WKR Soapbox: MSM, Violence and MMA

Before WKR begins let us warn our readers that we are climbing on top of a soapbox in this post.

Since UFC 100 there has been a trend in the mainstream sports media to compare everything unexpectedly violent in sports with Mixed Martial Arts and WKR is sick of it.

Last week Florida linebacker Brandon Spikes attempted to gouge the eyes of Georgia running back Washaun Ealey (video below). Luckily Ealey wasn't injured but if he had been it would have been the worst on the field football incident since Albert Haynesworth curb stomped a helmetless Andre Gurode.

In the aftermath of Spikes' blatant attempt to maim Ealey (yes, the word maim applies here) one of the principle talking points used to describe the incident was that eye gouging isn't even legal in MMA. WKR first noticed this twisted logic from Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports and it soon appeared on Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption.

What Wetzel and the other sports pundits should have said was that Spikes attempt to gouge the eyes of his opponent was the equivalent of attempted assault as it is against the law. In addition to being a crime, gouging, or attempting to gouge someone's eyes is universally banned in all sports. Thus any comparison to a sport, like MMA, is a complete and utter fallacy, which doesn't serve to adequately describe the severity of Spikes actions.

The next example of the mainstream media describing something unexpectedly violent as the equivalent of a MMA fight comes from the soccer pitch. BYU and New Mexico played a soccer game last night and a New Mexico defender played exceptionally dirty, at one point pulling an opponent to the ground by her hair. How did ESPN describe her dirty play? Why, as an UFC fight, of course!

On the positive side at least the mainstream media is talking about MMA.

WKR just wishes it wouldn't be in the context of, "Oh my god! This is so violent, it's like a MMA fight!!!"