German Boxing Commentator says MMA is for Nazis - Why the UFC has a long way to go in Germany

"Ultimate Fighting is for Nazis." Werner Schneyder spreads ridiculous thoughts on prime time TV.

I don’t really get it. What the hell is wrong with the Germans? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a German, too. But since the UFC is trying to get a foot in the door that is the continental Europe market, things are really getting hostile for those of us who love a good old fashioned fight. But let’s start from the beginning…

When the word was spread that Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta are going to invite several german journalists to Vegas, to watch Brock Lesnar beating the living hell out of Randy Couture and afterwards have a little meet and greet with Dana, Lorenzo and the fighters, the MMA Fans in Germany were on a role. 'The hype is on', that’s what everybody believed.

Sure, there’ll be some suckers from the government, from the media, from wherever those hypocrites come from, we thought, but no one expected a witch-hunt like the one that’s going on right now in this country. For years there have been countless smaller MMA-Shows all over Germany and no politician or journalist cared about them. But now that we have big elections coming up and there are several real problems in this country that people could start asking questions about, it’s quite fitting that a big organization from the states is coming over here to promote an event where two guys will pound the hell out of each other in a steel cage. I mean seriously: That MUST be bad for our children.

So what happened next? Of course, child protective services made clear that the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, where UFC 99 will take place in two weeks, should ban minors from the show. And they did. As if that isn’t already enough the whole media seems very busy, bashing on the new demon they luckily found. The biggest German newspapers BILD and FAZ for example published several bad investigated and partially bogus articles.

This is all bad, but the biggest hit has been made from the german news TV show "Stern TV" last night. They invited three experts to the show (which is watched by millions of viewers by the way) and started a discussion about "Ultimate Fighting". The experts were: a doc (who was actually pretty cool, as he didn’t say anything really bad about MMA and simply called the things how they really are), a fighter from Germany (Gregor Herb, known from the M1-Challenge shows on HDnet, who did a pretty good job in staying calm and collective and being a respectful ambassador for the sport) and Werner Schneyder, a former boxing commentator, who is by far the most stupid and ignorant person I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately he is one of the savviest persons, too.

He knew exactly he was coming with almost zero arguments. So what he did was, he talked the whole time, interrupted Herb and used every little point where the fighter was staggering a bit against him. On top of that he was basically telling lies to the public. It would take too long for me to tell you the whole story so let me just list the most hilarious or maybe most sad comments by that guy:

- MMA fighters who have a background in other sports, such as wrestling or judo, were basically poor in their respective disciplines. That’s why they started doing MMA.

- He tried to teach Herb how Judo works (even if he has never been on a mat in his life). The funny thing is, that Herb is a Judo black belt (what Schneyder obviously didn’t know).

- He tried to convince Herb and the viewers that, similar to wrestling, MMA fighters don’t really hit opponents when doing ground & pound (of course he didn’t use the term "ground & pound"). Which is a pretty dumb argumentation, because if it WOULD be like that, then no one would get hurt during a fight and the whole "MMA is so barbaric" discussion would be ludicrous.

- The kids on the schoolyard are getting influenced by MMA which results in harder beat downs. Where I come from schoolyard brawls existed long before MMA 'bro. And luckily it is impossible for a trained boxer to lay a smack down on someone else on the street, right Werner?

- He wasn’t able to utter "Martial Arts". He simply couldn’t do it.

- According to Schneyder "Marzial Art" (which is the way he tried to pronounce it) is a "scene word" for ultimate fighting and it is derived from the word "war".

- MMA fighters are no really trained athletes and they are not able to master one single martial art. They only know a few things from a few disciplines which they try to use in an amateurish way. (After being reminded that Decathlon athletes, for example are mediocre in many disciplines, too, instead of being perfect in one, he only responded: "Forget the comparison!")

But the most ridiculous thing that he said was that:

"Ultimate Fighting is for Nazis who go out and stomp people in the gutter."

Good job Werner, very reputable.
There is one good thing about the whole show though: At the end of the discussion the host Günther Jauch told the viewers to vote, if the government should ban MMA or not. By the time the show was over he presented the result of the voting. 13,000 people participated in it. 69 percent of them voted "No" and obviously don’t give a damn about Schneider and his antics. Only 32 percent of the voters said: "Yes, please ban MMA."

A long way to go, indeed. But it looks like there’s some kind of a light at the end of a long tunnel.