Velasquez' win is impressive, but not historic

So our planet has a new Baddest Man, and raise your hand if you were surprised at how thoroughly Cain Velasquez beat up on Brock Lesnar Saturday.

On one level it's never a shock when an MMA fighter loses, no matter how dominant he has been. Each trip to the octagon is fraught with variables, any one of which can lead to defeat for a seemingly indestructible fighter. That's why undefeated records and extended winning streaks are so rare in the sport, and why you'll never see an MMA version of Rocky Marciano.

Still, Lesnar was a heavy betting favourite heading into the fight and had scrambled up from the canvas to dispatch heavyweight powerhouse Shane Carwin in July, so to see him crumble so quickly against Velasquez was a mild surprise.

And Velsquez' win was significant. He didn't escape with a win via desperation submission the way Frank Mir did in Lesnar's MMA debut in 2008. He withstood Lesnar's bullrushes, survived a pair of takedowns and thrashed the biggest heavyweight in the UFC and the biggest name in the sport.

That's a huge deal.

But it's not historic.

Yes, I know Velasquez' victory makes him the first fighter of Mexican descent to claim the UFC's heavyweight crown, but that accolade alone doesn't make him a pioneer.

It's not like Mexican-American fighters are new to the sport or to the UFC, but as Velasquez prepared for last week's title shot the UFC for the first time appealed to a Mexican-American audience as part of its pre-fight hype.

The campaign also crossed the United States' norther border, and if you listened much to the FAN last week you probably heard the UFC radio spot emphasizing that Velasquez had a chance to become the first Mexican in the history of "fighting" to win a heavyweight title.

I won't argue with that.

The ad's use of the word "fighting" is meant to broaden the discussion beyond MMA, and indeed boxing has never had a heavyweight champ of Mexican descent. Former WBA heavyweight ruler John Ruiz has Puerto Rican roots, while Chris Arreola has Mexican blood and a big right hand, but a steadily expanding waistline and a knockout loss in his lone title shot.

So that leaves Velasquez.

His win on Saturday was entertaining as it was unpredictable, but I'm not the only one who can't quite co-sign on the attempt to package Velasquez as a barrier-breaker.

That he is the first person of Mexican descent to claim win a heavyweight title is a point of fact, but there's difference between the first to achieve a feat and a true pioneer,

It's called context.

The context here is that MMA as we know it has never had an explicit or implied colour or culture line.

Boxing geeks like me know George "Little Chocolate" Dixon as the Halifax native who became the first black fighter (and first Canadian) to win a world boxing title when he snatched the featherweight crown from Johnny Murphy in 1890.

A broader range of sports fans knows Jack Johnson as the first black heavyweight champion in history.

He's also a litmus test for the significance of Velasquez' win Saturday night.

The man Johnson defeated, Tommy Burns, was the first Canadian ever to win the world heavyweight title. That feat makes Burns a legendary figure in Canadian sport but lacks the broader importance of Johnson's win because Burns only ever had to face the man across the ring. Johnson, meanwhile, had to overcome rigid racial barriers and circumvent social norms just for the chance to challenge for the belt. 

Crossing the heavyweight division's colour line made Johnson a pioneer while Burns was merely the first to achieve.

See the difference?

Now fast-forward a century and ask yourself (WITHOUT googling or otherwise researching) who was the first black fighter to win a UFC crown?

Who was the first latino?

Who was the first non-white or non-anglo period?

The correct answer is: 

Who cares?

Few people that I know, mainly because it's tough to celebrate breaking a barrier that never really existed. It's not like the UFC ever had rules against non-white fighters, or even a Major League Baseball-style "Gentleman's Agreement." 

Competition in the octagon has always been wide open.

This doesn't mean the UFC has never had to wrestle with racial issues.

Early in the buildup to the May 29 clash between Rashad Evans and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, commercials hyping the bout featured Jackson's promise to commit an act of "black-on-black violence" against Evans in the Octagon.

As if race-baiting is a selling point.

As if race-baiting is any less despicable when it's intra-racial.

And as if America's ongoing urban genocide is worth joking about, let alone marketing a fight around.

Justifiably, the UFC took some heat over the marketing tack they had taken and in turn narrowed the focus of the pre-fight trash talk they chose to highlight.

So yes, race pops up periodically in the UFC just as it does everywhere in (North) American life, but ethnicity has never defined or divided the sport the way it did boxing a century ago or baseball until 1947.

The UFC has only ever existed in an integrated age, with fighters of every ethnic background welcome to compete. And until UFC 12, when organizers wisely imposed weight classes, the UFC didn't even discriminate on the basis of a fighter's size. As long as officials thought you were qualified, anyone could fight anyone. Period.

This isn't to diminish Velasquez' achievement. Hats off to any man to flattens Brock Lesnar, and becoming the first heavyweight champ of Mexican descent is certainly noteworthy.

But a century after Jack Johnson it's just not historic.

