Thread by @AntEvansMMA

THREAD
The hand-wringing over the KSI vs Paul six-rounder and the BMF fight, predictable as it was, only underscores how many folks in and around combat sport simply don’t understand it. 1/

Much of the frustration coming from sections of beat media + tenured fans comes from cognitive dissonance. No matter how many times they see it, they won’t accept a large % of people don’t care about “the best” - rather they care about their favorites. 2/

Most fans don’t chose they favorites based on who’s the best (in soccer, those types of fair-weather fans are despised). They chose based on who they feel an emotional attachment to; popular fighters are avatars, their wins and losses are experienced by their fans 3/

I don't get the why or how but KSI and Paul's fans feel this emotional connection to them in the same way Diaz and Jorge's fans do. 4/

The YouTube guys were licensed as professional boxers by California. They were well-matched, in shape & fought 6 rough rounds. Those who only attended fight nights held in arenas with LED lighting and press sections are ill equipped to judge what is and isn’t “real boxing/MMA” 5/

And - some of the same people throwing hissy fits in print about the $900k each YouTuber was guaranteed are the most vocal campaigners for fighters to be paid more. “The guys doing the fighting should get every penny they can” – except when they shouldn’t? 6/

I’ve seen more debutant fights than I care to remember, and KSI and Paul fought with as much intensity as any of ‘em.

A few weekends at local boxing cards headlined by six-rounders or MMA smoker held in nightclubs would lend these holier critics some much needed perspective. 7/

“This isn’t how other sports do it” they moan, as if that’s any disparagement. Most “real sports” are games with make-believe points systems & rules.

Soccer/football/tennis etc were created from bottom up. Rules were invented and refined to create a sport that didn't exist. 8/

Combat sports are different. They aren’t games. The points system only exists as a fallback in case fights aren’t ended unambiguously - one fighter rendering the other unconscious or unwilling to go on. Combat sports rules merely sanitize to make it more acceptable to society. 9/

The criticism of the BMF title was ahistorical, too.

Title belts have always been gimmicks, dating back to 1809 when Tom Cribb vs Jem Belcher winner was presented with one by the King of England (The Rock was unavailable, I guess). 10/

Every fight is a one-off occurrence, results only reflect who is better of the two fighters (and sometimes who’s better on the night).
Beating Fighter A doesn’t mean you’ll beat everyone Fighter A has. For this reason rankings and leagues are an uneven fit for combat sports. 11/

With notable exceptions fighters are paid per fight. Not for a ‘season’ or by a wage.

Every fight echoes the winner take all history of genuine prize-fighting; where combatants fight for the championship of each other. 12/

The biggest fights of today are always those types of must-see one-offs. Call it bragging rights if you will, but KSI/Paul and Jorge/Diaz were fighting for the championship of each other.

They especially cared about beating and not losing to the other, so fans cared too. 13/

Combats sports are 100s of one-off events, 100s of championships of each other.

Promoters use titles and contender structures to form a wider narrative. Championship belts are symbols, props on a stage helping tell a longer, endless story than doesn't end with each fight. 14/

Fights featuring feuds, comebacks and trying to achieve the impossible will always be the biggest fights possible, because fans understand feuds, trying to get back what they have lost or striving for a goal more intimately than being the best in world at something. 15/

(The BMF belt helped tell a different story – that Jorge and Diaz were gonna have a visceral brawl. In most cases, world title holders are the best in the world (esp if belt has been defended). Likewise, the BMF belt was fit for purpose.) 16/

Conor v Nate wasn’t for a title. Nor Evans v Rampage. Or Chuck v Tito I, Tito v Kenny II/III or Saku v Gracies. And the championship of each other, not the UFC title, was what made Jones vs DC I and II, Lesnar v Mir II, Ronda v Tate II, Silva v Sonnen II etc so anticipated. 17/

That’s not to say the best v best or ‘real’ title aren't effective selling points. Most time they are depending on selling story of why belt means so much to fighters.

But in the biggest fights, the gold belt acts as a catalyst. It is the subplot, not the main story. 18/

To end thread: if you didn’t like the 6-round celeb boxing the other night, cool, all good. You do you.

But when you use worse like ‘farce’ and say it is proof that boxing is dying etc you are outing yourself as an ‘expert’ only of the last few years of the sport. 19/

Likewise, those who bemoan the BMF and other gimmicks, and insist rankings should be anything more than a roadmap to who fights who, are drawing dots on their face which, once the lines are drawn between them, spells out “I AM A NOOB!"

ENDS

ADD: This isn't a big swipe at "the media" covering MMA/boxing. Both are lucky to have great beat media.

But there are some with a megaphone who try to hide their lack of knowledge by rubbishing what's popular. Criticism without context is merely a statement of personal taste.