First up a warning: This will be quite long and a little on the rambling side at times. apologies in advance. TL;DR at the bottom.

Over the past few weeks we've seen certain members and sections of the MMA media go pretty crazy with the whole 'This is why MMA isn't seen as a legitimate sport!' and 'Thank god we don't get mainstream media attention or MMA would be finished!'


Bull.

What Rampage does is wildly inappropriate at times and is absolutely not something to be condoned or encouraged, but to act like the media reaction has been proportionate; that it's some kind of act that would get people kicked out of other sports is ridiculous. Examples of WHY that's the case after the jump.

First lets take a real quick look at boxing. Is boxing a mainstream sport? I'm pretty sure more or less everyone would say yes, so lets take a look at some of the things that have happened in boxing over the past couple of decades that didn't see guys kicked out of the sport, or "kill" boxing.

Mike Tyson: For those of you who DON'T know, Mike Tyson was several times worse than rampage in interviews, going so far as to say "I normally don't do interviews with women unless I fornicate with them. So you shouldn't talk anymore ... Unless you want to, you know." He was deadly serious and sexually aggressive and threatening as well. He also beat up his wife Robin Givens and made jokes about it - oh and he was convicted of rape.

After all of that he STILL had a career.

Floyd Mayweather: How about the fact that, among various other warrants and charges over the year, Mayweather has EIGHT felony charges in the last 18 months or so. Take a minute to let that sink in.

For anyone who doesn't follow boxing, Those 2 guys are quite possibly the biggest names in boxing over the past 20 years. They're not just some top 5 or 10 in a weightclass guys like Rampage, They have been the face of the entire sport at times.

Now lets go back to MMA for a minute. The outrage over Rampage has been HUGE among certain sections of the MMA media who seem to revel in the fact they can put themselves on a pedestal and look down on the MMA fans. I've seen posts from journalists saying things along the lines of 'MMA fans are morons, 9/10 of them don't see this as a big deal.' They are actually suggesting that because MMA fans don't see this as a huge thing, the MMA fans are idiots.

I'm going to take a moment here to reiterate that in no way am i suggesting Rampage's various idiotic acts bordering on sexual harassment are acceptable, what I AM suggesting is various members of the MMA media have taken the opportunity to jump on the very high and mighty bandwagon and blow the latest incident WAY out of proportion. The fact Rampage MIMED motorboating a journalist has had more criticism thrown at it that when Cesar Gracie's camp ASSAULTED a man on live TV.

I'm going to repeat that to let it sink in. A crime committed live that could result in a jail term for the people involved had less outrage from the MMA media that some quasi-offensive interview that could be construed as *POSSIBLY* being borderline sexual harassment.


Go see if you can find any pieces by Maggie Hendricks on THAT.

Do you think that maybe - just maybe, MMA fans don't really care about it because, well, it's not a huge deal? Am I alone in thinking that some of this "outrage" is manufactured to drive up site traffic? Or that some sections of the MMA media take opportunities like this to position themselves above the fans? How about some of them trying so damn hard to be taken seriously as journalists that they will take every and any opportunity to relentlessly crap on the smallest mistake by anyone, from rampage air motorboating, to Joe Rogan daring to call a woman c*nty as if that legitimizes them as "professionals".

Who knows, maybe i'm wrong. Maybe i'm out of touch and if a boxer did flirt with a reporter and pretend to motorboat her the sky would fall. Maybe that genuinely is the most horrendous thing some people have ever seen. Maybe its a huge deal and i'm the idiot for not seeing it, so lets put it to the public:

Is the Rampage "incident" being overblown by 'journalists' for their own gain, or am I just a clueless neanderthal misogynist?