The full-page headline of the Boston Herald today slams Boston Police Officer and MMA fighter Sean “The Cannon” Gannon for his video taped fight with Kimbo Slice. You’ll recall this fight (Gannon’s victory over Kimbo) was making its rounds on MA forums a few weeks back.
Leave it to a rag like the Herald (a consistently terrible newspaper) to sensationalize this and put the spotlight on the ‘horrors’ of sport fighting. This will probably force the Boston Police to publicly investige Gannon. Major bad press for sport fighting in this state, hopefully there won’t be a push to ban it now. And hopefully Gannon can go on making his living, I’m sure he puts himself on the line a lot more and works harder than the Herald reporter who wrote the story will ever understand.
Sure, 2 guys beating the hell out of each other isnt glamourous but thats what they trained for; theyre professional fighters.
Well, maybe all the negative publicity will give him enough notariety and infamy to actually help his MMA career, who knows…
Its still very bad press for sport fighting in this state, and martial arts in general. Real fighting is brutal. I suppose this is why sifu’s and others have taken something that is inherently violent and remade its image as something mystical, spiritual and benign. Even the gentlest, mellowest stereotypical internal stylist (not that i think this is true of all internal stylists) is practicing to potentially maim another person, no matter how philisophical, sugar-coated or far removed from reality fighting. Maybe its better left under this facade, at least as far as the general public perceives it… What do you think?
I think the participants, esp. Gannon, should’ve known better than to participate in an illegal, underground fight. Kimbo’s an ex-con with few career prospects, and I find it easier to accept that this is the best avenue open to him for making money. Officer Gannon though, knows the law and should respect it even when he disagrees with it.
Basically, they should’ve found a way to make this a legal event. If either of them ends up in hot water over it, they’ve only themselves to blame.
But yeah, it sounds like sensationalism: a slow news day on a cr@p paper. Aren’t they the one that endorsed Bush?
Sounds fishy to me. If that’s so, how come the video only showed a couple dozen spectators? If they weren’t doing it on the DL, I’m sure they could’ve come up with more than that. Heck, they probably could’ve increased the purse size by 10 times if it had been an official, publicly promoted bout. I guess the small # of spectators and jerry-rigged ring might have been neccesary to keep it from falling under the jurisdiction of the state health board or something, but still, why do it like that unless you’re trying to avoid official attention?
Because if they had spectators and charged entrance fees it would fall under the jurisdiction of the State Athletic Commission, and then it would in fact be legal. Everybody there was either travelling with Gannon or travelling with Kimbo. No random people came in off the street.
It was conducted in a martial arts school under the guise of a sparring session. Unless of course, you want to be arrested for sparring in your MA school. I assume you don’t. It’s a technicality, but he did everything possible to keep it in within the confines of state law.
Kimbo was recieving huge praise for his skills in that internet video that made it’s rounds. Gannon wanted to prove that he couldn’t hang with a trained fighter. He was completely handicapped by the rules, and he still beat the guy. He would have killed him had it been under MMA rules.
Oh sure. I just think that this has the potential to reflect very badly on the MA community and possibly cause more restrictive legislation to be enacted. Presuming what Ford said is correct and it is legal, the outrage that could result from a sensationalist news story like this might lead to the banning of sparring in MA schools, for example. I think that Gannon and his colleages should have considered that possibility when deciding to set up the fight, too. Or at least when deciding to post the freakin’ video on the internet so some scandal-hound yellow-journalist a$$hole can find it and make a mountain out of a molehill.
Originally posted by Chang Style Novice Or at least when deciding to post the freakin’ video on the internet so some scandal-hound yellow-journalist a$$hole can find it and make a mountain out of a molehill.
Post it? Hell, he’s selling DVDs.
personally I think making fighting illegal sucks. If two guys want to fight I say let them. Hell, I say if you legalize that sort of fighting you’d probbaly avoid some other more serious crimes.
