The 6 Least Sportsmanlike Moments in MMA
A lot of uneducated people look at Mixed Martial Arts as a savage bloodsport between two lunatics. Now normally, I'd argue against this point. After all, anyone who says that violence never solved anything is probably a pussy and causing problems. However, in this week's column I wanted to give the uneducated people and the pussies a break. I wanted to try to see things from their point of view. So I've gone through 20 years of modern gentlemanly combat and found six moments of conduct most ungentlemanly. From post-fight riots to neverending chokes to sucker punches, these are the moments that prove your girlfriend right about this horrible, inhuman karate whatever.
Wes "The Project" Sims vs. Frank Mir
UFC 43: Meltdown
When the referee disqualified him for face stomping, he seemed more annoyed than angry. Almost as if he was explaining to a diabetic child for the fifth time that he's not allowed to drink jam. Wes Sims responded by making a face stupid people make when their mothers drink during pregnancy and walking away with his hands raised. It's possible he simply didn't know what he'd done, like when he snaps the head off one of his rabbits. To this day I don't think he realizes he lost the fight. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if that entire fight he thought he was playing laser tag.
Mike Kyle vs. Brian Olsen
WEC 20: Cinco de Mayhem
The referee dove in to stop the fight, but Mike Kyle didn't care. He's of the school of thought where if you get caught stabbing a hooker, you might as well steal her wallet and tell the police that her meth is yours. So as the referee pulled him off, the already disqualified Mike Kyle kept punching and punching Olsen's unconscious head. I suppose when you're clearly going to end up in prison some day, it's never too early to send a message to the other inmates.
Tank Abbott vs. John Matua
UFC 6: Clash of the Titans
In his first UFC fight, Tank's opponent was 400 pound John Matua. John Matua practiced something called Kapu Kuialau, the "Hawaiian art of bone breaking." If you're familiar with the skeletal structure of the Polynesian people, then you know that's fucking crazy. Hawaiian's have such reinforced bones that even their women solve every problem with a headbutt. The automotive industry uses Hawaiian bones to test high-speed impacts because they're cheaper than titanium, and that's why every Ford Escape is haunted. All I'm saying is that on paper, John Matua was looking alright.
When the fight started, Tank and John went at each other like six grizzly bears versus a river full of salmon. I figured you'd have to do some weird shit to break Hawaiian bones, but I had no idea it would involve so much slipping and slapping. Fifteen seconds into the two great beasts' graceful dance, Tank grabbed Matua by his T-shirt and hit him with a right hand so hard that train accidents thought their father had finally come back home. It was such a terrible injustice against faces that Bono's orbital bone wrote a song about it.
When a person gets knocked out, strange things happen. Sometimes you wake up quickly and have no idea what happened. Sometimes you stay unconscious until the A-Team is done saving everyone in your illegal sweatshop. In John Matua's case, his brain got confused and told every part of his body to go jogging in a different direction. So he hit the ground stiff and twitching. Tank Abbott, with the class one would expect from central casting's idea of a prison movie extra, looked back at the body and mocked his seizure. Mocked his seizure. That's the kind of thing that makes Satan shuffle the papers on his desk and say, "Shit, I don't even think I have a form for that."
Tito Ortiz vs. Guy Mezger
UFC 19: Ultimate Young Guns
I grew up being sort of nice to people, so I've never been clear on all the subtle transitive properties of gay insults. However, I'm almost sure that if you tell a person that they're gay and that they're your bitch, you're not coming out the end of that insult as a heterosexual yourself. Plus keep in mind that after his previous win against Jerry Bohlander, Tito wore a shirt that read "I just fucked your ass!" Which is weird, because that's not an idiom people use or some kind of clever play on words. I mean, I just fucked your ass... nothing has ever meant only one thing as hard as that.
Now consider the fact that he's sleeping with porn star Jenna Jameson. There's an old saying that when you sleep with someone you're actually sleeping with every person they've been with. So medically speaking, Tito Ortiz has had thousands of men inside him. It's like Tito knew there was this community of people who wouldn't pay attention to his T-shirt slogans, so decided to use science to hint that he's gay. But why? I'll tell you: To add credibility to his clothing line inspired by and featuring superstar fighter Guy Mezger. Check out the fall collection from Tito Ortiz's PUNch Line:
Gary "Big Daddy" Goodridge vs. Pedro "The Pedro" Otavio
International Vale Tudo Championship 1
The fight started without a hint of the groin damage to come. Within seconds of the starting bell, both fighters ended up on the mat for 10 impotent yet exhausting minutes. What happened next will certainly flag this article as inappropriate by your office's content filter, so at this point I'm just typing about balls to myself. Again.
