Issue 080
October 2011
Reckon razor-sharp combos and slick grappling can get someone to the top of the MMA tree? Think again. Internet social skills are besting beatdowns as today’s path to championship glory
When mixed martial arts was in its infancy fighters had two tasks: train and fight. That all changed with the introduction of rules, safety requirements and a popularity spike largely due to the UFC and the mainstream-appeasing Ultimate Fighter reality series.
Not only did a fighter now have to be proficient inside the ring or the cage, since the sport now actually paid more than enough to cover the gas it took to get to the event and the cost of a hotel room for the night, he or she also needed to be money-wise and business savvy when weighing their contract, management and sponsorship options. Most importantly of all, they had to know how to effectively market themselves to promoters, fans and the media.
MMA was no longer about who was the best fighter; it was about who could pique the interest of the fans by revealing a unique personality or back story. If they didn’t have a character-building history they invented interesting personas to feed the cameras.
Point in case, how far back can you remember Chael Sonnen talking smack about his opponents? Here’s a hint: around the time the UFC began regarding him as a viable contender.
Prior to his WEC championship bouts with Paulo Filho, Sonnen was respectful and complimentary of his Brazilian adversary, even going as far as saying he “admired him” and was “pulling for him” to overcome his mental and drug dependency issues so they could fight again. Before he fought Demian Maia in his UFC return bout, he told one reporter he thought the Brazilian submission specialist would beat Anderson Silva, whom he considered the number-one middleweight in the world at the time. Heading into his fight with Yushin Okami, the worst Chael could muster about his Japanese opponent was that he was “beatable” – a fact that a glance at his 23-4 record at the time would also indicate.
After the bout with Okami, whom he has since befriended and recruited as a regular training partner, Sonnen introduced a new act to his repertoire.
He developed a self-described “American Gangster” character – a cocky, brash, borderline xenophobe who brought pre-fight trash-talking to a whole other level, especially against fighters from Brazil.
The move wasn’t surprising, especially from a marketing and PR standpoint considering he was angling for a title shot. And at 3-1 since returning to the UFC (and having not finished an opponent since 2007), he may not have gotten his chance at Anderson Silva’s UFC middleweight belt last August if he hadn’t reincarnated himself as the brash Brazilian basher we’ve come to know.
Just ask Jon Fitch.
Fitch, who is an impressive 13-1-1 in the UFC, has been criticized by some, including UFC president Dana White, for not finishing fights regardless of how dominant his decision wins were. After failing to stop Thiago Alves at UFC 117 and winning his third straight fight by the judges’ scorecards, White reneged on a promised title shot and gave it instead to former Strikeforce middleweight champ Jake Shields after his lackluster (and debated) win over Martin Kampmann in his UFC debut. In his next bout, Fitch, the American Kickboxing Academy team captain whose sole loss in the UFC came by decision against welterweight champion Georges St Pierre, fought to a majority draw with BJ Penn in what was said by White to be a title eliminator. When the rematch with Penn was scrapped due to injuries sustained by both fighters, the UFC announced that the next shot at St Pierre would be granted to Strikeforce welterweight champ Nick Diaz and that Penn’s next opponent would likely be Carlos Condit, leaving Fitch out in the cold, yet again.
The difference between Diaz and Fitch? Besides their finishing ratio, Nick is somewhat of an enigma: he hates reporters, curses like a sailor, flips off fans, starts brawls (in and out of the cage) and is a proponent of marijuana use. Jon is polite and articulate, rarely has a negative word to say about an opponent and extols the virtues of a vegan diet.
In an ADD society that craves drama, Diaz’s personality alone makes him a marketable fighter who grabs the attention of fans and the media because he is a socially blundering conundrum. Whereas, in spite of his many positives, Fitch isn’t controversial enough to snare the public’s attention. Like those fighters in the early days, he just does his job. He’s where Chael Sonnen was four years ago, and the sad reality is that unless Fitch starts knocking out or tapping out opponents, he may need to adopt a similar swagger to make fans and his bosses sit up and take notice.
Heidi Seibert is the publicist and publicity manager at Zinkin Entertainment, an MMA management firm representing a number of fighters whose personalities run the gamut from quiet and respectful to brash and outspoken: Fitch, Cain Velasquez, Forrest Griffin, Josh Koscheck, Mike Swick, Phil Davis and several other blue-chip brawlers. She confirms the nature of the sport, like most other forms of entertainment, means sometimes the best competitors aren’t given a fair shake by fans and the media for their accomplishments and fighting merits, while others will get more attention even for misbehaving or being disrespectful; regardless of whether or not their records aren’t worth talking about.
