Combat Sports Scumbags

[wandshogun09]

I’m guessing this thread will be busier than the MMA Positivity one 🤣 the list of fighters outing themselves as cretins, racists, homophobes, bigots, wifebeaters and rapists seems to be growing by the minute and it doesn’t feel right for some of these stories to just be lost in the general MMA/Boxing news threads and certainly not Minor/Random Shit. 

What’s triggered this is the Anthony Smith news this week. I’m sure most of you have seen it and the fact none of us have even mentioned it kind of sums up the numbness we all feel these days when yet another story comes out.

Smith was arrested on three felony charges. Domestic violence causing serious bodily injury, false imprisonment and terroristic threats. From what I’ve read he could be facing up to 50 years.

A bit more has come out about the whole thing and it sounds grim…

Horrible. And while I shouldn’t be surprised really, I kind of am in this case. Despite his meathead appearance, I always thought Smith seemed like one of the more laid back types and from the little bits I saw over the years, seemed to have a good home and family situation. Just shows you never know what’s going on behind closed doors. There are some fighters you’d hear a story like this about and sadly you’d go ‘yeah, seems the type’. Smith was never really one of them for me. But the seriousness of this stuff, I’d be surprised if this is an isolated incident. You don’t threaten to kill your wife and try to run her over with a car multiple times out the blue do you? I’m purely speculating but I’d say the chances are there’s probably been some level of domestic abuse in that house before and this is an escalation of that. Like when Dana slapped his wife in that night club. I refuse to believe that was a one-off or the first time it happened. The first time it ever happened was in a crowded public place? Nah, not having it. It almost always starts behind closed doors and he was way too comfortable letting the hands fly. 

Not trying to absolve Smith of anything. Fuck him. But between this and the recent Dustin Poirier situation, I do wonder how much of a role CTE is playing in all this. Back when Zuffa were building the UFC brand and trying to sell everyone on the idea that it was a legit sport and ‘safer than Boxing’, Dana used to always brag that ‘there’s never been a death or serious injury in the UFC’. But he was saying that when the sport was only 10-15 years old max. With CTE, it takes time for the damage to really show itself. And I think we’re seeing more and more of the long term effects of that now. I was listening to Luke Thomas talk about it recently and he’s obviously got contacts in the sport and is privy to information we don’t always get, and he was saying there are a lot more cases of fighters and former fighters struggling with this than we know. We only hear about it when it blows up like this and the law gets involved but it sounds like a bunch of these guys are ticking time bombs. Seeing what BJ Penn has become in recent years is scary. 

So yeah, the CTE thing could be a whole other discussion and thread on its own. Not saying it was definitely a factor in this Smith case, maybe he’s just a cunt. But with 60 plus fights on his record and still not even 40 years old, that’s a lot of knocks to the head.

Edited July 30 by wandshogun09

[NeverYield]

Yeah saw this the other day, and like you I was pretty suprised. 

Definitely some merit in the CTE and head injury arguement, and 100% fuck him still, but you are right its a valid point. I know someone who was in a bad accident but he did survive, he was always a laid back guy but after the accident he was extremely aggressive in certain cases.

Head trauma built up over the years damages the frontal lobe, and can change all sorts about a persons thought process.

Still a despicable act that we have no way of knowing whether any CTE was involved, disgusting behaviour, but I think CTE has caused havoc for fighters over the years. 

[Ironic Indie Lad]

The CTE stuff really scares me.

I spent a lot of time around fight gyms and fighters when I was very into submission grappling in the 00s and 10s. It all seemed quite normal at the time but I've recently been thinking back on how hard most of these guys used to spar. It was almost like a kind of macho badge of honour. People saying things like "the sparring in this gym is better than most fight shows". It sounds ludicrous now but you rarely ever saw someone wear headgear and most of the MMA sparring was done in 8oz gloves which is obviously not much protection to be punched full blast in the face with. 

I would see people get beat up and even knocked out on a weekly basis and I would barely blink. There was a real sense of "this is just what fighters do." It never really bothered me back then, I was way more concerned by guys doing CRAZY weight cuts just to fight on pretty small UK and European shows. 

It's one thing to get knocked out in a fight and get a concussion. Even that isn't good at all. But you cant be getting concussions in the gym every other week without it catching up to you.

In hindsight I used to be mildly embarrassed that I would have replied "no" to a Dana White DO YOU WANT TO BE A FUCKING FIGHTER?! speech. Now I am very glad I stuck to grappling only (although thats also ruined me in entirely different ways)

 

[jimufctna24]

1 hour ago, wandshogun09 said:

Not trying to absolve Smith of anything. Fuck him. But between this and the recent Dustin Poirier situation, I do wonder how much of a role CTE is playing in all this. Back when Zuffa were building the UFC brand and trying to sell everyone on the idea that it was a legit sport and ‘safer than Boxing’, Dana used to always brag that ‘there’s never been a death or serious injury in the UFC’. But he was saying that when the sport was only 10-15 years old max. With CTE, it takes time for the damage to really show itself. And I think we’re seeing more and more of the long term effects of that now. I was listening to Luke Thomas talk about it recently and he’s obviously got contacts in the sport and is privy to information we don’t always get, and he was saying there are a lot more cases of fighters and former fighters struggling with this than we know. We only hear about it when it blows up like this and the law gets involved but it sounds like a bunch of these guys are ticking time bombs. Seeing what BJ Penn has become in recent years is scary. 

