By Charles Jay
I was recently reading an internet column that, after a little research, pointed out that Gary Shaw, the front man for Elite XC, wasn’t being entirely truthful when he denied ever having said anything derogatory about the sport of mixed martial arts. This was in response to the insinuation by the UFC’s Dana White that Shaw was never a fan of MMA. I think this is basically what the author found Shaw saying:
“The mixture of wrestling with boxing and the fact that it’s not staged goes to the bloodthirsty segment of the population.”
Well, that’s not as nuanced as we might get from a Harvard professor, but it’s also not the harshest thing in the world that could possibly be said, a fact that the author, to his credit, points out.
I mean, Shaw could have called it “human cockfighting” like everybody else, following the lead of John McCain, who has expressed that while he may not like cockfighting, he has absolutely no problem sending more and more human beings off to be sitting ducks in Iraq, perhaps for the next hundred years.
But anyway, it shouldn’t be so shocking that one can find some disparaging comments from Shaw. A lot of boxing promoters were threatened by MMA’s success because they saw it as an infringement upon their audience. And they’re pretty good at casting aspersions upon anyone or anything for the sake of fulfilling their own agenda.
The important thing is that an opportunity came along, which often changes minds. I don’t know if Shaw had an epiphany or not; I really don’t. I don’t know if he finally came to an “understanding” of what the sport was all about. But the deal was good, whatever it entailed. From what I understand, Shaw is getting paid a set fee in exchange for producing a certain number of shows. That’s no-risk, and that’s dandy as far as any boxing promoter is concerned, especially those who are really more like “packagers,” a description that would be fair to apply to Shaw.
So now he’s an MMA guy. Hey - such is life.
But listen, there is room for people to become transformed. I like to think I have developed a healthy perspective about the sport myself, although it is clear that I grew up around an environment where boxing was king. But I found the UFC very intriguing from the beginning, and in fact, when I was a consultant in the casino business, nearly brought one of the very early UFC events to one of my clients.
What I have found different, and refreshingly so, about MMA - for someone who is used to watching boxing - is that you could be watching a situation where one guy is on top and maybe even pounding away and looks like he has all the advantages, while all that time it could be the guy who looks more vulnerable who is a split second away from applying the arm bar or the leg lock that is going to end things immediately. The fighters have to be on the lookout for EVERYTHING, and so does the viewer. That’s quite an adjustment from watching boxing, where everything takes place above the waist (well, everything legal, anyway).
So it takes a whole different mind set to understand it.
I wonder if that’s how Gary Shaw - MMA fan - would explain it.
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