“Zinkin Entertainment co-owners Bob [Cook] and DeWayne [Zinkin] and I have a hard time understanding why people consider Jon Fitch to be a boring fighter. We understand that the average fan prefers to see a stand-up war like Forrest had with Stephan [Bonnar at The Ultimate Fighter one finale]. People like that watch the UFC because they want to see knockouts, but this isn’t boxing. Educated fans that understand the sport get that he’s a great fighter who finds a way to win no matter what opponent he’s facing, but unfortunately there are a lot of newer fans that follow the sport who don’t get it. MMA isn’t boxing. The reality is, Jon wins fights,” Seibert states, pointing out that as dominant as he is, St Pierre has only one more finish than Fitch since 2007.
For fighters like Fitch, Seibert says that social media portals like Facebook and Twitter are invaluable resources for reaching fans and revealing that there is much more to them than what’s shown on a pay-per-view broadcast.
“He doesn’t get the media coverage that he deserves and I think things like Twitter and Facebook are good for fighters who are overlooked or who people might consider boring because it gives them an outlet to show a side that you don’t get to see. Jon’s actually probably one of the most interesting and funny guys we have on our entire roster,” Seibert admits. “He’s very opinionated, but that’s who he is. I think he’s held back long enough and it hasn’t done him any favors, so now he says he might as well say what his opinion is and at least have his career his way.”
Certainly that seems to be the case with even Fitch’s pet bulldog, Bricktop, entertaining almost 1,000 followers via his own Twitter account [@BrickTopFitch].
Another Zinkin client who does things his way is Griffin, whose unique personality and sense of humor, Seibert says, is one that polarizes both fans and the media.
“Forrest is a guy that will never be duplicated. He’s an icon in the sport,” she adds. “He has such a quirky and offbeat sense of humor
that you never know what’s going to come out of his mouth. He’s another guy who has thrived on Twitter. He was reluctant to get into Twitter at first, but I knew people would react well to his comedy and random thoughts that come to him when he’s doing even mundane things like watching TV. He really embraced it once he got used to it and he’s not one of those fighters who tweets a lot about training. He just posts whatever comes to his mind and it’s always hilarious.”
A fan favorite, Griffin is known for being a tough interview, which he says is because he’s gotten sick of reporters who don’t do their homework and that he likes to see how prepared they are by shaking things up a little. His playfulness often gets mistaken for him being a curmudgeon, but he says it’s more so a case of him being indifferent when it comes to media and answering the same questions over and over.
“I’m not really sure how Twitter works,” Griffin told Fighters Only recently, “but I really do answer questions the first time I see them on there. The 10th time I see them, or even the third, fourth or fifth or whatever, I don’t really answer them any more. I don’t know how it works or how you can go back and find the answers, but I’ll answer a question once, then I move on… I actually care if I win or lose fights. I couldn’t care less about media stuff. Doing media stuff isn’t bad at all if you can amuse yourself at the expense of others. I’ve found a way to make it fun. I push people to see how much they’ll take before they’re like, ‘Really? You’re kind of an asshole,’ and I’m like, ‘Yep.’ When you don’t give a reporter answers, sooner or later they’ll talk about what you want to talk about.”
Josh Koscheck is a Zinkin client whose persona has made him one of the sport’s biggest draws – both with fans and his detractors, who tune in and buy tickets to see if he’ll be humbled by defeat. Seibert says Koscheck’s friends and family could corroborate our story in the July 2011 issue that surmised that 9/10ths of the "Kos" we read in interviews and see on TV is a carefully crafted character.
“Josh is the guy people love to hate. He keeps people guessing in his personal life and his professional life. He knows how to push buttons, but he’s got a big heart. People would be surprised to know that he’s all about his friends and family.”
But what about the fighters we rarely hear from? The ones whose fan bases are built on their in-cage performances and reputations alone? The Georges St-Pierres, the Anderson Silvas, the Dan Hendersons, the Mauricio Ruas, the José Aldos and Cain Velasquezes – the sport’s squeaky clean champions, whose popularity is as organic and uncontrived as naturally possible. Why is it that they seem to be amongst the most popular of all?
It’s because they are not only the best at what they do, they also present themselves as honorable gentlemen, who are first and foremost hard-working people, just like
MMA fans.
They don’t boast and brag and make threats about what they’re going to do to their next opponent. They don’t curse and demean and strut around like they’re better than others. Most importantly, they simply do their job. And their job is to train and fight, just like it was when the sport was in its humble beginnings.
