david carmichael posted:

Lewis was like 250+. There are really athletic big fellas, but they are rare, and they go into other sports

Julio Cesar Fatass posted:

I've never really bought into the idea that money alone is going to pull a bunch of 260+ pound guys from a sport where they move for 5-10 seconds every four minutes to one where you might spend five rounds scrambling with JDS.

1st AD posted:

I'm not sure that I believe an MMA career is less damaging than an NFL career. You might only fight twice a year, but every week that you're sparring is a week where you will get punched in the face.

Triticum Guzzler posted:

brain damage is a terrible thing but the real MMA epidemic is that every single top flight fighter has had 800 major knee surgeries and that's just accepted as part of the game, it's terrifying

Thermos H Christ posted:

For the record I wasn't even talking about how "damaging" a career is overall, only how much acute pain/injury a participant is expected to sustain and continue through. In football you're expected to take big hits and probably play through some injuries but nobody expects you to keep playing when your nose is shattered and you're aspirating blood. What might be going on with your brain after years of participation is kind of a different issue than that.

1st AD posted:

I'm not sure that I believe an MMA career is less damaging than an NFL career. You might only fight twice a year, but every week that you're sparring is a week where you will get punched in the face.

DumbWhiteGuy posted:

That's just kind of how it is with every professional sport though isn't it? I think the brain injuries part is highlighted because it is more exclusive to MMA (and boxing and football) as opposed to like, soccer or baseball or ultimate frisbee or whatever.

Julio Cesar Fatass posted:

IIRC there was a cat in Florida who sunk a shitload of money into making undrafted NCAA football studs into heavyweight boxers. Last I heard it hadn't gone anywhere worth mentioning.

Elemennop posted:

as fatherdog has pointed out a hundred times, back when boxing was probably the biggest professional sport in the world, heavyweights were never at brock levels. Ali was like 216 at 6'3'', Dempsey was 6'1'' and less than 200, Jack Johnson was 200 at 6'0.5'', and Joe Louis was 214 at 6'2''. Super Heavyweight wrestling goes up a bit higher: Karelin was 285 at 6'4'' I think, and he's the absolute largest you get (at least couting lean bodyweight). there's no real evidence that there's ever going to be a legion of brock lesnars dominating heavyweight, and in fact it looks like the heavyweights on the lighter side of the division seem to have the advantage.

Bubba Smith posted:

Well isn't the average NFL career like 4 years or something? I dunno what the average heavyweight MMA career is either, but I think it may help that while you have to scramble with JDS for 15 minutes, you only do that twice a year, while NFL dudes have to take damage every week for half a year every year. I think you have a much better chance of having a longer career in MMA than you do in the NFL.

mewse posted:

I don't know if this is devil's advocate but in MMA if a guy falls to the ground then the guy that remains standing is obligated to keep hitting until the ref waves him off, and this doesn't happen in boxing.

I realize boxing has 10 counts that can cause repeated brain trauma, etc, and that doesn't happen in MMA, but MMA has incidents where a dude's blood gets wiped across the canvas for 5 rounds and the drat fight doesn't end because neither of the dudes tap out or go limp

Bubba Smith posted:

Well isn't the average NFL career like 4 years or something? I dunno what the average heavyweight MMA career is either, but I think it may help that while you have to scramble with JDS for 15 minutes, you only do that twice a year, while NFL dudes have to take damage every week for half a year every year. I think you have a much better chance of having a longer career in MMA than you do in the NFL.

I think the real heart of the issue is some people are born fighters and most are not. The dudes that don't have it in them to compete in combat sports most likely should not get involved in the first place.

MassRafTer posted:

Team Touchdown.

A tipster passes along the following email sent around to Bleacher Report's MMA writers last year. It was written by Jeremy Botter, a lead MMA writer for B/R who also covers the fights for the Houston Chronicle. There is some good advice here (don't publish random bullshit!) and some weird advice here (don't ask Dana White about his mom!) but the most interesting advice has to do with all the things you shouldn't cover and the ways you shouldn't cover them if you don't want to get blacklisted by the UFC. (It may be worth noting that the site you're reading has been blacklisted.)

These sorts of understandings drive all sorts of journalism, in sports and elsewhere, but they're especially powerful in the fight game, where promoters are much more aggressive than most about using the threat of denying access to quash stories they don't want covered. You usually don't see them spelled out so explicitly, though.

quote:

Brian asked me to put together a small list of "things you don't do" regarding writing about Zuffa. I've had a ton of experience with Dana, both professional and personal, and I have a pretty good handle on what makes him tick and what pisses him off. (everything in this email is full internal purposes and not to be shared).

Here you go:

- Don't delve too deep into Zuffa financials. This goes for fighter pay, revenue, money donated to political campaigns. This is Dana's biggest pet peeve. Because they are a private company, it's almost impossible to verify actual financial numbers for any of these subjects. Even if you have two good sources verifying your information, there are still a lot of things they do behind the scenes that makes it a really tough subject to get right.

There are all kinds of under-the-table bonuses paid to fighters, from the top of the card all the way to the bottom. I have personally, with my own two eyes, seen a fighter who made $8,000 to show and $8,000 to win be handed a check for $45,000 after his fight ended because they were so happy with the excitement of his bout. This is not a random occurence - it happens multiple times per event, every event.

Nothing pisses Dana off more than people talking about Zuffa's financials and getting everything wrong. There is literally no way to grasp everything they do with their money, so there's no point in trying to speculate.

This is a very good way to piss them off and find yourself blacklisted. Stay away from it.

- Don't "report" things unless you have two very credible sources. Don't take a rumor and post it as fact.

- Don't report something a manager tells you unless you have verified it with someone who is not a manager. Managers will often use you to get their message out.

