Tag Archive for 'Jake O’Brien'

Iain Liddle and Total MMA Lose Their Credibility

Published
by
The Fight Critic
on April 18, 2008
. 11 Comments

obrien_herring.jpg

I don’t know Iain and I haven’t visited his site before this last week so there’s nothing personal here. Zach over at FightOpinion chose to cross-post one of his articles discussing the recent termination of Jack O’brien’s UFC contract and its implications on the UFC in general.

The article’s not short so I’m going to summarize his points here before I tell you why I think they’re totally wrong…

  • Jake O’Brien was widely considered a top heavyweight prospect in MMA and has all the potential you can ask for in a fighter.
  • The aim of a sport is to determine who has the most legitimate claim of being the best in the world in their specific field / division.
  • The UFC isn’t a sporting league or a sport in general.

His points are way off-base. First off, O’Brien is not one of the top heavyweights in the world. As a reference, I point you to last month’s Heavyweight Meta-Rankings over at Bloody Elbow. Jake’s a nice guy and a good fighter but he’s not on that list yet and for good reason.

The third point above follows from the premise in the second bullet: that the aim of a sport is to determine the best in something. While this is mostly true, the means to that end vary and like everything else in this world sports are a business. Specifically, sports are just another form of entertainment for everyone except those who are competing.

How is the UFC any different from the “sport” of boxing or, even better, college football? College football is one of the biggest “sports” in the U.S. but many people would argue that at the end of the bowl season, we don’t have a clear understanding of which was the best team in the country.

The bottom line is that the UFC is a business like any sports league and its goal is to be profitable. In the past when games have gotten boring or ratings have significantly dropped in other major sports, those same sports leagues have taken counter-measures, going as far as changing the rules of the game itself. Clearly those rule changes might favor some athletes more than others so, do we disqualify these leagues from the category of “sports” as well?

Of course not. And fighters like Jake O’Brien, or even Randy Couture for that matter, getting fired doesn’t disqualify the UFC or MMA as a sport, even though we may disagree with the decisions taken from time to time.