Everyone answers to somebody, so we, the staff at Sherdog.com, have decided to defer to our readers.

“The Doggy Bag” gives you the opportunity to speak about what’s on your mind from time to time.

Our reporters, columnists, radio hosts, and editors will chime in with our answers and thoughts, so keep the emails coming.

This week, readers weigh-in on the coverage of Kyle Maynard’s amateur MMA debut and Anderson Silva’s “masterpiece.”

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For a Web site whose journalists and editors frequently talk about the importance of having MMA touted and treated as a legitimate sport, I find it rather hypocritical that the Kyle Maynard fight has been given as much attention as it has -- including front page news, as well as a poll. When state athletic commissions -- and, I think, anyone with the slightest degree of fight insight can do the same -- acknowledge the degree of unfairness and danger that such a fight represents to one of its participants, willing or not, we have here the very essence of what sport is not about, namely, a novelty product. Tack whatever laurels you want on Maynard -- heroic, perseverant, etc. -- and I won’t argue. But I will say that this kind of a fight, and your blatant hyping of it, do the sport and ultimately the fighter an injustice.
-- Matt

Brian Knapp, associate editor: Journalists report the news -- good, bad or ugly. Yes, we want MMA to be treated as a legitimate sport, but those hopes cannot interfere with our duty to report on stories we deem newsworthy. A congenital amputee fighting in an unregulated bout after being denied a license by a state athletic commission is news any way you want to slice it. Whether or not we agree with Maynard’s foray into the sport matters not. Suppose, God forbid, Maynard had been injured -- or worse -- in his April 25 fight with Bryan Fry. Would we not be expected to report on it?

Sherdog’s coverage of the Maynard-Fry bout was far from “blatant” hype. We published a pre-fight feature on Maynard, an event report, a few blog entries, a few polls and a post-fight photo gallery. By comparison, our coverage of UFC 97 included no fewer than 25 items directly tied into the event, from features to previews to photo galleries.

Though some wanted us to sweep it under the rug, Maynard’s amateur MMA debut was news. Sports Illustrated, ESPN, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (the AJC sent one of its senior columnists, Steve Hummer, to cover it) and every reputable mixed martial arts news site, including Sherdog, saw it that way. I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.