Oregon Writer Has Nervous Breakdown Over UFC 102

Over a thousand fights and sixteen years in the books without anything more serious than a punctured lung: think the UFC can ever get a break? OregonLive.com writer John Canzano watched in abject horror Saturday as combat athletes got banged up (gasp!), spit blood (good Lord!), and appeared to be “wobbling.” (This never happens in golf!)

Disruption of one’s equilibrium, Canzano concluded, is a harbinger of death. (Lesson? Do not ever get on a merry-go-round. Unless you want to die.)

“Someone is going to die in the Octagon someday,” he wrote. “We're headed straight there, and anyone who saw the damaging blows to the brains on Saturday, including UFC head Dana White, can't ever say they didn't see it coming.”

I sincerely hope Canzano walks to work, because the mortality rate for driving is substantially worse than it is for a mixed martial arts contest.

But wait -- there’s more! “The best moments for me came when I saw two skilled fighters, each too talented to get knocked out by the other, working against each other.” Yes, John. The absolute best thing for the neurons is to sustain dozens of blows to the head instead of one or two. Remind me to cancel the appointment with my neurologist and have a consultation with you instead.

I’ll give Canzano credit: unlike most Chicken Little critics, he actually sat down to watch a live event in its entirety before commenting. But in the end, it was probably unnecessary.

“I don't see any redeeming social value in smashing another man's face for entertainment. I don't see the athleticism through the violence. I don't see how we can turn a gladiator vs. gladiator event into anything more than an organized pay-per-view street fight.” This was Canzano, writing two days before the fight.

Intelligence isn’t really about the ability to understand a premise: it’s about how rapidly you can sift through it. If you give me a year to solve a complex math problem, I could probably handle it. But the smart guys can do it in a few minutes. That’s intelligence.

Give it another sixteen years, John. You’ll figure it out.