Originally posted by Chang Style Novice … the outrage that could result from a sensationalist news story…
See. That’s what you people not from Boston don’t understand. The Herald is a rag. All it prints in sensationalistic stories. This isn’t the first time they slammed MMA either. Nobody in Boston really takes them seriously. They aren’t far off from being on the level of the Enquirer. It’s entertaining to read, and passes the time while you are in the john, but anybody looking for serious news does not read the Herald. 99% of all Boston knows this.
As I’ve said in previous threads on this topic, a lot of state involvement amounts to wanting a piece of the action.
On another note, you’ve got to take the sore loser effect into account. You say “If two guys want to fight, let them.” OK, but what if after the fact the loser decides to charge for assault. Well, the way to prevent that is to draw up a agreement (contract) beforehand right? Who has control over what contracts can be legally enforced and can impose penalties for violations? The answer is the civil court system, so you’ve got the gov’t involved there already. I wouldn’t be too surprised if the origin of organized fighting as a money making activity had its origins in the kind of “If two guys want to fight, let them” attitude that you’re showing here. It’s just that actions have consequences and sometimes those consequences can reach pretty far and unpredictably.
OK, presuming you’re right and that the Athletic Commission has their hands tied in this case, we still have the possibility of negative publicity harming MMA, heck all MA businesses and practice in the state of Massachusetts and even elsewhere if they really get on a roll. You might want to ask David Ross what his opinion of that is. I’m sure you remember the fight he’s in with the City of New York to allow San Shou events.
My point is just this: knowing as we do that what we do is right on the fringe of socially acceptable behavior (albeit unjustly) shouldn’t we hold ourselves to a high standard in order to protect ourselves from nanny-state advocates? It looks to me like Gannon acted recklessly in setting up that fight, especially given his status as a LEO.
Originally posted by Ford Prefect See. That’s what you people not from Boston don’t understand. The Herald is a rag. All it prints in sensationalistic stories. This isn’t the first time they slammed MMA either. Nobody in Boston really takes them seriously. They aren’t far off from being on the level of the Enquirer. It’s entertaining to read, and passes the time while you are in the john, but anybody looking for serious news does not read the Herald. 99% of all Boston knows this.
Yes the Herald is a piece of sh!t and most thinking people dismiss it at such. but there are a lot of non-thinking people who get take it as news and it can wield some political power. Remember when they were in on the set up & character assassination of Massport Chief Peter Blount (he was an idiot for falling into that trap & probably deserved it) a few years back, that resulted in his resiqning and a major shake down within that beauracracy?
Originally posted by Chang Style Novice
[B]Sorry about the double, I crossposted with Ford.
OK, presuming you’re right and that the Athletic Commission has their hands tied in this case, we still have the possibility of negative publicity harming MMA… [/B]
That I can agree with. The thing is that Gannon didn’t think it was going to as big a deal as it became. He thought it would be a small little video that only a small number of people in the MMA community would see. BTW, he’s donated all his cut for the video to charity before any of this broke. He did it because he’s a competitor, beleive’s in his sport, and thougt maybe it could grab him some attention from a premoter.
I don’t think MMA will have any problems in Mass because of this though. The gov’t is getting their money from the MMA events currently being held, and it’s very unusual for the gov’t to give up money once they’re getting it. If anything, it’ll drive up sales of the video, the events that the HErald kindly plugged, and maybe even the next UFC PPV. MMA is a fringe sport with a small fan base. Any publicity at this point is good publicity.
MW,
That’s different. It was a story about on-going gov’t corruption in a place that was already rife with allegations of misconduct. Taxpayers were getting their money wasted (nobody likes that) and anybody who trvales in or near Logan is plenty upset at Massport to begin with. Gannon is just a random cop that beat a random guy’s arse. There may be some call for action against him, but the most they could do is possibly suspend him for a technicality. We’ll see how the Police Union deals with that too… I think the majority of the people won’t care anything about it past this story. I can’t wait to watch the news tonight.
