Pacquiao on MMA
Jake Rossen Mar 11, 2010
Manny Pacquiao fights Joshua Clottey Saturday, and while I’d like
to endorse it as a fight with potential, I have never been able to
make sense of boxing’s toothpick structure. Barring injury, we know
that the UFC’s Frank Mir and
Shane
Carwin are fighting for a shot at Brock
Lesnar in the summer. What is Pacquiao fighting for? Another
round in a conference room with Floyd Mayweather?
So long as boxing continues to worry about itself only one night at a time, it will continue to wheeze through a respirator. Whether Pacquiao acknowledges that or not is open to speculation, but at least we know he doesn’t have much of an issue with MMA as a whole.
“It's too violent for me but it's a sport that should be recognized,” Pacquiao said during an ESPN.com chat to promote the bout. “It's a great sport but not the sport for me.”
I dwell on comments like this because I can’t navigate the irony in a man who has been punched in the head hundreds of times in his career finding the superficial bleeds and bruises of MMA “too violent.” Boxing and football have hypnotized spectators and participants into believing that a sterile environment without much tissue trauma somehow sanctions the congealed oatmeal their brains often get whisked into. If boxing’s exterior injuries were somehow proportionate to what happens inside the skull, Cowboys Stadium would need barf bags.
This is not intended to grant a free pass to MMA, which treats heads like piñatas with regularity. We haven’t yet met the fighter at 60, or 70, or the orthopedic and neurological issues this sport may present. But we can compare their decline with that of the aging boxer, a downward spiral that frequently begins while they’re still too stubborn to quit while they’re behind. Randy Couture, Dan Henderson, and a dozen or two others have logged 12 years or more in cages with none of the missing-tongue symptoms of a Riddick Bowe or Evander Holyfield. MMA fighters are almost uniformly coherent…though Tito Ortiz, as always, will remain exempt from this discussion.
So long as boxing continues to worry about itself only one night at a time, it will continue to wheeze through a respirator. Whether Pacquiao acknowledges that or not is open to speculation, but at least we know he doesn’t have much of an issue with MMA as a whole.
“It's too violent for me but it's a sport that should be recognized,” Pacquiao said during an ESPN.com chat to promote the bout. “It's a great sport but not the sport for me.”
I dwell on comments like this because I can’t navigate the irony in a man who has been punched in the head hundreds of times in his career finding the superficial bleeds and bruises of MMA “too violent.” Boxing and football have hypnotized spectators and participants into believing that a sterile environment without much tissue trauma somehow sanctions the congealed oatmeal their brains often get whisked into. If boxing’s exterior injuries were somehow proportionate to what happens inside the skull, Cowboys Stadium would need barf bags.
This is not intended to grant a free pass to MMA, which treats heads like piñatas with regularity. We haven’t yet met the fighter at 60, or 70, or the orthopedic and neurological issues this sport may present. But we can compare their decline with that of the aging boxer, a downward spiral that frequently begins while they’re still too stubborn to quit while they’re behind. Randy Couture, Dan Henderson, and a dozen or two others have logged 12 years or more in cages with none of the missing-tongue symptoms of a Riddick Bowe or Evander Holyfield. MMA fighters are almost uniformly coherent…though Tito Ortiz, as always, will remain exempt from this discussion.
