Insulting Sportsline Article Re: Mayweather-De Lay Hoya vs. The UFC

[smoogy]

I hesitated to post this since it is so idiotic and nothing that hasn't been written 100 times before, but I am disappointed that CBS would publish such a scummy, one-sided rant without having someone among their staff with integrity, like Sam Caplan, prepare a response.

Originally Posted by MIKE FREEMAN

Ultimate fighting will never be as good as boxing on its worst day. Many of the ultimates are nothing but thugs and ruffians. All that league has done is take a few former nightclub bouncers, knuckle crackers and parolees, put on some fancy TV graphics and told them, "Kick the other guy in the nuts."

No skill is required to knee someone in the groin (and it happens despite rules stating it is illegal). I'm kneeing Doyel in the groin now. See, was that difficult?

Next on Spike TV: Man eats another man's face. Then some dork will call it a sport.

The UFC has no credibility. UFC equals the Ultimate Farcical Clown league.

And please do not wax poetic about the UFC's popularity. Of course people watch the UFC. It's human cockfighting. It appeals to the lowest common denominator of human existence.

The message boards and my e-mail will be irradiated with balderdash about how the mainstream media is simply a bunch of snobs and we don't "get" the Ultimate Farcical Clown league. I love the NFL. Only Roman gladiators had a more dangerous sporting profession. The NFL is more violent than the UFC, but football at least possesses a veneer of being civilized.

Boxing is almost comically imperfect. It is full of crooks, con artists and ear biters (and that's just a weekend in Atlantic City with Mike Tyson). Despite its faults and notwithstanding the massive greed that has caused boxing to collapse on itself like a dying sun, boxing has more charm in its broken pinky than the Ultimate Farcical Clown league does in its entire crappy organization.

No UFC goon has or ever will possess the grace and natural showmanship of De La Hoya or the true fearsome fighting skills of Mayweather.

Notice the word: skills. This match will not resemble a bar-room brawl but meticulous, highly practiced, man-to-man warfare between two skilled, all-time athletes.

It is only a matter of time before the UFC suckers, er, fans realize they have been fooled by a Jedi mind trick.

The UFC should be banned; the De La Hoya-Mayweather bout should be embraced.

The fact a non-heavyweight match is getting so much attention shows that boxing still has appeal (and even I once thought it was dead). The fact boxing has survived despite so many scandals and crooked promoters demonstrate it has resilience.

"This [fight] is important because boxing is at its lowest point and boxing has been at its lowest point for quite a while now," De La Hoya told the New York Post. "Boxing is always taking these low blows left and right from people. This will give it a good shot in the arm."

The fight can do more than that. It can begin a resurgence perhaps not seen before in American sports. If the fight is particularly competitive, casual fans will give boxing another look and the all-important advertisers will again open their wallets instead of turning their backs.

Then maybe we can begin to put the sad joke that is the UFC behind us.

And once again we can get excited about a real sport.

http://cbs.sportsline.com/columns/story/10162545/1

Some things to note:

-Despite his rant spilling over to a second page, he amazingly fails to make a single reasoned argument. All he did here was repeat McCain-era stereotypes about MMA that are hilariously outdated and narrow-minded.
-Several of his "points" about the UFC are purely fabricated (I don't think eating the other guy's face was ever allowed to be honest!)
-In writing an article about how Boxing is so superior to MMA, he somehow forgot to try and make boxing look good.
-This clown actually has a blog on the Sportsline site, but for some reason put this sophmoric fact-free turd up as a new article in the Boxing and MMA section.

Actually, judging by this guy's feedback description, maybe he just realizes that riling people up with shitty writing is an easier route to success than actually doing research and making intelligent arguments:

Mike Freeman is not just another pretty face. There is some actual talent there. A little bit of talent. OK, a smidge. OK, a thimbleful.

He always wanted to be two things: A writer and a pilot. He started writing for newspapers in high school and got his pilot's license over 10 years ago. So now he is a writer, pilot and wannabe athlete remembering the days when he could run a 4.5-second 40-yard dash. OK, 4.8 seconds. OK, 7.0 seconds.

Freeman has been a full-time sportswriter for the Dallas Morning News, Boston Globe, Washington Post, New York Times and the Florida Times-Union covering every aspect of the sports world. Freeman is proud to announce that in his last job as a columnist for the Times-Union in Jacksonville, Fla., he twice angered thousands of Gators fans. OK, maybe it was 10,000. OK, maybe several hundred thousand.

