I used to believe, for a very long time that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”, but after waking up this morning to the headlines that Jon Bones Jones has un-followed UFC President Dana White on Twitter, I’m now forced to publicly abandon that notion because not only does the cancellation of UFC 151 drag the entire sport down, the slow-motion train wreck which seems to be the handling of the entire situation could not have come at a worse time for the sport, and I’ll explain why.
Forever a fan of the metaphor, I previously likened Ronda Rousey’s explosion onto the MMA scene to that of meeting that first significant girl in your life, who wiped the snot off your nose, dressed you up right, and actually took the time to turn you into something suitable to bring home to (her) Mom and Dad… She was that transformational chick who saw your potential, and all you had to do was go along for the ride and not screw it up. Well, love her or hate her, Ronda Rousey IS that girl to MMA, and she has the potential to be the tip of the spear which allows the sport to definitively achieve the kind of market penetration, and “legitimacy” Malki Kawa is indirectly, but not so subtly, attempting to take credit for, in his negotiations with Nike on Jones’s behalf.
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