A Response to South Dakota State Rep. Steve Hickey Comments about MMA
As we enter the year 2013 Mixed Martial Arts has expanded and become a global sport. Yet still in 2013 we have uneducated people that make the same claims about this great sport. The scary thing about this is the people that make the most off the wall comments are people in office in our country. Yesterday South Dakota State Rep. Steve Hickey made these comments.
“Decent and civil societies have to draw the line somewhere; with smoking we draw the line after tobacco and before pot*; with ‘adult entertainment’ we draw the line at child porn. With violent combative ‘sports’ I suggest we draw the line at cage fighting. The line should be drawn after boxing, wrestling and legitimate martial arts. They are violent too but the line needs to be drawn somewhere. Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) or ‘cage fighting’ is over that line — in fact, even the martial arts people I talk to tell me they hate cage fighting because it is a smear on legitimate martial arts.**MMA Cage Fighting is the child porn of sports.*** The psychological community will tell you that desensitization to violence works exactly like desensitization to porn. You know how porn progresses****… a peek at topless isn’t enough, it all has to come off, then a pic is not enough… it goes to video then to virtual***** and then to the devaluation and mistreatment of women, human trafficking and sex crimes against women. Violence works the same way. Boxing wasn’t enough so they took the gloves off, then they allowed kicking, kneeing people in the head, then elbows to the face, then they put a cage around it. The point is to knock the other guy unconscious while pay per view crowds cheer it on. Why not nunchucks? In Rome they’d gather in colosseums and bring out prisoners and entertain themselves by making them fight to the death. That wasn’t enough so they brought out the helpless and the hated and brought in the hungry lions. Crowds cheered…
Meth use is going on here too, should we regulate Meth labs?******…
When people get hurt and die in extreme sports I’ll confess I sometimes have trouble mustering up sympathy and compassion (even as we should comfort their families and guys like me officiate these funerals). At some point we can’t call these things “accidents” as they are more the product of our carefully thought out decisions. I have to bite my tongue because instead of the passages that comfort the grieving I feel like quoting the great philosopher Forrest Gump: Stupid is as stupid does*******…
In a restaurant the other day I heard a lady say about the MMA match on the television… Oh my, when did they take the gloves off? I wanted to say… Madam, they took the gloves off when we weren’t watching.******** Folks, it’s time to start paying attention because we are creating today the world our grandkids will live in tomorrow.
Now there is plenty to take from these comments that are extremely wrong with these comments. The first being the violence factor in all of this. The big thing that people claim with MMA is that it is to violent and it put people in danger. This is further from the truth.The UFC which is the biggest MMA organization on the planet has had no deaths or serious injury in its history. Can we say the same for boxing? football? The fact is MMA is as safe as you can get when it comes to sport. Unlike Boxing when you are getting hit in the head over and over with head shots and football when you have 300 pound players running into each other.
Second the comparison to child porn. Which is as arrogant of a comment as you can see. MMA is as entertaining and as family friendly to watch as any sport. Yes there is times when it can be violent but its no different then a player falling wrong in the other sports. Nothing ever happen to make those comparisons. As well as the people involved with the sport off MMA are some of the nicest you can meet and are family friendly people so I am done with that.
Another is this man saying they don't have gloves. This just prove he does not know what he is talking about and never watched in his life a MMA event cause you can see they have gloves and are regulated with rules.
Finally saying lets legalize drugs and prostitution. While I am not going to go into that last comment because it is just as dumb as any this man has said I just want to say this. MMA is overlooked by the government. So for all these events to happen the government must let it happen. Also MMA goes through drug testing unlike any sport other then boxing. Can that be said about other major sports? So all these comparisons are just ignorant and outlandish.
In closing I would like to say before anyone wants to make a comment about the sport do your research and watch the product and look at what goes on behind the sense and the people out doing this great sport. MMA you dont have no where near the outside instances as you do in the other major sports. The things that this man said were sad. The saddest part is he is not the only man who thinks this and its really a shame cause this truly is a great sport.
Now there is plenty to take from these comments that are extremely wrong with these comments. The first being the violence factor in all of this. The big thing that people claim with MMA is that it is to violent and it put people in danger. This is further from the truth.The UFC which is the biggest MMA organization on the planet has had no deaths or serious injury in its history. Can we say the same for boxing? football? The fact is MMA is as safe as you can get when it comes to sport. Unlike Boxing when you are getting hit in the head over and over with head shots and football when you have 300 pound players running into each other.
Second the comparison to child porn. Which is as arrogant of a comment as you can see. MMA is as entertaining and as family friendly to watch as any sport. Yes there is times when it can be violent but its no different then a player falling wrong in the other sports. Nothing ever happen to make those comparisons. As well as the people involved with the sport off MMA are some of the nicest you can meet and are family friendly people so I am done with that.
Another is this man saying they don't have gloves. This just prove he does not know what he is talking about and never watched in his life a MMA event cause you can see they have gloves and are regulated with rules.
Finally saying lets legalize drugs and prostitution. While I am not going to go into that last comment because it is just as dumb as any this man has said I just want to say this. MMA is overlooked by the government. So for all these events to happen the government must let it happen. Also MMA goes through drug testing unlike any sport other then boxing. Can that be said about other major sports? So all these comparisons are just ignorant and outlandish.
In closing I would like to say before anyone wants to make a comment about the sport do your research and watch the product and look at what goes on behind the sense and the people out doing this great sport. MMA you dont have no where near the outside instances as you do in the other major sports. The things that this man said were sad. The saddest part is he is not the only man who thinks this and its really a shame cause this truly is a great sport.
