by Phineas J. Whoopee
Next month there is a film being released called “Never Back Down,” which sounds like an updated version of “The Karate Kid,” except it’s set in the world of mixed martial arts instead of karate. Oscar nominee Djimon Hounsou plays the Mr. Miyagi role, and I’d have to say it’s questionable if this is a good career move for the actor. If you’ve seen a TV ad for the film, you’ve also probably noticed that it looks a lot like any Jean-Claude Van Damme straight-to-video vehicle (here’s a treat for you Van Damme fans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOIJtS4gbaY). Whether or not that’s a bad thing is up to you. I’m not criticizing, simply observing. And this leads me to…
(Warning: what you’re about to read has nothing to do with movies. Proceed with caution)
It’s around 10:30 PST on the night of Saturday February 16, 2008, and I’m lying on my living room couch listening to my iPod. My wife is already fast asleep in our bedroom (yes, married life is that exciting), and a little over an hour ago I finished watching a decent boxing match between Kelly Pavlik and Jermain Taylor. It’s at this point that I recall seeing ads for a mixed martial arts event that was to air on Showtime at 10:00. The ads mainly remain in memory because headlining the telecast is a guy named Kimbo Slice (that’s a picture of him above; a difficult person to forget). He’s been described as something of a mythic figure — “a street fighting legend” is an exact quote, if memory serves.
Mixed martial arts — or MMA, as it’s more commonly referred to — is a relatively new sport, at least inasmuch as it’s made a dent in American popular culture. UFC is the dominant MMA organization, and I recall watching their first pay-per-view event with college roommates in the fall of 1993. We had seen commercials for weeks, showing us clips of combatants being pummeled into oblivion. To state the obvious, we couldn’t wait to watch. Predictably, our high expectations weren’t close to fulfilled. Instead of the mayhem that had been advertised, we were given a bunch of matches where the competitors wrestled each other to the floor before one guy would choke his opponent into submission. It wasn’t dynamic, exciting or even obviously violent (except when the sumo wrestler got several teeth kicked out by a fat, balding French guy). That was my first and last real exposure to MMA.
Until this past Saturday night.
I’ve been a hardcore boxing fan for about 15 years now, and in the past few years I’ve seen MMA grow significantly in popularity. A major aspect of its marketing campaign has been to position itself squarely against boxing, drawing an indelible line in the sand, because the powers that be (namely UFC president Dana White) apparently believe the world isn’t big enough for two equally popular combat sports. MMA proponents would have you believe that boxing is for generations long since past, and because boxing is only one facet of MMA, it’s undeniably a lesser sport. Regardless of what boxing purists (count me among them) think, it’s tough to argue with the numbers. MMA, as evidenced by its live attendance and pay-per-view figures, is a thriving sport and seems to connect with younger fans to a degree that boxing does not and perhaps never will again.
I haven’t avoided MMA due to any need to defend the tradition of boxing. In fact, I’m of the opinion that both can co-exist and each can garner a sizeable audience. But in my mid-30s, I just don’t feel any sort of inclination to suddenly start following a new sport. Couple that with the lingering aftertaste of my one MMA experience, and it’s been easy for me to avoid.
But on Saturday, I succumbed to the temptation of watching “street fighting legend” Kimbo Slice. I mean, just take a look at the guy. Now think about the chaos he can potentially create while locked in a caged circle with some poor sap. How exactly could one not tune in?
From what I can deduce (and I’m not exactly going out of my way to do a whole lot of research), Kimbo Slice fights for an MMA organization called Elite XC. I have no idea if this group is affiliated with UFC, nor does it matter to me, though I bring this up because it’s possible Elite might be similar to UFC’s minor league. While watching the telecast, I’m immediately struck by how much in common MMA appears to have with pro wrestling. A horde of fans (mostly male, under 35, from what I can tell) proudly hold signs that read “Kimbo Kick Ass” while music blares from the arena’s PA system any time there’s no action in the ring. A group of scantily clad women serve as round card girls, but also line up on a catwalk and dance between fights. I concede that MMA certainly links sport and entertainment much more aggressively than boxing does, and at this moment I’ve never been happier to be a boxing fan. As if to hammer the connection home, former pro wrestling champion Bill Goldberg serves as the third member of the broadcast team and interviews the winner of each match, immediately following the contest, in the ring.