 

Follow the Star's Morgan Campbell on Twitter

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Gee Free]

As always, a very incisive article by a very intelligent and talented writer!
Actually, by looking at Mr. Valasquez, I would be challenged to say what his ethnicity is. The whole point of racism as we know it is the imposition of a hierarchy of skin color to maintain social constructs of privilege and power.
The entry of black fighters into the commercial fight game was initially prevented by such constraints.
The first black fighters actually fought each other to fatal finishes in plantation-versus-plantation slave master imposed and sanctioned fights in which slave masters from opposing plantations would order their biggest and baddest (against other blacks, that is) blacks to fight each other. (so double shame on Rampage for uttering the phrase "black on black violence" in such a context)
These same big blacks could be legally murdered by their master or any white person if he defended himself against or merely showed an attitude of "impudence" towards a "white" person.
So on the one hand these big blacks were raised to be vicious fighters on behalf of their slave masters. On the other hand they were conditioned to be deathly afraid of "white" power. And it is precisely that convoluted state of affairs that should have made a Jack Johnson impossible in an era in which black men were still being lynched for not moving off the sidewalk to let a "white" person walk by or for looking sideways at a "white".
Therefore, no other fighter in the history of any type of fight game in North America can ever approach the historical significance of the first black fighters. And we should not expect them to.
But Mr. Valasquez obviously felt the need to draw attention to his Mexican American heritage. If it was not merely a marketing ploy, and that I do not know, are the rest of us still not bound to at least ponder what he is trying to say to us about the socio-historical and psycho-emotional struggles and turmoils Mexican Americans have had to and are still are enduring?

[Jay]

There is a Rocky Marciano of MMA, his name is Fedor. His only legitimate loss was a fluke. Besides Fedor fights the best the sports ever seen, A category that does not include Brock Lesnar who has done little to deserve being the greatest fighter other then taking steroids and working out. How does a fighter who is 4-2 (I do not consider his win over a 160 pound asian man with no muscle tone a legitimate win, thats like me punching a homeless man in the face for 5 bucks and counting it as a professional victory); how can this man be compared to Fedor, the greatest fighter ever to have fought. A man who went over 10 years without losing a single fight, holding the title for almost 5 years in PRIDE, a bigger and world represented organization which UFC could not claim. The company itself going out of business rather then Fedor losing his Crown. 31 straight fights against the best in the world. Brock Lesnar has been taken apart too many times to list in his 6 pro fights but no one has questioned him, Fedor goes 31 straight fights and people complain about his opponents, Brett Rogers was beat by overeem so he wasn't a real threat, Fedor got hit in that fight, everyone detracts from Fedors performance while not addressing the weakness Lesnars shown in each fight. At the end of the day, All that really matters is if your scary to look at or not. This seems to be the only real discernable point of view from humans, which is sad. You should write an article on how a phoney like Lesnar who wouldn't have ever won a title if not for an aging Couture giving him a shot, a man whose strengh was the same strengh as lesnar but who was half the size. A fighter could go 50-0 against the best and if a huge ripped guy like lesnar won one fight, they would say he was the best ever. What a joke, and shame on all those people who supported Lesnar.

[John S]

I agree and disagree.

I agree in that Cain being the first Mexican to win a heavyweight title was blown out of proportion. My guess is that the UFC pushed this angle to win over Mexican fight fans who are known to be huge supporters of boxing... with a popular Mexican champion, the UFC is likely to take some of the PPV market share away from increasingly boring boxing PPVs (although many fighters of Mexican heritage are fantastic all action fighters). Also, Cain is more American than he is Mexican. He was born in the US, went to school in the US and lives and trains in the US.

I disagree that being the first heavyweight champion of Mexican heritage should not be considered historic. He is the first, therefore he made history. Obviously his struggles compared to that of the Jack Johnsons, Jackie Robinsons, etc are different and in comparison inconsequential. But he is still the first and that should matter for something.

[RIS]

Ricco Rodriguez was half Mexican and won the UFC HW back in the 'dark days', but hey misinformation has never got in the way of ZUFFA marketing.

Also, its laughable to think that MMA will 'steal' any Latino viewers from boxing, if they tune in its not like they will abandon a much more popular sport that has a long and storied history within Mexican culture. Not only that but boxing currently gets gigantic ratings in Mexico and Saul Alvarez is 10x the star that Cain is.

We will see about Cain, he is good but not unbeatable. Brock made him look good because he turtled up like a little girl. I can see Cain losing his next fight against Dos Santos.

[Leetstyle]

Fedor is obviously a fraud. I mean sure he has been fighting top 10 fighters forthe exception of werdum in the past 6 fights. I mean it's not like Sylvia and arlovski were top5 until fedor beat them and killed their fighting spirit. I mean Rogers wasn't on the lower end of the top 10 until overeem beat him and shot up to top5. And it's not like werdum lost to the most promising hw in ufc.
Let's discard all of the sarcasm now. Brock was demolished against a carwin with no cardio. Sure he won but he was bloodied and beaten. I saw a fetal position where the fight should have been called. And then we saw a repeat where the fight was actually called and the winners name was Cain. Exception being Cain had stamina so he could have kept going without the call. And even tho he pulled a silva type lost he was called the "baddest man on the planet" taking the hype off the real baddest man on the planet.
I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this but people need to watch actual fights and pay attention to skill before they start ranking. Be it in there own head or posting them publicly.
Fedor lost 1 legitimate time in 10 years. He's not out of his "prime" I guarantee we will see the fedor we saw in 04 for the next couple years. Then he will drop his prime and retire.
And I'm not a hater. Cain deserved the win and gl to him fIghting jds.

[Dillon]

I completely agree with this article. Gave me a complete new look at how they are idolizing Cain after his victory. By no means should this victory be diminished as stated but the fans eyes should be open towards the hype towards Cains ethnicity. Very great article written about a very memorable and defining moment in the UFC's heavyweight division.

[College Student]

I agree Velasquez' victory over Lesner is impressive, but not everything the media has made it up to be. This is just a way to promote UFC past the south boarder of the US to make more money. There is a first for everything so we should just let Velasquez enjoy is momentary fame and enjoy the intense fights to follow.

[Griffen_666]

i cant wait for lesnar to lose to big country so all his hype will go away