its just that MMA bagging over here is touchy with me after losing the PPV's. but your right.
No, no criticism here Corran. you should have seen the first e-mail I wanted to send :).
I so know dude about being touchy, I only just saw UFC 46 last night, not having the regular gathering for the Live UFC was fucking heartbreaking.
Yeah, it sucks! here's the email i sent:
Whilst I did not see the show this morning, I was extremely disappointed to hear the totally uneducated view you presented on the sport of Mixed Martial Arts. Unless you intend to do a piece on much more violent sports, such as boxing, then your comments are biased and are quite frankly, ill-informed.
I am about to graduate from a physiotherapy degree, and consequently take an avid interest in injury reports and assessing the dangers of a wide variety of sports, and the rules of sanctioned MMA bouts make it a much, much safer sport than something like boxing. The dangers of stepping into a boxing ring and competing professionally, not to mention sparring, where over a career the athlete receives, quite literally, thousands of punches to the head, is far more detrimental to the body than competing in mixed martial arts. The diversity of the fighting places the MMA fighter at a much lesser risk when competing in the ring, as the object of the bout is not to simply hit the other guy in the head as many times as possible until he falls over. When submissions are utilized, the fighter taps out in order to let his opponent know to release the hold and to avoid injury. When exchanging punches on the ground the rules state that the fighter must intelligently defend himself, or the referee steps in and stops the fight. The basis of the sport on various Martial Arts codes often results in a respect shown between athletes which unfortunately is missing from many sports today.
Your portrayal of MMA as somewhat of a bloodsport per-se is extremely inaccurate, and quite frankly is very disappointing considering your usual high standards of reporting. I encourage you to do some research into the rules of the sport and the athletes before presenting any MMA pieces in the future, and also before future reporting on new sports in which you havent researched the facts properly.
Regards,
Chris Cook.
TTT
Nice one mate, I watched this morning in the vain hope they may talk about some of the e-mails they received... No dice.