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The final UFC card of the year gave us some fantastic moments of action, along with some real, terrible moments of depression. Josh Emmett absolutely nuked Bryce Mitchell out of orbit, while Tony Ferguson took yet another in a long string of humiliating losses. As is ever the case, combat sports giveth and taketh away in equal measure.
But it wasn’t just the action inside the UFC Octagon that gave us our highs and lows for this week’s column. Rampage Jackson emerged with a surprise contribution. And, as ever, Jake Paul stayed making moves.
LOVE TO SEE IT
Bryce Mitchell thanks Josh Emmett
I’ll rarely ever be one to blame fighters for competing until the referee waves off the bout. MMA is, at its root, a sandbox/chaos sport. So many fighters on the borderline of losing consciousness have rallied back to win over their exhausted opposition—it’s not so much vicious to make sure the coffin nail is landed, it’s often smart.
That said, then, it’s also a great act of mercy when fighters decide that they don’t need to do more damage than they’ve already done. Mark Hunt had a career full of highlights that featured the ‘Super Samoan’ casually strolling away from his opponents as they crashed to the mat, unable to recover.
On Saturday night at UFC 296, Josh Emmett added to his own legacy with a crushing one-punch KO over Bryce Mitchell, sleeping ‘Thug Nasty’ less than two minutes into the first round. It was one of the filthiest walk-off knockouts I’ve seen in a minute.
“[Referee] Herb [Dean] was way behind me,” Emmett told MMA Fighting. “I could have hit [Mitchell] with several big shots on the ground, but there’s no need. At the end of the day, I want everyone to go home as safe as possible to their loved ones.”
Fortunately, despite the terrifying scene of Mitchell’s trip to the land wind and ghosts, it seems the Arkansas native is doing well a few days removed from his loss. Well enough even, to take some time to record a video message of thanks to the Team Alpha Male fighter for not doing more damage than was strictly necessary.
“I want to let you all know that I am so happy with Josh Emmett,” Mitchell revealed in a post on social media. “Right after he knocked me out, he could have followed up with hammerfists, and it probably would have killed me. He didn’t even follow up with anything.”
“He was just happy with his knockout, and he walked away. And I’m so gracious for that, I will forever remember that. Thank you for not hitting me extra, Josh.”
Mitchell’s got plenty of weird stuff he gets into when given a camera and an audience, but this just seems like a real, nice wholesome MMA moment created by a single point of extreme violence and one fighter’s willingness to do just a little bit less than he could have.
Jake Paul gets with USA Boxing
Anyone familiar with my work knows I tend to run very hot and cold on Jake Paul. On the one hand, I think celebrity boxing is pretty harmless and he works a lot harder at it than most. On the other hand, I think a lot of his championing for causes has a hollow ring to it, and the lack of true talent he brings with him to is pretty undeniable.
That said, there’s one thing that absolutely can’t be denied: In today’s combat sports climate, Paul is a big star. He, KSI and Jake’s brother Logan have created a niche for bad-to-mid level fight cards, focused on street beefs, reputation bets, and dares, that are attracting young fans who otherwise might have little interest in high level pro boxing (or even sports in general).
It seems like the kind of track record to make Paul’s latest partnership an obvious and easy match. In a post to his Twitter account, Paul announced that he is joining forces with USA Boxing to promote the 2024 Olympic team.
Sure, it’s worth asking, is Olympics interest in such dire straights that it needs Jake Paul’s celebrity to give it a boost? To that, I can only say yes. Yes it is.
The last Olympics were crushingly poor at attracting an American audience and there’s plenty of criticism leveled at the IOC, that these days the games do more harm than good. Given current trends on Gen Z sports viewership interest overall, there seems to be a serious need for sports to capture youth audiences that increasingly see competitive athletics as outdated.
I’m sure that the Paris games will get more traction with US audiences than the Tokyo games, just through kinder time zones alone. And while I don’t necessarily feel like the Olympics as an industry needs championing, any extra shine and recognition these young athletes can get should be applauded.
Jake Paul is hardly an ideal spokesperson, but his fame has made him the best suited one available. The fact that he’s willing to try and make some good use of that is nice to see.
