Profanity-Laced Tirades? Maybe Writers Have Themselves to Thank
Published by Charles Jay on June 17th, 2009 in Operation Cleanup

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In the span of three minutes, nine seconds, Dana White spit out about 30-40 expletives at poor Loretta Hunt, and had the rant posted on the UFC website, which meant not one bit of it was an accident. This is part of the “in-your-face” marketing mix that has helped the UFC get where it is with the younger demographic, although I noticed during a recent segment the ESPN show “E:60″ did on him that White, by his own admission, wasn’t so “in your face” the second he was approached by a couple of wise guys in Boston who allegedly wanted to get a piece of his action on the gym he was operating. Rather, his attitude was more “let me get my face out of town…now.” Hey, I’m not saying I blame him. That simply goes along with a basic law of human nature, as it is followed by certain people, which is that you bully those people you can bully, and run from those you can’t bully.

Apparently White figures he can bully Loretta Hunt, and if that is indeed the case, maybe it’s because she put him in a position to do it.

I don’t know; in my day (which is to say, the day when it did my bank account absolutely no good) I did some heavy investigative and editorial work in the world of boxing. Some of you who do a little “crossover” following of both boxing and mixed martial arts already know that. And you also know that there wasn’t a boxing promoter on earth who would’ve ever dared addressing me like that. Let’s put aside for a second that I was unusually objective, which was one thing in my corner. They just knew what would happen to them if they went off on a tirade like White did. Nothing but big f***ing giant-sized headaches. And that’s only because I saw to that by making examples of a few people. I wasn’t fooling around then, not for a minute. I also knew one of the rules of the road, which is that if you’re in the media, people in this business evaluate you much less on what you can do for them (they feel entitled to that) than how you can HURT them.

But I remember having a conversation with Loretta Hunt a few years ago that gave me a little insight as to where this whole thing was going to end up some day. The UFC was in the midst of a “media freeze-out” which essentially blocked any websites – other than their own – from gaining access to UFC events. The objective was to force the MMA fan to get its news about the UFC exclusively from the UFC site, which if anyone had the presence of mind to understand, was a complete disservice to the fan.

If you look at it from one perspective, you can’t fault the UFC for that. They are not the sport; they are one organization within the sport, but they wanted as much control as they could get over the news about their own product, because it is not their objective to promote the sport, and never has been. If it was, you would not see them putting up free cable shows opposite the pay-per-view shows of their competitors. You wouldn’t see them bad-mouthing everyone and everything that doesn’t carry the UFC brand. They are here to promote themselves, and no one should ever lose sight of that. And they’ve done a heck of a job at it, which you don’t need me to tell you.

However, the media is not supposed to share the same agenda as the UFC. Ideally their function is as a watchdog over this kind of behavior, in a way that should always keep the “big dog” from straying too far. In boxing that’s a lost cause, since the Boxing Writer’s Association might even be more corrupt than the people within the sport, but in mixed martial arts there was still a chance.

It can be argued that the Internet MADE the UFC, and that should never be lost on the people who blog and run websites. And so, if you are one of the major movers on the Web and are in any way upset about being “banned” from the shows of a promoter you helped build, bellyaching and crying about it aren’t going to bring solutions. You have to boycott. You have to ignore. If you don’t, you have to at least be objectively critical to the point of hammering the point home to your readers. You have to promote others, even if you have to go out of your way to find someone else to promote. You simply have to stick it up somebody’s ass. And you have to have the wherewithal and courage to be able to ride it out, because that’s the only way you’re going to get any respect.

In other words, you have to strap on a pair of balls (figuratively speaking, of course).

In talking with Loretta, I could tell that she understood the principle of this philosophy, but was extremely apprehensive about going ahead with the implementation of it. The conversation kept coming back to, in so many words, “But our readers want to read about the UFC.” This came within the context of basically conceding that the UFC was the only game in town and that reporters on the ‘Net had no choice but to roll over if that’s what they had to do.

You never get what you want with that attitude.

I don’t want to disparage Loretta or any other reporter, but if you are really sharp, you can figure out a way to:

(1) Gain access to the real stars of the sport – not White but the competitors – without having to go through the UFC;

(2) Cover a sport without having to get free passes to shows. Tip: Watch it on TV. You see it better. And have the imagination to come up with angles.

In short, get the job done without rolling over for anyone.

Also, a writer/publisher should be industrious enough to be able to open their readers’ eyes to the rest of the mixed martial arts world, letting the UFC know it’s NOT the only game in town, even if for all intents and purposes, they are.

When someone declares war on you, as the UFC had, it’s impossible to win if you act like Switzerland. In fact, you wind up a little more like Poland, circa 1939.

Look, I’m glad Loretta stands behind her story and I’m sure there is a lot of truth to it. But if she and her colleagues had stuck it up their ass from the beginning, the Dana Whites of the world wouldn’t even dream of talking like that.

And you’d have a whole different f***king ballgame.