I just spent some time listening to Steve Cofield’s audio clips that are up over at the Yahoo MMA experts blog. He has a piece here arguing that the UFC’s handling of the Rampage situation is a watershed moment for the company:
UFC’s decision on how to handle the Quinton Jackson incident is a watershed moment for the organization. Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole said the right thing was done with the firing/suspension of Jesse Taylor after his antics on The Ultimate Fighter 7. But in the past UFC has dropped the ball with Jon Koppenhaver (pictured) and needs to get this one right. The inconsistency is confusing.
Realistically, this is not a huge story outside of the MMA world. It is all over TMZ, and PTI talked about it for a few seconds, but it has really not received the kind of national media attention some expected. Being consistent or inconsistent is not going to affect how the UFC is perceived by fans outside of the hardcores that wait all day to find something hypocritical Dana did to post about on 23 message boards. I’d be more concerned if they decide to cut a guy that is having a mental breakdown after a fight for their organization simply to show some level of meaningless consistency.
Further, this strikes me as completely the wrong angle to focus on for this story. Quinton Jackson was taken to a hospital for a mental evaluation because his friend was so concerned about the way he was acting. We’ve seen footage of him acting very strange the day before this incident as well. We don’t know what’s wrong with him, and to focus on how the UFC should handle this from a PR perspective is a very cold way to approach the situation.
Frankly, Dana’s quote on the terrible radio show he was on struck the right chord:
“At the end of the day, we care about these guys. A lot of these guys are our friends. I want to find out what’s wrong with Rampage and get him taken care of.”
This is really what’s important at this point.