He is also the author of two books with a third on the way. If you see any of his works in the $1.29 bin, please buy one. OK, the $1 bin. OK, the 79 cents bin. C'mon, help a brother out.

Freeman currently lives in New Jersey with his wife so please, no jokes about the Garden State. Or he will sick Tony Soprano on you.

If you want to drop this glorified troll a line and tell him what you thought of his "analysis", go to this page:

http://cbs.sportsline.com/columns/writers/freeman

Bombs away!

[BigBanda]

What a frickin idiot. That kinda shit just pisses me off because the ones trashing the UFC never know dick about MMA and it is apparent from the articles they put out. I dont know where some ppl got off thinking that the UFC or MMA consists of ex bouncers and street fighters. I think I may just have to vent and email this Mike Freeman.

[valheruking]

lol its almost like hes just trying to get a reaction, surely not?
Man he said some things that are just too stupid to respond to, such as calling it ultimate fighting, fighters having no gameplan and knees to the groin lol.
Damn what an idiot.

[alfin]

what a peckerhead all of these boxing fanatics get on my nerves every mma fan know boxing is a intergal part of mma but only a part so it is respected for its contributing merit and not as the greatest sport ever known because when you mix all the aspects of fighting styles you will come up with a ultimate fighting champion hence the frickin name

[tlb1088]

Damn it SMOOGY quit. I can't rep you every ten f'n minutes. Save some of that good shit for another day!

[NixHex]

Dude's not even worth my time. He does this shit just to get a rise out of people, and he doesn't deserve it. He obviously has no clue what the fuck he's talking about, and he'll probably turn more people off of the "charm" of earbiting, headbutting, groinshot boxing. Funny how the unreal core strength and technique of wrestling, and the beauty of quality BJJ are considered thugs rolling around.
This dude is a complete fucking clown, but if you guys do write this guy an e-mail be informative, don't stoop to his level.

[smoogy]

The message boards and my e-mail will be irradiated with balderdash about how the mainstream media is simply a bunch of snobs and we don't "get" the Ultimate Farcical Clown league. I love the NFL. Only Roman gladiators had a more dangerous sporting profession. The NFL is more violent than the UFC, but football at least possesses a veneer of being civilized.

This was my favorite part personally. Yeah, your message boards and email might get bombarded, but it won't be because the mainstream media are snobs and don't "get" MMA, it will because you in particular are a fucking pinhead who writes uninformed shlock.

The fact that he is a Sportsline staffer along with Caplan and now has to share a section of the site between Boxing and MMA kind of leads me to believe that this guy is just pissed off that he has to accept the reality that the UFC is a sports league like any other.

[tlb1088]

Btw I emailed that fucker and told him what an ignorant SOB he was. It seems so strange to me that people don't realize UFC/PRIDE style fighting was around hundreds of years before "boxing". It is the root of the sport.

[valheruking]

Boxing is fighting for its life, and in some ways the largest obstacle to its rebirth is its greatest competitor -- the worst league ever invented, the UFC. Which means it is good vs. evil, Halle Berry vs. Courtney Love, true sport against the mosh pit of sweat and bloodied skull fractures known as ultimate fighting.


It's up to Oscar and Floyd to get boxing back on the national landscape.
De La Hoya and Mayweather can single-handedly save their sport from deteriorating into dust while simultaneously stopping the advance of the UFC barbarians at the gate, trying to destroy boxing by polluting pay-per-view with their brand of low-brow, ghetto-fabulous hooliganism.

This is it. This is when boxing emerges from its great depression riding the shoulders of De La Hoya and finally strikes a blow to the caged ignorance that is mixed martial arts.

It will happen.

In the coming days, you will read foofs who will say boxing can never survive, despite one of the more glorious bouts just several days away. On Thursday, you will attempt to stomach the dopey ramblings of my good friend Gregg Doyel, otherwise known as Captain Persnickety, downplaying this grand moment in history. He's probably another ultimate fighting apologist as well.

http://cbs.sportsline.com/columns/story/10162545

More from MMA's no.1 fan Mike Freeman

[smoogy]

Originally Posted by valheruking

http://cbs.sportsline.com/columns/story/10162545

More from MMA's no.1 fan Mike Freeman

I actually left that part out because it was so poorly written that I didn't want to detract from the main idiocy of the article.