Dan Hardy's Buddhist Prayer Tattoo Removed for UFC 111 Marketing

Is your worldview really that narrow? It makes money for someone, therefore it’s ok?

is inexcusable. There are insane amounts of significant moral compromises made just to expand into a new market. At some point, money isn’t worth it.

but there are approximately a bajillion more egregious and significant examples of this country kowtowing to appease the Chinese. The UFC is far from the most serious offender of this kind of “Family Love China” way of thinking.

But I really can’t be upset by this. The UFC is a company, not a pawn in the war of ideology between the East and the West.

In fact, given that Buddhism is more philosophical system than straight-up religion it should be considered even less controversial.

So many people just don’t “get” this. Well done, sir.

This probably seems like small potatoes, but it is complete bullshit. Obviously the UFC is the one making the big deal here. Will the UFC ban all mention of Buddhism to stroke the Chinese? I’m not going to get up in arms, but this is pretty pathetic.

“if we censor it, it doesn’t exist”

is the fight even being shown in china? if not, why is dana putting posters up in China?
if so, what happens when chinese gov’t people watch the broadcast and see the tattoo? that would signal it is a stupid kneejerk reaction that is not thought out and does not even come close to serving dana’s stated purpose for this action

if Dana was trying to break into Saudi Arabia or India and a fighter had, “forced child marriages suck” or “women should be able to vote” he would say with a smug grin, “trying to get into that market man”.

This actually says a lot about DW’s character and the UFC’s corporate ethics.

This is par for the course for people trying to do business in China. It sucks, horribly. I have a hard time finding fault with ZUFFA for doing what needs to be done for the globalization of MMA, but it certainly is another brick in what has become millions of bricks of why things in China need to change.

It seems that every little move the UFC makes sparks a debate. You never know what will offend people these days and I’m guessing the UFC did not want to take a chance since getting into China will be very big for the company. The simple removal of a tattoo has offended people… we live in a sensitive world. People complain they want the UFC to be more politically correct to become more main stream… they take a step in trying to market them selves to a very large market and they get bitched at for censoring themselves. Global expansion is the key to the UFC continuing its growth.

I don’t like my MMA getting fouled up with poltics.

Considering Dana’s carefully crafted image as an authentic, uncompromising “fearless leader”, it is pretty funny to see him so paranoid of hurting his business chances in China that he would force self-censorship of a tattoo he doesn’t even understand.

“hey, easy on the chinese gov’t bashing, guys”

-Kid Nate

I don’t fuck around with this issue, but I’m already having the worst day so I won’t comment any further, but Brent I’m with you all the way. Just post stuff I’ll come back from times to times and make sure you’re always green ;).

Having had dealt with Chinese businesses the UFC is likely trying to make things as easy as possible to get there. Once you have any problems getting back in the door with China is like trying to grow another arm. They should have taken the high road here and done the right thing but I can’t blame them for trying to reduce the friction for going into China before any friction starts.

Tattoo police.

China has a way of making the biggest, baddest businessmen bend over and smile pretty.

The rest of the world is a big enough market, don’t you think? If you have to go to these extremes, it’s not worth it.

Will Ultimate Fighter tryouts now include a “tattoo/personal expression” evaluation?

The UFC airbrushed it out of the poster. What the hell are they going to do about the video? It can’t go out live to China and even afterwards, I doubt they’ll pay for the time it’ll take to remove from every frame of video.

I’m in complete agreement with Brent on this. As terrible as it is, the acquisition of money and power will always trump principles and ethics, always being 99.99% of the time. UFC has tread upon the slippery slope, lets see where they go next.

This is one of those things that doesn’t really bother me…. maybe because I’m not informed enough…. but it would seem to me that keeping the tattoo would be just as petty if it could hinder the progress of Zuffa in that market… I think somebody else said that this move is “better safe than sorry” and I kinda agree….

At any rate, the problem with hoping to expand MMA into China is twofold (and I’m paraphrasing Breen here, but whatever):

One the one hand, it isn’t an Olympic sport, and therefore the government has, and will continue to have, very little interest in it. This isn’t such a bad thing for the UFC if they can at least market the product directly to prospective fans.

However, the second issue is that the one purpose that such contests currently serve in China is to further a rather explicit racial supremacist premise: the foreigners come in, lose to Chinese athletes, China is number 1, In Truth Chinese Martial Arts are Strong, etc. The UFC’s largely merit based structure is not going to go over well at all with the powers that be, unless and until they have some Chinese fighters to showcase. Presumably that will come with time.

At any rate, I don’t see how Hardy’s tattoo really factors into any of this at all. It’s a strange move all around.

They air brushed Bas Ruttens hair off thats the real reason he vacated the title. Dana White wants all his champs to look like him. Why do you think St. Pierre, Penn, and Silva are all bald and that he gave Shogun an automatic rematch. Hell Lesnar was’nt sick they were just trying to convince him to shave his head.

Nice article Brookhouse.

I am sorry, but the following statement is devoid of meaning:

Buddhism is more philosophical system than straight-up religion it should be considered even less controversial.