So yeah, the CTE thing could be a whole other discussion and thread on its own. Not saying it was definitely a factor in this Smith case, maybe he’s just a cunt. But with 60 plus fights on his record and still not even 40 years old, that’s a lot of knocks to the head.

Rare as I will type it, but Barry McGuigan deserves some credit here. He was one of the most vocal critics of the arguments that MMA was safe in the 2000s when the sport was still relatively young (as Wand noted, around 15 years old). He even casted doubt on medical arguments MMA advocates put forward to prove that MMA was safe. I'm aware McGuigan probably took this view out of self-interest (many prominent figures in boxing were threatened by MMA at the time), but still his cynicism was spot on. 

Do you remember Brad Scott? He competed on the TUF Smashes series and also later fought Rob Whittaker in the UFC. Scott only had 19 MMA bouts (17 pro + 2 on TUF) and it's strongly believed by a close friend of his that he has brain damage (possibly CTE).  Scott apparently doesn't want to have a scan because it would make the brain damage "real" and has since competed in multiple bare knuckle bouts (note: Scott isn't a scumbag as far as I know. He actually comes across as an okay bloke and his YouTube channel was ace). As you typed Wand, ticking time bombs, not just a threat to others, but also to themselves. 

To bring my post back to the thread topic, the Rafiel Torre affair is probably the most insane story involving an absolute scumbag. Here is a video summary by the always insightful and entertaining Napoleon Blowdart for anyone interested. 

 

 

[Carbomb]

That's genuinely disappointing and depressing to read, that Anthony Smith is a piece of shit. As said, he seemed to be one of the better ones. But, as also said, it's not surprising. In addition to the "political ecosystem" of the biggest company in the sport being run by and riven with wretched MAGA cunts, which, in turn, attracts their like to it as both competitors and fans, the sport itself is not going to be conducive to any kind of healthy behaviour outside it.

I'd argue that MMA is "safer" than boxing, but it's much of a muchness, isn't it? Even with shorter matches, shorter rounds, and the presence of a grappling element that enables submission finishes, it's still, broadly, getting punched in the head for a living. There's always the potential for death or some life-shortening/curtailing damage to occur. The fact that boxing is generally more dangerous doesn't mean MMA automatically isn't. And much as Plastic Caesar would like to vaunt MMA as being safer because there have been no deaths in the sport, it's really dishonest to say that death is the only way to measure how dangerous or safe a sport is. Brain damage and CTE and all other brain-related conditions stemming from it all have their own set of repercussions; how many fighters in any combat sport now suffer from things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, nerve damage, etc., and have a terrible quality of life? Michael Watson and Gerald McClellan didn't die from boxing, but the quality of life they had afterwards means they should have counted towards some unfavourable statistic in boxing. (That said, I don't care how this sounds, but in McClellan's case, it felt like justice. Animal-torturing/murdering piece of shit.)

In fact, I would venture to suggest that there's an argument to be had that we should count the mortality rate of people as a consequence of the sport, i.e. people killed by someone who's sustained brain damage/CTE from fighting. The figures wouldn't be flattering, I'll bet. First one that comes to mind is Josh Grispi, but I'm sure there are others.

 

As with a lot of sports, it seems, conversely, the women's side is a lot healthier. You never hear about that sort of behaviour from any of them, and, let's be clear, they could all kick any ordinary guy's arse if they wanted to (I know most of them tend to date other fighters, but some of them must date ordinary people, surely). Hell, even regarding sexuality: there isn't a single "out" gay fighter in the UFC (as far as I know, happy to be corrected), but there are a load in the women's game. And there seem to be quite a few women fighters with a much more progressive political outlook, like Jandiroba and Ricci.

Nearest I can think of as a "scumbag" is Mara Romero Borella, and being done for being a drug mule isn't really the same as domestic violence.

Edited July 30 by Carbomb
Rod Wallace

[Egg Shen]

Both Anthony Smith's wife and daugher have now come out in defence of him, both stating that Smith was in danger of harming himself rather than them. Who knows?

 

[wandshogun09]

Who knows what’s happened but I suspect they’re saying this because he’s facing serious jail time and, whatever he’s done, they still don’t want him locked up for most or possibly all of the rest of his life.

I’ve heard a few accounts saying there were gun shots heard coming from the house and that at some point Smith was threatening to shoot himself. So there is truth to the stuff about him being a danger to himself. But it sounds like that was after he’d already threatened and then tried to mow his wife down with the car. Whatever the family are saying now, that stuff with the car hasn’t just been dreamt up out of the blue. That info and the charges wouldn’t have been made public if it was just a case of him threatening to harm himself. Seems like the wife or family called the police because he was being a nutcase, as they should, but now they’ve realised the severity of the charges and the jail time he potentially faces, they’re panicking and changing the story. 

[HandsomeButchIII]

Andy Geer. https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/directors-fined-over-trainee-scaffolders-death

Edited August 6 by HandsomeButchIII

[neil]

Plenty of scumbags in the BJJ world too. Just take a look at https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/craig-jones-journalist-bjj-coach-222500171.html (ironically led by someone who is less than squeaky clean themselves)

[Egg Shen]

BJJ seems to be ripe with rotten fuckers.