CSAC Moves to Regulate MMA Gyms, ‘Smokers’
Losing Luster
Jason Probst Jan 6, 2011
David has also faced the crossroads of a career, which, like almost
every other fighter’s, needed a big break and required some tough
decisions. His August 2006 fight with Jesse Romero was a turning
point.
Romero was originally scheduled to face a teammate of David’s, Aric Nelson, in a five-round bout for the Total Fighting Alliance lightweight belt. But when Nelson was choked out in a match one month before his date with Romero, Nelson was placed on CSAC suspension and could not compete on the card.
“They are like, ‘It’s our main event. We need somebody to take
this,’” said David. “I had no idea what the money was or the weight
class. I weighed in at 152 in jeans, with rolls of quarters in my
pocket. I’d fought Ian McCall at
135 the month before.”
David had his jaw broken by a Romero kick, went the five rounds and lost a decision. After the fight, the commission doctor asked him if he had any injuries.
“My jaw was wired shut for six weeks. I was only paid $1,000 for the fight,” David said. “The promoter gave me a $30 gift card to Jamba Juice.”
Jones does not like the idea of promoters being anywhere near a post-fight examination.
“When it comes to injuries,” Jones said, “the doctors and their opinion are all that should matter. The promoter should be sitting in his seat, on his Twitter account, and not doing or saying s--t.”
Losing Luster
Today, CSAC rules apply on most Indian reservations, where tribal leaders have largely agreed to adopt the guidelines. The cooperation has helped close the gap between the murky world of under-regulated MMA and state-controlled events, but things have not always been this way.
Jones’ lone sanctioned fight came in 2005, in a casino on the Colusa Rancheria reservation, under a circumstance faced by too many fighters. Jones had a tough, short-notice decision to make with no third party to ensure rules or safety.
“I was supposed to fight at 160. The dude didn’t show up,” recalled Jones. “They said, ‘Do you want to fight, or do you want to go home?’ So I fought a guy that weighed about 190, but they didn’t weigh him in. I was like, ‘I need to break even for all this training I’ve put in. [Expletive] it. Let’s fight.’”
After taking down his opponent with an early slam, Jones gassed out and was submitted via choke in the second round. He was paid $100 and has not fought since.
Jones is not bitter about being one of the many 0-1 fighters in the world. It’s more about frustration with a fight game that puts the fighters themselves in bad positions, left to the predatory elements of a sport that is dangerous enough as it is. Once an avid fan of the sport, Jones finds the price of MMA’s mainstreaming something he is increasingly unwilling to pay.
“The last fight I went to in [Sacramento] was the WEC. I sat between a drunken guy and his wife who were arguing so much they asked me to sit between them. I’m stuck next to this dude, and he’s telling me he’s training at some gym and is gonna have a fight soon, while his lady is telling me how hot [Georges St. Pierre] is,” Jones said. “When someone fighting would execute a nice combo or guard pass, the fans today have no idea. In Japan, in the old days, you could hear a pin drop when guys were fighting. If [Mirko] ‘Cro Cop’ [Filipovic] head kicked you three times in a row and missed, they’d clap lightly. But here, if you’re not dead yet, they’re bummed.”
Nowadays, Jones teaches jiu-jitsu at a Rickson Gracie affiliate school in Sacramento, occasionally competing in tournaments. He does not follow MMA the way he used to, a point sadly underscored by the massive, boxed collection of fights on his wall. It is a motley mess of DVDs from Pride Fighting Championships and long-defunct Midwestern promotions, books on muay Thai and nutrition and Silver Surfer comic books.
Hearing Jones speak about MMA elicits the feeling of someone who lived in the neighborhood and took the memories with them as a bulwark against what it represents now. The hoi polloi, he explains, have ruined it.
“Saying ‘I’m a cagefighter’ is the new ‘I’m in a band,’” he said. “Everyone in the old scene was intimately involved with the fight game. They’d seen Pride 4. They knew what ‘budo’ was. They understood it can get bloody and gnarly, but this is art. And with the best artists, sometimes the canvas happens to be some dude’s forehead getting split open or an arm getting cranked and popped out and you could hear it in the fifth row. It was about being the best you can be.
“Today, people get to put on their Affliction shirt. They buy the hat. They get to feel like they intimidate people, and that’s how they find their identity,” Jones added. “These are the guys with bleach-tipped hair, leased BMWs. They do coke on the weekends and have no idea who they are or what they’re about. It’s fake tans and tits and skunk-haired women. If I were to go somewhere and these people were here, I would leave instantly.”
With many ever-willing to take his place.
