Vitor Belfort and His Crusade Against Football

via www.superlutas.com.br

This is a bit of a rant (personal rant), I’m very busy but just needed to come here and vent out my frustration for someone I have much respect for, and that person is Vitor Belfort. When Vitor first came to "popularize" the sport of MMA in Brazil as its ambassador, he sent a laughable message, that MMA would trump football:

In Brazil, the UFC will overcome football. I know it seems crazy to say such a thing, but we will surpass football’s popularity in three years time. I say this because I know that where the UFC goes, it overcomes all. I’m not a crazy dreamer, this is reality

Sure Vitor, it’s reality that the UFC has surpassed the popularity of American football as well as basketball in the US, it’s only a matter of time that the same happens in Brazil, right? Something doesn’t sound right in this quote, and that something should be obvious…

Regardless of the fact, I know that it’s Vitor’s job to sell the UFC so I take those quotes as they are, pure ambition from a salesman trying to meet his monthly quota. The problem, however, arises when he tries to negatively talk about his competition (which I see as nonexistence, but I guess Vitor sees it with different eyes):

The Brazilian fans have to be themselves, enthusiastic, but it cannot be the same as in football. In the stadiums, what we mostly see are fights. This never happens in the UFC. There’s a huge respect for the competition, it cannot be a bunch of vandals as in football. The UFC came to indoctrinate football

Thanks for being condescending. Sure, we have never seen fights break out in the audience for any UFC show, this doesn’t happen in MMA, ever. Unfortunately for Vitor, he must have missed the numerous fight videos that broke out with the audience that have been taken down by Zuffa on Youtube, where these types of things happen in MMA. I’ll be the first to point out that fights in football can sometimes break out fast and with a huge amount of people involved, but football is a different animal, where there is a culture of organized fans from each team that will go to the stadium looking for troubles in the name of their beloved team, this is not the same for individual sports such as MMA. But regardless of the fact, yes, fights break out in football, and they also break out in MMA.

Vitor goes on to point out something else that happened in football the other day:

the other day in the Spanish finals there was fingering in someone’s eye and nothing was done about it. There were no fines, no suspensions. In MMA, we are athletes, we have our rivalries, but there is respect, the rules are followed. It saddens me to see those actions of violence in the sport. And the (MMA) fighters are the ones who suffer preconceptions, but we have ethics and respect

The incident Vitor is talking about is one of head coach José Mourinho, who cowardly assaulted one of Barcelona’s assistant coach. Again Vitor, you are making my head hurt. It’s true that these things happens, but perhaps you are forgetting of it happening in MMA as well, was there not an incident where Paul Daley sucker punched Koscheck after their fight? While I agree that the owners of the UFC took action on that incident, where was the action taken on Rampage after he punches Wanderlei when he was already knocked out? Or Hendo when he drop punched Bisping when he was already out? Respect? What named so? These thing happens in MMA, and in sports in general, brother, because we’re all humans, and we make human mistakes, please get off your high ground and see reality for what it is. That is all, back to work, I guess…