HATE TO SEE IT
UFC boss Dana White tries to retire Tony Ferguson
It should come as no surprise that Tony Ferguson still doesn’t sound very interested in retirement after taking his 7th straight UFC loss on Saturday night. Despite having failed to get his arm raised going back to the end of 2019, ‘El Cucuy’ has remained defiant in the face of criticism.
At UFC 296, the former interim lightweight champion looked another step older and another step slower trading shots with his least dangerous opponent in years before getting handily out-grappled for two rounds to close out the fight. After the loss, Ferguson took to social media with a brief message for fans.
“Love my fans and supporters,” Ferguson posted to his Instagram Stories (h/t MMA Fighting). “You are all f—ing fire. I met lots of you tonight, keep the faith MF’s. One foot in front of the other b—s. Remember what I said crew — Champ.”
Asked about Ferguson’s career at the UFC 296 post-event presser, Dana White gave his stock answer, whenever a former UFC star has found themselves in a late career skid.
“Listen, Tony’s been an absolute warrior and a dog in this sport,” White told the gathered media. “I don’t want to disrespect him by publicly talking about him retiring but I would love to see him retire. That’s really where my head’s at.”
Frankly, it’s all just so tired at this point. As fans it feels like we’ve been down this road with the UFC a dozen times now, whether it was with Chuck Liddell, Luke Rockhold, Matt Hughes, Anderson Silva, or Tyron Woodley just to name a few. If Ferguson is as set on continuing his career as he seems and if Dana White doesn’t want to see him fighting anymore, then they should part ways.
Personally, I’d love to see T-Ferg hang, ’em up. But we all know at this point how hard a job fighting is to quit. And while White clearly seems to feel he has some influence here, his history in these situations clearly shows otherwise. Not one of these fighters has talked kindly about Dana White’s interference in their careers. These men are competing well past the point of sense because it’s what they want, and they don’t take kindly to others meddling.
The UFC is right to want to get out of the Tony Ferguson business. But, if that’s the case they should stop dithering and be done with it. No ‘talks’, no ‘we’ll see’, no squeezing a name talent for every last bit of juice that can be wrung out of them just so the competition can’t. Treat these men like the independent contractors you claim they are. Let them go if you don’t want to keep them working.
Rampage Jackson ‘flat Earther’
There may be no easier conspiracy to disprove than the ‘flat Earth.’ Methods and mathematics for measuring the circumference and curvature of the planet are so simple and numerous that even thousands of years ago men were able to make exacting estimations as to its size and shape.
More than that, for the mathematically disinclined among us, anyone who’s been high enough up in the air on a plane or hot air balloon has had a chance to see how the earth curves. A person armed with enough money and gumption can even circumnavigate the globe with the use of a good map, all under their own power. No edges, no secret NASA bases, no optical illusions.
At some point in his life as a world traversing mixed martial artist and regularly working actor, it seems almost certain that former UFC champion Quinton Jackson has circled the earth, at least once. That hasn’t stopped ‘Rampage’ from joining those strange voices among us, however, who claim that the Earth is—despite mountains of evidence to the contrary—flat
“This is the thing about the whole ’round Earth/flat Earth’ thing, why do people care if people believe in the Earth the way Bible describes it?,” Jackson told a characteristically flabbergasted Brendan Schaub in a recent interview. “Why do people get so mad about that?”
“Why do people get mad at people if they just describe the Earth the way the oldest history book described it?”
“I do,” Rampage continued when asked if he thinks the Earth is flat. “I just don’t talk about it, because—something like Einstein said; saying, ‘To a dumb motherf—er, an ignorant motherf—er sounds dumb.'”
I can’t find that quote from Einstein, or even one that resembles it, so I have no clue what he’s talking about there. As for the Bible, though? Isaiah 40:22 includes this passage that Rampage seems to be referencing:
“He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.”
One of many vague points that flat Earther’s have pointed to suggesting that the Earth is being described as a disk with a ‘firmament’ over the top of it, never minding that several other passages also leaned on describe the “four corners of the Earth” instead. Is it a circle, is it a square? Or is it allegorical language meant to impart lessons and values upon its reader and not a denial of critical thinking skills?
I don’t want to be the atheist guy that rants against religion, really. But even mainstream Christianity recognizes that the earth is a sphere. Christians have been to space, themselves, many times. What Jackson is leaning on here isn’t religion, it’s just laziness—as these guys found out for themselves…