As a sport struggling to gain mainstream recognition and credit, mixed martial arts has come a long way. It has transformed from being an unsanctioned, unorganized spectacle to a full-fledged sport where fighters receive pre-fight physicals and the bouts are legally sanctioned by state athletic commissions.
The brawl that took place after the Strikeforce event on April 17th not only embarrassed the entire sport, but it also took a small bit of momentum away from this progress. Most mixed martial arts events are broadcast on pay-per-view premium networks, and unfortunately this event happened to be broadcast free of charge on national television. This means that there were probably a large number of first time viewers and casual fans watching, and unfortunately this was their first impression of the sport—men acting like boys, fighting when they should be congratulating one another.
This spectacle began when Jason Miller approached Jake Shields during the middle of his interview and asked when he would be given a rematch. Miller purposely placed his face within inches of Shields’ face when doing this, in the attempt to intimidate him and draw attention. These actions angered Gilbert Melendez, who was standing nearby and proceeded to shove Miller. Shields reacted about a second later, also shoving Miller, who began to fall backward. At this point both of the Diaz brothers came running in to attack Miller and people began to swarm on Miller from all directions. It took members of security, fighters, referees, and members of Dan Henderson’s team nearly ten minutes to completely settle and disburse all of the combatants.
Luckily, this was an isolated incident and isn’t something that we see very often in the sport of MMA. Aside from the negative image that this creates in the minds of casual observers, this outburst overshadowed the impressive technical victory that Jake Shields had over Dan Henderson. It was hard to set this brawl aside and listen to what Shields had to say when the network finally returned from its commercial break.
Although this incident didn’t help to attract any new fans or legitimize MMA any further, it isn’t a devastating blow to the sport by any means. MMA has far too much momentum behind it now to be set back by such an uncommon incident. This outburst, however unpleasant, was merely a bump in the road on the way to mixed martial arts getting the mainstream recognition that it deserves.
Tags: Middleweight, Strikeforce, UFC
