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  - MMAD LIBS II: WRITING AN MMA HATCHET PIECE
Sunday, September 02, 2007 - Editorial by Rami Genauer for MMAWeekly.com
Dear Op/Ed Writer Who Has Just Discovered This Ultimate Fighting Thing and is Currently on Deadline,
You need a column pronto and no op/ed writer ever got syndicated by speaking softly. You need to condemn something and Mixed Martial Arts seems as good a target as any. Maybe you’re morally opposed to the idea of hand-to-hand combat as sport, or maybe you’re a boxing fan with an inferiority complex. Perhaps you’re a cantankerous coot predisposed to hating anything invented after Eisenhower left office, when this country up and went to hell, dadgummit. Whatever you are, you’re in a hurry and are probably too busy to be bothered with facts.
Luckily, you’re an op/ed columnist, so that shouldn’t be a problem. All you need is 600 words of vitriol and you’re good until next week. But what – besides righteous indignation – to put in those 600 words? Your exposure to this sport is probably limited to what someone once told you their 18-34 year old nephew was watching these days. If you tuned into a UFC program on Spike, it was probably only long enough to see something you could label barbaric in the second or third paragraph. So if thoughtful and well-researched critique is out, you’ll need to sound absolutely outraged if people are going to believe you have a worthy opinion. But getting that worked up can be stressful and there’s no reason to angry up the blood, especially at your age.
I’m here to help. I’ve already done the job of your colleagues in the newsroom in my Cautiously Optimistic MMA Trend Piece Template and now I’m here to make your life a little easier. Critiquing MMA has become something of a rote exercise; every columnist makes the same arguments, most of them using the same idioms and comparisons. Admit it, you were going to use a dog fighting analogy and pass it off as cogent analysis, weren’t you? You and everyone else, pal.
So sit back, relax, and let me do the heavy lifting for you. I’m sure some journalists would feel uncomfortable profiting off the work of others and taking credit for someone else’s ideas. Luckily, you’re an op/ed columnist, so that shouldn’t be a problem. And to make sure the article sounds like you wrote it, I’ll even use those one-word and one-sentence paragraphs you love so much.
Here’s the template for an MMA hatchet job. Just fill in the blanks, submit to your editor, and wait for the melodramatic letters-to-the-editor to come rolling in:
“I was minding my own business (choose one: flipping channels/having a drink in the local sports bar/reading the sport section) when I caught wind of the newest fad catering to American youth’s (choose one: bloodlust/baser instincts/descent into the gutter), this so-called “Ultimate Fighting.” If you haven’t seen this (choose one: disgusting/nauseating/horrific) display of violence, consider yourself lucky. The fact that the barbaric spectacle of drunken slobs beating each other senseless is even sanctioned should (choose one: concern/give pause to/chill the blood of) any sensible person.
The rules of Ultimate Fighting are simple: (choose one: anything goes/there are no rules/kill or be killed). Perhaps it’s this simplicity that makes Ultimate Fighting so appealing to the (choose one: slack-jawed/illiterate/sadistic) savages that make up its fan base. By appealing to the lowest common denominator of society, Ultimate Fighting has brought (choose one: street fighting/bar-room brawling/unskilled mayhem) to the masses in order to turn a profit.
(choose one: Disgusting/Pathetic/There ought to be a law).
Not one of the untrained (choose one: punks/thugs/brutes) who compete in this farce has an iota of the (choose two: grace/class/skill/athleticism/honor) of a (name of dead boxer) or a (choose one: Muhammad Ali). Trying to inflict as much damage as possible is not honorable. Kicking a man when he’s down used to be the benchmark for unsportsmanlike conduct; in Ultimate Fighting it’s (choose one: applauded/just part of the game/par for the course).
What is worse, would you believe people have the audacity to call this barbarism a “sport?” Trust me, (name of stick and ball sport) is a sport. (Name of different stick and ball sport) is a sport. Even (name of less popular, non-stick and ball sport) is a sport. Punching a man in the groin is not a sport.
Ultimate Fighting’s (choose one: Neanderthal/Troglodyte/Homuncular) fans will have a ready excuse for all of this, calling it pure, honorable, or “real.”
(choose one: Please/Spare me/Come on).
This is nothing more than human cockfighting. If Michael Vick is going to jail for subjecting dogs to this sort of caged mayhem, the owners of Ultimate Fighting (choose one: should get a good lawyer/should go with him/deserve worse).
At least Vick’s dog fighting operation was witnessed by only a few cruel individuals. Ultimate Fighting regularly draws more viewers in the advertiser-coveted demographic of males age 18-34 than (name of any sports league besides the NFL) games.
As frightening a thought as that is, remember that our children are watching too. It’s no wonder, after desensitizing them to violence through (choose two: violent video games/the WWE/heavy metal music/splatter films like “Saw”), that they would turn to Ultimate Fighting as the next big thing. Should we be surprised that after watching these bare-knuckle brawls that kids emulate this activity (choose one: on the playground/in their backyards/in amateur “fight clubs”)?
Our children need to know that violence is wrong and that (choose one: absurd/antiquated/hyper-masculine) notions of bloodshed as acceptable spectacle have no place in the 21st century. What’s next, televised (choose one: knife fighting/fights to the death/executions)?
Let’s end this (choose one: coarsening of our culture/threat to our children’s well-being/pockmark on the sporting landscape). We’ve advanced as a civilization from the days of gladiators fighting in the Coliseum. The time for action is now. These barbarians are not at the gates, they’re already in your (choose one: house/living room/neighborhood).
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