For more information on the CSAC, visit http://dca.ca.gov/csac.
Romero was originally scheduled to face a teammate of David’s, Aric Nelson, in a five-round bout for the Total Fighting Alliance lightweight belt. But when Nelson was choked out in a match one month before his date with Romero, Nelson was placed on CSAC suspension and could not compete on the card.
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David had his jaw broken by a Romero kick, went the five rounds and lost a decision. After the fight, the commission doctor asked him if he had any injuries.
“The promoter’s insurance did cover it, but they were trying to get
me not to write it down, saying, ‘You wouldn’t be able to talk if
your jaw was broken,’” David said. “With all the adrenaline flowing
through [me], I didn’t even feel like my jaw hurt. Then the
commission will come back and talk to you. Sometimes the promoter
is standing right there. They don’t want you to disclose anything,
but, luckily for me, the commission wrote it down and it was
covered.”
“My jaw was wired shut for six weeks. I was only paid $1,000 for the fight,” David said. “The promoter gave me a $30 gift card to Jamba Juice.”
Jones does not like the idea of promoters being anywhere near a post-fight examination.
“When it comes to injuries,” Jones said, “the doctors and their opinion are all that should matter. The promoter should be sitting in his seat, on his Twitter account, and not doing or saying s--t.”
Losing Luster
Today, CSAC rules apply on most Indian reservations, where tribal leaders have largely agreed to adopt the guidelines. The cooperation has helped close the gap between the murky world of under-regulated MMA and state-controlled events, but things have not always been this way.
Jones’ lone sanctioned fight came in 2005, in a casino on the Colusa Rancheria reservation, under a circumstance faced by too many fighters. Jones had a tough, short-notice decision to make with no third party to ensure rules or safety.
“I was supposed to fight at 160. The dude didn’t show up,” recalled Jones. “They said, ‘Do you want to fight, or do you want to go home?’ So I fought a guy that weighed about 190, but they didn’t weigh him in. I was like, ‘I need to break even for all this training I’ve put in. [Expletive] it. Let’s fight.’”
After taking down his opponent with an early slam, Jones gassed out and was submitted via choke in the second round. He was paid $100 and has not fought since.
Jones is not bitter about being one of the many 0-1 fighters in the world. It’s more about frustration with a fight game that puts the fighters themselves in bad positions, left to the predatory elements of a sport that is dangerous enough as it is. Once an avid fan of the sport, Jones finds the price of MMA’s mainstreaming something he is increasingly unwilling to pay.
“The last fight I went to in [Sacramento] was the WEC. I sat between a drunken guy and his wife who were arguing so much they asked me to sit between them. I’m stuck next to this dude, and he’s telling me he’s training at some gym and is gonna have a fight soon, while his lady is telling me how hot [Georges St. Pierre] is,” Jones said. “When someone fighting would execute a nice combo or guard pass, the fans today have no idea. In Japan, in the old days, you could hear a pin drop when guys were fighting. If [Mirko] ‘Cro Cop’ [Filipovic] head kicked you three times in a row and missed, they’d clap lightly. But here, if you’re not dead yet, they’re bummed.”
Nowadays, Jones teaches jiu-jitsu at a Rickson Gracie affiliate school in Sacramento, occasionally competing in tournaments. He does not follow MMA the way he used to, a point sadly underscored by the massive, boxed collection of fights on his wall. It is a motley mess of DVDs from Pride Fighting Championships and long-defunct Midwestern promotions, books on muay Thai and nutrition and Silver Surfer comic books.
Hearing Jones speak about MMA elicits the feeling of someone who lived in the neighborhood and took the memories with them as a bulwark against what it represents now. The hoi polloi, he explains, have ruined it.
“Saying ‘I’m a cagefighter’ is the new ‘I’m in a band,’” he said. “Everyone in the old scene was intimately involved with the fight game. They’d seen Pride 4. They knew what ‘budo’ was. They understood it can get bloody and gnarly, but this is art. And with the best artists, sometimes the canvas happens to be some dude’s forehead getting split open or an arm getting cranked and popped out and you could hear it in the fifth row. It was about being the best you can be.
“Today, people get to put on their Affliction shirt. They buy the hat. They get to feel like they intimidate people, and that’s how they find their identity,” Jones added. “These are the guys with bleach-tipped hair, leased BMWs. They do coke on the weekends and have no idea who they are or what they’re about. It’s fake tans and tits and skunk-haired women. If I were to go somewhere and these people were here, I would leave instantly.”
With many ever-willing to take his place.
For more information on the CSAC, visit http://dca.ca.gov/csac.