Gary was under The Pedro in butterfly guard and suddenly his entire offensive strategy centered around The Pedro's dong. Gary snaked his foot into his opponent's tiny trunks. He was wiggling his foot, sometimes feet around in there, switching between massages and attacks. Sometimes he was just trying to pull the trunks completely off, because at this point why not? Make no mistake, fight fans: Inside The Pedro's cup, a second and better championship bout was taking place between Penis and Foot. The crowd booed as Gary's toes wiggled out from under The Pedro's briefs which read "The Pedro" on the butt. It was a celebrity footjob that the executives at Tinactin wish they would have thought of first. This fight inspired a torta shop in The Pedro's home town of Rio de Janeiro to name a sandwich after him. It's a hot dog and a human foot served in a salty cup. Sorry.
Like all romances, the love affair between Gary's foot and The Pedro's balls ended badly. After they stood up, Gary threw a blatant field goal kick into The Pedro's crotch like a rape victim in a self-defense book. Then he reached into The Pedro's trunks and used his battered dong as a handle to throw him to the ground. And it didn't stop. Ever. Gary punched it. He squeezed it. He told the cops it fell down the stairs. Within five minutes, Gary Goodridge was finding more uses for a human dick than I did during two years of puberty. And I grew up on a farm.
In the era in which this fight took place, turning a man's junk into cube steak was technically allowed in MMA rules. The referee practically had a nervous breakdown as he struggled against his instincts to stop this inhuman basket strangling. There was so much testicle damage being done that 20 years in the future, The Pedro's son was shrieking at his own hand while he faded from existence. The crowd booed and whistled and sometimes threw garbage because no one could agree on the proper social etiquette for watching a man legally kill a penis. But legal or not, exploiting the delicate nature of genitals is no way for a gentleman to win a fight. Which is why Tito Ortiz's charity organization made this public service shirt about it:
Shinya Aoki vs. Mizuto Hirota
K-1 Dynamite! 2009
In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, there's a move called the "gogoplata." It's a shin choke that no one in MMA ever, ever gets. Brazilian warriors only invented the move so that one day, 40 percent of every UFC broadcast would be Joe Rogan screaming, "Gogoplata! He's got the gogo-! No he doesn't. Gogopla-! He's lost it. GOGO-! No, that's a pirate ghost. Wait. A p-p-p-PIRATE GHOST!?" Well, Shinya Aoki has no respect for the sense of humor of ancient Brazilian warriors. He gets gogoplatas all the time. A normal night for Shinya Aoki is picking chunks of human neck out of the breathable cotton strip of his rainbow tights.
At the end of last year, Aoki was in a cross-promotional fight against the Sengoku lightweight champion, Mizuto Hirota. Mizuto was considered a standout 155-pound fighter. Aoki, on the other hand, had to buy a second home to store his collection of 155-pound corpse trophies. We expected Aoki to win by tap out, but holy shit, he poured over Hirota like a bucket of wet manslaughter.
Aoki calmly, and in rainbow tights, took the fight the ground. He then pulled Hirota's right arm behind his back and showed how easy it is to punch someone in the head when they don't have a right arm. It was so easy for him that he got bored. He was beating Hirota with all the enthusiasm of a receptionist hitting reload on her Twitter feed. I've seen people more excited about their sleeping pill overdose.
Finally, Aoki decides to try to end the fight. He grabs Hirota's arm with both hands and cranks it into a hammerlock. It was disgusting and airtight. Even Hulkamania wouldn't get you out of this hold. And it was about here where a cultural problem developed. In Japan they have this thing called Bushido. It's like giant balls, but more institutionalized. It's why we had to invent the atomic bomb. It basically means that when some asshole is ripping your arm off, your warrior spirit requires you to allow it. So Hirota's left arm refused to tap out as his right one was snapped into a vaguely arm-shaped sack of bone splinters.
So now after Aoki turns the fight into a Failblog skater video, the referee jumps in to stop it. Now up until now, Aoki isn't a dick. Hirota basically made this little bastard break his arm. Here's the part where Aoki becomes a dick: when he leaps to his feet and screams at the face area of Mizuto Hirota's remains, flipping him off with 2000 percent more enthusiasm than he kicked his ass with. Aoki then runs in a circle with his fingers out, being careful to flip off every single person in the capacity crowd. These people saw a grappling match turn into attempted murder turn into rabid cursing. It was like watching a security tape of a mail carrier quitting his job in reverse. And when Shinya finally finished his 360-degree fuck-you attack, he turned to Hirota and with his tongue out, mocked his broken arm. "Fortunately," said Satan, "Aoki's not the first person to think of this. I actually do have forms for this kind of thing now."
