An Ugly Month of December
January 15, 2009
It was an ugly month of December for MMA:
- UFC’s Fight for the Troops featured three brutal finishes including Steve Cantwell’s confession that he’d always wanted to break an arm.
- Justin Levens and his wife were the victims of a murder-suicide.
- UFC 92 featured a trio of late stoppages that included Quinton Jackson delivering a couple of extra blows to the already incapacitated Wanderlei Silva and an intentional low blow from Cheick Kongo.
- Justin Eilers is shot and killed
- Josh Neer charged with DUI on New Year’s Eve.
MMA is not unique in this manner. Run-ins with the law, violence and death, and brutal results on the playing field are no stranger to sports. Whether it be Plaxico Burris’s possession of a firearm, the murder of Sean Taylor, or the death of Dale Earnhardt during a NASCAR event, controversy and human tragedy are as much (perhaps more) a part of sports as they are of every day life.
However, unlike the NFL or NASCAR, MMA does not yet have the credentials to weather these kinds of storms relatively unscathed. With the sport’s position still very tentative in shallow end of mainstream society, any blemish is a potential disaster for the sport. A pattern of minor offenses might even be more damaging than one truly shocking event which could be chalked up as simply unfortunate.
One ugly month, particularly during a time when many decision makers and opinion leaders are distracted by the holidays is not a crisis, however, it is not without consequence either. All of these incidents came on the heels of Quinton Jackson’s July arrest for evading arrest, hit and run, and reckless driving which with its breathless coverage by the tabloid media led by TMZ was probably MMA’s closest brush with popular culture this year.
