UFC Censorship to appease Chinese? Saudi Connection

[Tyburn]

its writen by Sam Sheridan

A funny thing happened to the promotional poster for the upcoming Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 111, “St, Pierre vs. Hardy,” in Newark, New Jersey. The challenger for the welterweight title, Dan Hardy, had no tattoos on his stomach. Was it a mistake? An older photo? The truth is stranger than fiction, as UFC President Dana White told fans that he had the tattoos “ripped off” because it was “anti-Chinese government stuff.”
China has long been considered a potential goldmine by boxing promoters. It’s an emerging market, with all that entails, and China has a venerable martial arts history, as we know from our Bruce Lee movies. In addition, Macau has the casinos, and gambling brings the fight game; purportedly boxing promoters Don King and Bob Arum are looking for business there.
Carlo Rotella, a professor at Boston College and storied writer (a guy I steal from when I want to sound smart), reminded me of history lesson I’d forgotten. In the United States, boxing’s popularity peaked along with the industrialization of the cities. The heyday for “the sweet science” was in the roaring twenties, the North-East: New York, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh. Young men without families swarmed into the cities to slave long hours in menial physical jobs. They cared deeply about who was the toughest SOB around, fought themselves, and would pay to watch the best fight.
Sound familiar? China is chock-a-block with massive cities filled with young men working factory jobs—it’s primed to be a major market for the fight sports. A small city in China has 6 million people; there are literally hundreds of cities that size. A constant stream of migrants from the country, men used to hard physical labor who care about the fighting virtues, supplies both the audience and talent pool. It’s a promoter’s wet-dream.
The Ferttita brothers and Dana White own Zuffa (‘brawl’ in Italian) which in turns owns the UFC and is worth more than 250 million. The Fertittas also own the behemoth Station Casinos, 18 casinos that filed for bankruptcy in 2009, and currently the company is making its debt payments. The numbers are in the billions.
This January, Zuffa sold 10% of the UFC to Flash Entertainment, a company out of Abu Dhabi, for a price unnamed. It wasn’t a huge shock; there are ties between the UFC and the Middle East.
The Gracie family played a fundamental role for the UFC—patriarch Rorion Gracie organized the first few events, and Royce Gracie won them with the family’s style of jiu-jitsu (years before the involvement of Dana White and the Fertittas). The Gracies maintain a long-standing connection to Sheik Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, son of a former United Arab Emirates president. Sheik Tahnoon is a grappling enthusiast, a black-belt in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu under Renzo Gracie, and the Sheik owns Flash Entertainment. Renzo is now fighting in the UFC. Flash has access to the Middle East, South-East Asia, and China. See where this is headed?
So what was the offending tattoo? Turns out it’s Sanskrit, a Tibetan Buddhist mantra, “the embodiment of compassion,” used most often as a tool for meditation. Hardy claims he used it as a “prayer for focus.” It should be noted that Hardy has trained at a Shaolin temple in China, and possibly knew what he was doing.
White said “I’m not going to put him on a poster with anti-Chinese government writing on it when we’re trying to get into China. . . . I don’t what this stuff means, so I’ve got to be safe.” Whoops—the Tibetan Buddhists get thrown under the bus again.
Other promoters have struggled with body art issues. Japan has the yakuza—organized crime gangs, and gang members often have full body tattoos (and I know, I fought a Japanese guy with full-body tattoos in Thailand. He was also missing a finger, another sign of yakuza). Yakuza connections and scandals destroyed the major Japanese Mixed-Martial-Arts organization, Pride, which was the UFC’s competition, and which the UFC later bought and disbanded.
However, it’s hard to draw comparisons between a tattoo that embodies compassion, and tattoos that signify organized crime. Other UFC fighters sport prominent Christian tattoos, or even “Brown Pride.” There’s no argument besides pure utility for the air-brushing of the tattoo; it reeks of censorship. Dana White and the UFC have a proud history of doing things their own way—and **** everybody else—including HBO and network TV. But they folded like lawn chairs in front of imagined Chinese pressure.

[J.B.]

It's quite disheartening to hear the names Bob Arum and Dana White in the same sentence, and it's been happening way too often recently.

[Tyburn]

I was interested to hear about Fetitas casino actually...

Zuffa is a business and those areas represent a bunch of dollars in terms of business .. other sports like F1 racing have already been doing it as they are in China, Dubai, Bahrain ... so if they want to crack that market, they gotta bend ....

[Spiritwalker]

As much as I respect and honor what Bruce Lee did for wushu, chinese boxing, and making the world aware of what a great country and history China is and has...


That the writer has to make mention of Bruce Lee movies.. as to how the readers know that China is steeped with Matrial Arts tradition.. I find "amusing"


" It’s an emerging market, with all that entails, and China has a venerable martial arts history, as we know from our Bruce Lee movies."

[J.B.]

Originally Posted by Spiritwalker

As much as I respect and honor what Bruce Lee did for wushu, chinese boxing, and making the world aware of what a great country and history China is and has...


That the writer has to make mention of Bruce Lee movies.. as to how the readers know that China is steeped with Matrial Arts tradition.. I find "amusing"


" It’s an emerging market, with all that entails, and China has a venerable martial arts history, as we know from our Bruce Lee movies."

I find "Chinese Boxing" amusing

[Tyburn]

Originally Posted by Spiritwalker

That the writer has to make mention of Bruce Lee movies.. as to how the readers know that China is steeped with Matrial Arts tradition.. I find "amusing"
[/B]

well when you have your MMA books published I'm sure you'll know better

I think he's the top MMA ethnographer in the world

[Spiritwalker]

Originally Posted by J.B.

I find "Chinese Boxing" amusing

that's what is was called. "Chinese Hand" also...Gong-Fu and many other names.. In Okinawa, self defense pratice was orginally called Te pronounced "Ta".

I understand what the writer was trying to accomplish, but using Bruce Lee's movies to "showcase" Chinese martial arts, is speaking down to "those that study"

[Spiritwalker]

Originally Posted by Tyburn

well when you have your MMA books published I'm sure you'll know better

I think he's the top MMA ethnographer in the world

I have published no books, and I know better now.

And I feel modern MMA is really to new to be considered a true culture, if that's how you were meaning to use the word. "study of culture".

As far as being a good writer.. I would agree with that.

[J.B.]

Originally Posted by Spiritwalker

that's what is was called. "Chinese Hand" also...Gong-Fu and many other names.. In Okinawa, self defense pratice was orginally called Te pronounced "Ta".

I understand what the writer was trying to accomplish, but using Bruce Lee's movies to "showcase" Chinese martial arts, is speaking down to "those that study"

I guess I was just referring to their lack of major talent in Pro-Boxing, lol

I get what you mean though. Martial Arts is much deeper than just some action movies.