As I wait for the main event, I sit through a couple of undercard bouts. In one, a guy takes a knee to his face, drops to the ground and is then blasted by a right cross, prompting the referee to the stop the fight. In another, an Australian dude is knocked semi-conscious by a punch and falls flat on his back, completely defenseless. But even in this prone state, his opponent wastes no time rushing over and smashing the guy in the face with a follow-up punch. Wow…boxing has never looked like such a tame, peaceful sport.
After an uneventful fight, it’s the moment I’ve been waiting for — the entrance of Kimbo Slice. As the crowd’s excitement builds to a fever pitch, Bill Goldberg exhorts, “he puts asses in seats!”, which isn’t amusing simply because a sports announcer enthusiastically bellowed the word “asses,” but also because the countless shots of a packed arena the television audience has seen all night render this among the most unnecessary observations in the history of broadcast journalism. Kimbo squares off against a fat 42-year-old named Tank Abbott, whose most impressive feature is his beard and who sports a record of something like 8 wins and 14 losses. You needn’t know anything about MMA to realize this guy, who vaguely resembles a plumber, stands no chance. The fight lasts about 30 seconds, and the action goes like this: Kimbo punches Tank in the face, Tank is on the ground, Tank gets up, tries to tackle Kimbo, Kimbo punches him in the face again, Tank falls down, Kimbo waits for him to get back up, punches him in the side of the head, Tanks falls on his face, the referee stops the fight.
Instead of criticizing this for being an obvious mismatch, the giddy announcers pontificate as if they’d just seen the second coming of the US hockey team beating the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics. Goldberg, of course, is soon in the ring interviewing Kimbo. As has been the case all night, Goldberg begins his questions strongly, before it becomes clear he really isn’t asking anything. A typical query falls along the lines of, “You trained hard and faced a difficult opponent tonight. We all know how much you love the sport….you’re a good man. Let’s all put our hands together for Kimbo!” It’s less an interview than a public coronation, which underlines an important difference between the current state of MMA and boxing. MMA is all about incredibly obvious (tasteful or not) self-promotion and self-glorification, while the boxing media (separate from the general sports media that basically ignores boxing) is often the sport’s biggest critic. If a similar match-up and result had occurred on HBO Championship Boxing, analyst Larry Merchant, in all his curmudgeonly glory, would have called the fight a farce and questioned the winner why he wasting everyone’s time by being involved in it. MMA’s complete lack of modesty might be its biggest asset. Boxing, on the other hand, could be too self-aware for its own good.
In the post-fight “interview,” Kimbo claims that his dream has always been to fight “Tank or Tyson.” I assume he means Mike Tyson. This strikes me as being the equivalent of an aspiring actor saying his/her dream is to share a scene with Ted Lange or Gene Hackman. Goldberg returns to broadcast position, and his inability to complete a coherent thought continues. He remarks to his broadcast partners about Kimbo’s performance (and I paraphrase), “I know you’ve seen a lot of fights in Japan, but wherever, you know, you have to say, uhhh, well…uhhh…he puts asses in seats!” apparently wanting to make sure the point is not lost on the audience, or his co-broadcasters, by uttering the phrase twice in less than ten minutes.
After a few closing comments, the show ends, I turn off the TV and go back to my iPod (which I now lament listening to during most of the undercard fights, pondering all the inspired Goldberg analysis I missed). So what did I learn from this experience? Well, nothing, really. If I needed further proof that MMA isn’t my bag, I got it…but it’s hard to deny that I derived some enjoyment from the event, and not all of it was ironic. I can’t imagine ever becoming even a casual MMA fan, but I wouldn’t rule out tuning in to see Kimbo Slice in the future. After all, it’s not every day that a street fighting legend with the power to put asses in seats comes along.
And look for “Never Back Down” in a theater near you on March 14. But only the box office numbers — and not Bill Goldberg — will tell us if it, like Kimbo Slice, can put asses in seats.