As a professor of philosophy—and someone who is familiar with Buddhist theory— I can say without reservation, that this is nonsensical…

“If the promotion needs to photoshop harmless Buddhist mantras from it’s fighters skin just to “get into China” is it really an area that needs to be expanded into?" The adjective/adverb “harmless” is inherently relative. For instance, a Nazi swastika is harmless if one is as dip shit Nazi but harmful if one is a Jew. Similarly, whether a tattoo is “harmful” depends on one’s point of reference. If Hardy’s tattoo is perceived as harmful to the 1.5 billion Chinese and if the UFC has its eye on the Chinese market, then it makes sense for the UFC to edit the tattoo in light of their plans for expansion. I, for one, think the Chinese market contains the seeds of the future global expansion of the UFC. As such, I don’t mind the censorship. Google recently backed out of the Chinese market in the face on censorship. I think this move set back progress. In my eyes, it is always better to work within the cultural system/framework to change the system. As such, I entirely understand the UFC’s decision not to highlight/display Hardy’s reverse tramp stamp. Imagine instead that the UFC wanted to expand into Germany but one of their dumb ass fighters had a Neo-nazi tattoo—wouldn’t be OK, in this context, to edit out the tattoo for the purposes of promoting the fight?

I am not suggesting that censorship is cool or appropriate as a general strategy. What I am suggesting is that this issue is very complicated and it can’t be settled simply by suggesting—incorrectly—that Buddhism, unlike the rest of the major religions of the world, is philosophical. The issue is ultimately a function of strategy. You want to call the UFC’s strategy into question. I, on the other hand, respectfully, want to take a step back. Here is a parallel situation—namely, the Octagon girls in Abu Dhabi. Is it censorship if the UFC decides to fore go Octagon girls in the context? In some important sense, yes. But this is precisely the kind of thorny issue that the UFC is going to be forced to address as they try to figure out how to internationalize the art of ass beating. Different strokes for different cultural folks. That is the law of the land. So, if you value the expansion of MMA into the Asian—especially Chinese—market, then some concessions might be necessary—i.e., Hardy’s reverse tramp stamp may need to be censored in the name of the greater good of international expansion. Needless to say, if you have a principled reason for rejecting this kind of censorship, that’s fine as far as it goes. But then don’t complain when the UFC falls on deaf ears in some of the world’s largest markets.

Kudos to everyone on their contributions to this discussion. My initial reaction was to be deeply dissapointed with Zuffa for this but Logic and others have helped put it in perspective. Covering a tatoo that could be offensive is not going to result in anyone being turned in to the authorities or anyone’s privacy being invaded. I hope they take a stand in favor of free personal expression but I can understand the counter arguement.
Thanks to blev and other early posters for illustrating th systemic problems that other nations still face in the human rights arena.
   I dont think it is meaningfull to us if Zuffa does business in china or not. If they do, I hope they dont go down this censorship road because it does reinforce the the chinese position that they dont need to do anything to expand the right of free expression.

If there is a chance that a tattoo can possibly offend a lot of people in a culture (even if we do not understand that culture or how/why it could be possible that something as trivial as that may be found offensive), then the tattoo removal in a poster justifiable. [asking Hardy to remove the tattoo, now that’s a another topic on it’s own.]

It’s like how I (someone who doesn’t live in the US) sometimes don’t get how people might get offended by the smallest remarks and relate it to racism or any other political issue that is present in your culture…. For instance, there’s a picture of Mayweather photoshopped on the logo of KFC, cause he’s "a chicken for avoiding pacquiao"… the whole message is about how Mayweather is scared, but some, maybe just a small population, think that editing a black man in a chicken store’s logo is a bit racist. Some (maybe even most) people think it’s fine, but if I was trying to make this certain group of people be happy with me, I wouldn’t post that picture even if it was just a tiny tiny chance that they might think I’m racist for thinking that is funny.

Even if I can’t possibly understand the reasons why, but if someone told me that it could possibly lead to problems with some people, (yes, someone did tell me), then I won’t post it. I guess that’s how Zuffa’s train of thought, is also.

Fact: UFC is trying to get into China
Fact: China has an oppressive government that will take offense at the smallest things, especially those that MIGHT concern threats to the unity of China (or as some see it, their occupation of territories like Tibet).
Fact: Hardy’s tattoo is one of those things that could fall into the above category. Needless to say, it doesn’t really hurt anyone if they photoshop it out of promo material… while it could seriously damage the UFC if someone at the Chinese government would take offense to it and make the dealings harder or even impossible.

Anyone who thinks the UFC should concern itself with global politics is plain wrong, that would be extremely harmful to the UFC, the sport and it would stop it from expanding beyond the US and Japan… further more, if you wanna influence behavior by actors in global politics you should look to politicians… not businesses. This is a smart and harmless business decision.

Burkas for the ring girls in Dubai?

It’s “just a tattoo.” I’m not signing the internet petition either.

While one can argue that other strains of Buddhism are no religions, Tibetan Buddhism definetly is a religion.

not to nitpick, but it would be more fair to say “a tattoo that the anti-religious govertment of china does not approve”…but then China might use hackers to assault the UFC webpage, or ask yahoo to turn over the email addresses of UFC fans in China and they would be locked up for various reasons….strange how none of those are actually that far fetched given life in China

That the tattoo just looks bad visually on a poster, and the graphic artist was too lazy to find a way to hide it?