But as in every good novel, play, movie and even in life, without a diverse cast of contrasting characters the sport would not be as entertaining and compelling as it is. If the sport were made up of all heroes, with no heels or humorists, it would soon become stale. As the saying goes, variety is the spice of life that gives it all its flavor. The same holds true for mixed martial arts.
MMA's personality palette
If you’ve ever visited a mixed martial arts internet message board or perused the comment section of an MMA news site, you’ve noticed that people either love or hate certain fighters for various, and sometimes the most inane, reasons. Whatever emotion they elicit from fans can usually be tracked back to what kind of fighter they are, what kind of personalities they have and if they have an ego to match. Here are the five fighter stereotypes guaranteed to evoke ire or admiration:
The hero
The hero is a fighter who fans look up to and the media gush over. Their dominance and ability to finish fights is complimented by their likeable personalities that make you think, ‘He seems like a good guy. I’d love to take him out for a beer.’
NOTABLE HEROES:
Georges St Pierre, Anderson Silva, Wanderlei Silva, Jon Jones, Cain Velasquez, Brian Stann, Dan Henderson, Tim Kennedy and Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua.
The heel
The heel can be separated into three main categories: those whose career advancement depends on them being hated due to a deficiency of skill, those who love being the one people love to hate because it adds a level of intrigue to their fighting portfolio and those who are just plain insufferable.
NOTABLE HEELS:
Brock Lesnar, Chael Sonnen, Josh Koscheck, Matt Hughes, Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Frank Mir and Shinya Aoki.
The humorist
A fighter who is notorious for being a joke cracker, regardless of abilities, he likes to entertain both inside and outside the Octagon.
NOTABLE HUMORISTS:
Pat Barry, Forrest Griffin, Mike Guymon, Miguel Torres, Kurt Pellegrino, Bas Rutten, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller, Tom Lawlor,
Mike Swick.
The humdrums
Humdrums are fighters who get the job done, but whose personalities and overall lack of exciting finishes (often undeservedly) earns them the ire of fans.
NOTABLE HUMDRUMS:
Jake Shields, Jon Fitch, Thales Leites, Rashad Evans, Matt Hamill.
The headscratcher
There are a number of fighters who keep fans and pundits guessing – either because of their bizarre behavior or because they jump between all the categories every time they do another interview.
NOTABLE HEADSCRATCHERS:
Nick Diaz, Alistair Overeem, Matt Horwich, Matt Mitrione, Jon ‘War Machine’ Koppenhaver.
Zuffa's Twitter: By the numbers
- @DanaWhite: 1,505,232 followers
- @SpiderAnderson: 380,072 followers
- @GeorgesStPierre: 225,358 followers
- @ForrestGriffin: 132,983 followers
- @wandfc: 118,636 followers
- @JonnyBones: 116,726 followers
- @BJPennDotCom: 116,026 followers
- @UrijahFaber: 108,501 followers
- @MayhemMiller: 107,039 followers
- @MinotauroMMA: 81,495 followers
- @JoshKoscheck: 79,714 followers
- @DCBrockLesnar: 77,876 followers
- @kennyflorian 74,273 followers
- @thefrankmir: 74,091 followers
- @DanHendo: 60,291 followers
- @juniorcigano: 51,425 followers
- @SonnenCh: 48,892 followers
- @MichaelBisping:.42,873 followers
- @JoseAldoJunior: 38,070 followers
- @JonFitchDotNet: 33,006 followers
Zuffa is all a Twitter
Zuffa, UFC and Strikeforce parent company, recently announced that it would be paying out a total of $240,000 in Twitter performance bonuses and that three individual $5,000 cash incentives would be doled out four times per year to the fighter who gains the most new followers, adds the highest percentage of followers and the fighter with the most creative tweets of the quarter.
A longtime fan of the 140-character limit social-media hub, UFC president Dana White, described his love of Twitter during an appearance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon last year.
“I love Twitter. I love it. It took me a little while to get into it, but I have this love-hate thing with the media. I can talk directly to the fans on Twitter and it’s cool. I love it. I have a million [and] two followers and a buddy of mine brought his friend who’s a marketing guy and he asked me, ‘How do you quantify Twitter?’ ‘Well how do you quantify a billboard or a newspaper ad?’ I said, ‘but I’ll show you the power of Twitter.’ We’re in Montreal, Canada. They don’t speak English up there – it’s French. We walked across the street to an Esso station, I tweet and say, ‘I’m on the corner of here and here at an Esso station.’ 36 seconds it took the first person to show up and within a minute there were like five people there and within five minutes there were hundreds of people there. That’s the power of Twitter.”
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