This segment aired on the supposedly enlightened NPR last week, including my local NPR station. I would summarize the infuriating displays of ignorance into a couple of bullet points, but there’s not a sentence in this article that’s free of arrogance, glib assumption, or just plain misinformation. The author even tries to imply that boxing is less violent because “the idea in boxing, which has always styled itself as “the sweet science,” is not to get hit.”
Feel free to hit up the “questions and comments” link in the top-right of that page.
I heard about this segment because my boss brought it up at lunch, and found myself checking off the same old checklist: MMA is less dangerous than boxing and pro football, there’s never been a death in a sanctioned event, etc. The difference between MMA as practiced today and its image in the eyes the public at large is pretty shocking.
On one hand, lots of us complain about what a yahoo the average MMA fan is. But what if more evolved people understood how complex the sport is, and how honorable most of its fighters are? MMA needs better evangelism.
(Bonus: See Dana White verbally jiu-jitsu Bill O’Reilley in a similar segment last year)
Bronson