Issue 039
July 2008
The term professionalism is used with alarming frequency in this sport, but I sometimes wonder if people understand its true meaning. What constitutes professionalism? Is it simply getting paid to do something? Or does being a professional entail more than receiving money for your services?
You can look it up in the dictionary if you want, but you shouldn’t have to. Everyone has an idea of what it means to be a professional. In a nutshell, it means you should put forward a high standard and quality in not only the act itself for which you are being paid, but your behaviour before, during and after the time of those acts. Proper conduct is something not just expected, but demanded.
If you’re the one paying the money for those services, you’ll have a certain level of expectations as to what you’ll get for it. For example, a fighter who behaves badly before, during or after an event, even if they put on an amazing performance, could be deemed unprofessional.
Similarly, a fighter can be quiet, humble, and respectful, yet absolutely and utterly terrible when they get in the cage. Niceties aside, if they’re under-performing at the level of competition in which they appear, then they’re being unprofessional.
Fighters are often labelled as professionals simply because they receive money for their appearances in the cage or ring, yet just because they are called professionals doesn’t mean they behave, or even live, like one.
Some fighters allow their physical conditioning to go to pot between fights. A fighter who maybe competes two or three times a year might treat the time between training camps as a holiday, and live it up accordingly.
Too much good food, hard partying and loose living can contribute to expanding waistlines. There are a few notorious examples of this, even at the highest levels of the sport – Liddell, Rampage, even BJ Penn. They’ve all been seen overweight and out of shape in the off-season.
Even so, it’s rarely stopped any of the above showing up to a fight and they never under perform as a result of their off-season excesses. Knowing what’s at stake, they bust their ass and deliver the goods, maintaining their professional reputation based on what goes on inside those eight fenced walls.
The worst offenders are those who turn up to a fight in no fit shape to compete. A perfect example is Travis Lutter, who was recently cut from the UFC after another terrible performance.
The middleweight submission specialist, arguably one of the most dangerous grapplers in MMA, turned up to last year’s title fight with Anderson Silva overweight and unable to make the limit for the fight to go forward as a championship bout. He squandered his chance at UFC gold by his inability to motivate himself to make weight-a highly unprofessional act.
In his recent fight with Rich Franklin, Lutter started strong but gassed midway through the very first round and suffered strong criticism from fans. Lutter’s response? To hit back and call the UFC fans “stupid”. How very unprofessional.
Some fighters are unprofessional in their conduct away from the cage and have brought the sport into a bad light. Talented fighters such as Babalu have been in trouble with the law, giving opponents of the sport ammunition with which to attack us.
At a time when MMA is in a period of extreme growth and enjoys a developing yet sometimes-fragile relationship with mainstream media, it’s stuff like this we could do without.
But to be fair on the fighters, who gives them any training or advice on how to be a professional? When their entire focus is directed at their training, how do they make time to learn how to conduct themselves properly? It’s not like there are comportment classes alongside strength and conditioning at the local sweatbox gym.
Here’s where handlers come in. A good fighter is almost always the product of a sizeable team. Fighting may look like an individual sport, and true, it is pretty lonely in that cage, but the preparation for that moment requires the input of many. They can all help in keeping their charge on the straight and narrow, offering advice and a listening ear when times are troubled.
Yet maybe it’s not all the fault of the fighters. We want them to act properly, in and out of the cage, but let’s put things into perspective. We want them to go from being aggressive to placid in the space of a heartbeat. We want them to act courteously outside of the cage yet ruthlessly inside it. Are we to blame for placing undue pressure upon them and sending mixed messages?
Athletes from all different sports come under criticism for their behaviour. Whether it’s soccer stars living it up, tennis players losing their temper or sprinters suspended for doping, sportsmen don’t exactly get it easy. They get paid well, but there are plenty of trappings and demands with their position. Maybe we should remember that they are human after all, and allow them the odd mistake.