Loretta Hunt was banned from the UFC because she reported a story that was fed to her by Ken Pavia, who was actually feeding her false information because he was upset with Zuffa over the amount of backstage passes he was receiving for shows. Managers have tried to feed me information in the past that turned out to be false.

Don't be a mouthpiece and don't let them use you to send a message, because you'll be the one who gets burned.

- Don't be a mouthpiece for a fighter, either. They'll use you in the same way managers do when trying to send a message to the UFC.

- Don't talk about Dana's history with his mom. This is a fantastic way to find yourself blacklisted. Do not do it, either in articles or on Twitter or Facebook. It doesn't matter anymore, anyway, so there's no point.

- If you're writing an opinion article with a negative slant on Zuffa, make sure it's clearly worded as opinion. Don't mix rumors with your opinions. Dana has told me personally that he doesn't care if you write negative opinion stuff, so long as people know it's opinion. Don't mix negative opinion with reporting.

- Don't be negative just to be negative or edgy. Dana doesn't mind being asked tough questions, but consider the circumstance when you're doing it. If you're at a press conference or a conference call for a UFC event, keep your questions related to that event.

Don't bust out a question about a controversial topic in the middle of a press event designed to promote a certain fight card. Wait until after the press conference ends. Dana usually does a media scrum, and that's the best place to ask those types of questions. Save your questions for the right moment and you'll find that Dana is very accommodating.

- And finally, always remember this: you would be SHOCKED to learn how much they pay attention to when it comes to MMA media. Their corporate and PR teams love Bleacher Report, and they read everything. You may think you're flying under the radar, but you aren't. They are all paying attention.

Each and every day, the UFC PR team prepares a "morning report" consisting of articles from all major newspapers and MMA websites. This report is compiled and emailed to everyone on the corporate side of things, from top communications execs all the way to Dana and Lorenzo. I've seen these reports, and they are very thorough. And yes, they include Bleacher Report stories.

You're always being watched. I don't say this to scare you. I say it to let you know that you're not an unknown commodity, and that people are paying attention. They read what you write. Mistakes you make now, when you think you're under the radar, could end up burning you down the line.

In fairness to B/R, the site actually runs a lot of really good MMA coverage. This thorough analysis of a UFC contract, for instance—"I think it's potentially a violation of the 13th Amendment, the prohibition against slavery or involuntary servitude," said a law professor they consulted—is certainly worth a read even if you couldn't care less about the sport. I asked Botter about the note. He replied:

quote:

Yes, I can confirm that I wrote that email.

It wasn't an "internal memo," unless that term has taken on new significance that I am unaware of. I realize the little disclaimer at the top makes it seem official, but it wasn't.

It was something my editor and I were discussing that he decided to share with the team. It was never official policy or anything of that nature.

A lot of it just seemed like common sense when dealing with sports coverage/journalism of any type, not just the UFC. But obviously this was targeted more at them because, well, that's what I do.

Memo from dfw jr posted:

- And finally, always remember this: you would be SHOCKED to learn how much they pay attention to when it comes to MMA media. Their corporate and PR teams love Bleacher Report, and they read everything. You may think you're flying under the radar, but you aren't. They are all paying attention.

willie_dee posted:

I avoid training often because even after light sparring and getting tapped in the head, I feel like I have lost IQ points or something. I swear I used to be smarter than I am now.

coconono posted:

so what's up with Dana's mom? All I've ever seen about her is she's real mad at him over money she thinks she's owed.

quote:

- Don't delve too deep into Zuffa financials. This goes for fighter pay, revenue, money donated to political campaigns. This is Dana's biggest pet peeve. Because they are a private company, it's almost impossible to verify actual financial numbers for any of these subjects. Even if you have two good sources verifying your information, there are still a lot of things they do behind the scenes that makes it a really tough subject to get right.

There are all kinds of under-the-table bonuses paid to fighters, from the top of the card all the way to the bottom. I have personally, with my own two eyes, seen a fighter who made $8,000 to show and $8,000 to win be handed a check for $45,000 after his fight ended because they were so happy with the excitement of his bout. This is not a random occurence - it happens multiple times per event, every event.

Nothing pisses Dana off more than people talking about Zuffa's financials and getting everything wrong. There is literally no way to grasp everything they do with their money, so there's no point in trying to speculate.

This is a very good way to piss them off and find yourself blacklisted. Stay away from it.

fatherdog posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-impact_syndrome

fatherdog posted:

Dana's mother wasn't a big part of his childhood, and she's very upset that now that he's rich he hasn't tried to get back in contact with her in any way ($$$). So she wrote a tell-all book in collaboration with Jerry Millen where the first chapter involves how much he resembled Satan when he was born.

quote:

Don't "report" things unless you have two very credible sources. Don't take a rumor and post it as fact.

MycroftXXX posted:

This memo isn't telling their writing staff how to 'handle the UFC', its trying to educate them on how to actually conduct themselves in a semblance of a professional manner.

Fat Twitter Man posted:

I don't see a single unreasonable thing on that list.

Fat Twitter Man posted:

I don't see a single unreasonable thing on that list.

Grifter posted:

There's a huge problem with the financials thing. By telling them not to publish regardless of their number of sources, it provides a chilling effect on any financial discussion, which means the UFC has an edge on controlling their fighters.

Fat Twitter Man posted:

The memo explains in detail why financial speculation regarding a private company is stupid and unethical, and even if a fighter shows off checks he got or whatever you still don't know if those are the only checks he got.

Grifter posted:

No it doesn't. It says "You might not get a full view of a fighter's pay, therefore don't talk about it all and definitely don't talk about things that are completely unrelated like revenue and campaign donations". There's plenty of ways for reporters to talk about these subjects and be clear about exactly how much they can or cannot confirm, but this memo is throwing a blanket on a much broader discussion.