If you thought Sarah Kaufman's win over Roxanne Modafferi was a great brawl, you should follow the throwdown over female MMA going down between several MMA blogs. One side thinks female MMA is unathletic, stinks and doesn't belong in a prime spot on television. The other is irked by the lack of respect.
The Kaufman flap began when she blogged that she was unhappy with her placement on Strikeforce Challengers 9. Kaufman (12-0) delivered a nice finishing slam to end things against Modafferi, but MMA Payout says the slam only backs its argument that female fighting is where it belongs.�
If anything, the slam is further support for the idea that women lack much of the speed, strength, and damage threshold that make MMA so dynamic and exciting. The Kaufman slam pales in comparison to Rampage-Arona (or even Harris-Branch), which perfectly summarizes the difference between the two sports and why women’s MMA has such a tough row to hoe.
The slam has become a lightning rod for backers of female MMA and Kaufman. Fightlinker dished out its own slam calling MMA Payout's analysis "asinine" and that it didn't belong on a site analyzing the business side of MMA.�
Fight Opinion wasn't happy with the prefight criticism Kaufman got for complaining about exposure:
She stated her demand to fight on Strikeforce main cards. Who came blame her? The fans didn’t.
Apparently the media, however, in large part is not happy with her attitude. Memo to those criticizing her with largely manufactured outrage — who else is going to promote her if the promotion she works for isn’t doing a good enough job promoting her or themselves?
FO says men do it all the time, so why can't Kaufman?�
Let’s call it for what it is — Sarah did something that other fighters in the promotion have done (promoted themselves) and yet she gets heat for it while everyone else who goes into business for themselves in Strikeforce gets a shrug of the shoulders from beat writers. She doesn’t have a contract like Dan Henderson and making a living at a business that requires 100% devotion means you have to scratch and claw to get every dollar you can make. Whether that’s through sponsorships, commercials, fight salary, or whatever the revenue vehicle may be, she’s got to make a living.
Zach at FO thinks several bloggers ripped Kaufman because it made for a nice story during a slow news week.�
So why the heat against Sarah by writers, which is a completely different reaction to the supportive response from fans? It’s a melting pot of reasons. First, it’s a dry news cycle. Writers are looking for material. Second, she’s a woman and there’s plenty of vocal fans who are not on the female MMA bandwagon.
If you read Cagewriter on a regular basis, for me the jury is still out on female MMA. I thought the Gina Carano-Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos fight was as good as any I'd seen during 2009. But that type of female fight is too often outnumbered by unathletic-looking clinchfests.
Fight Opinion is right, ultimately it's up to you guys. If you tune in�on a regular basis, producing large viewership numbers, and female MMA helps to fill up arenas around the country, it's got a future. It's certainly a much better product than female boxing but so is the WNBA and for some reason men have consistently snubbed it. � �
Jessica Biel
Leighton Meester
Jessica Alba
Christina Aguilera
No comments:
Post a Comment