Mr. Maysey has decided to respond to my earlier article addressing his desire for the Muhammad Ali act to be applied to MMA. He spends a significant amount of his newest article blasting me for “obviously not having read the act.” He does so while misspelling my name no less than 23 times. I’ll pause for a second to let the irony of his claiming I’m the one who “obviously doesn’t read things” sink in…
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Anyway, rather than turning this into a continual long winded addressing of each of the other guy’s points I’ll keep this short and only address a only a few things.
Mr. Brookfield then concludes that in any event, promoters won’t devalue their titles by employing less than worthy opponents. In response, I say only, has Mr. Brookfield been watching the latest offerings of mixed martial arts to make such an argument with a straight face?
In addition to feeling more than slightly disrespected…Yes, Mr. BrookHOUSE can say this with a straight face as he has been watching the latest offerings of mixed martial arts. EliteXC is the only real culprit I can find at the moment based off of Antonio Silva vs. Justin Eilers being for the heavyweight title. But honestly of all EXC’s problems I’d say bringing in a former UFC title challenger to get smashed by their best heavyweight is pretty low on the list. Other than that upcoming mismatch we’ve recently seen Dan Henderson vs. Anderson Silva, Dan Henderson vs. Rampage Jackson, Forrest Griffin vs. Rampage Jackson (in a fight where people questioned Griffin’s legitimacy as a title challenger…oops), BJ Penn vs. Sean Sherk, Sylvia vs. Nogueira was a legit title fight at that time, Melendez vs. Thomson was a great matchup, Smith vs. Lawler made fine sense, Serra vs. GSP, Edwards vs. Noons…it’s a long list. We are now going to see GSP vs. Fitch in what is universally regarded as a #1 vs. #2 bout. Where are these horribly unjust title fights? Oh, that’s right…they’re happening in the only title fight being sponsored by an independent ranking body and not simply by a promotion.
But the main failure of this response is that Mr. Maysey does not bother to address the main points my article was trying to make:
1) Why should the application of an act created for boxing be applied to mixed martial arts? MMA is a totally different sport with different organizational structure. I should note that he does attempt to dismiss this by basically saying that the structure isn’t different and these leagues are just functioning as promoters, which is as false as the day is long. You can’t simply say that because a “league” manages fighters they have under contract that they are the same as a promoter in boxing. The fact that these leagues all provide their own titles is alone a massive difference, especially when Maysey goes on to talk about how important fair independent rankings are in determining title contenders. There simply aren’t boxers fighting for the Bob Arum Featherweight Championship. I have stated several times that I feel that more regulation and protection for fighters is a good thing. But that you have to actually have such an act written specifically for the sport in question. You can’t squeeze a size 18 woman into a size 8 dress and call her pretty.
2) What justification is there to even use the Ali Act in boxing at this point? Yes, there have been small improvements made to the sport of boxing. However, the sport remains corrupt. Fighters are still being abused by promoters and sanctioning bodies are still ruling the sport through underhanded and unjust rankings and decisions. Has the Ali Act succeeded in some massive way that makes it the flashing beacon guiding another sport to safety? Being honest I can’t find any way to see it as anything more than just a well intentioned act that has failed to live up to all of its lofty aspirations.