Rough week for Republicans in the UFC.
First, arch-conservative and middleweight menace Chael Sonnen complete his journey from stardom to oblivion by pleading guilty to money laundering in a real estate fraud scheme.
That judgement earned him a one-year suspension from the UFC, which effectively extends the year-long ban imposed on him by the California State Athletic commission when the urine sample provided after his near-dethroning of Anderson Silva came back positive for elevated testosterone.
A man simultaneously so sanctimonious and so crooked might fit in well at the head of the Tea Party, but is a poor spokesperson for a sport still trying to debunk the notion that it's full of roided up thugs who pummel people for fun.
And this week UFC lightweight Jacob Volkmann made that task a little tougher, using his post-fight interview at UFC 125 to challenge U.S. President Barack Obama to a fistfight.
Constitutional expert that president Obama is, he understands better than anyone Volkmann's first amendment right to say ignorant things, and the final minute of the video below drips with absurd statements.
So Volkmann wants to "knock some sense" into Obama over health care reform?
Interesting, but two thoughts instantly pop up in my mind.
First, as my good friend and mentor Gary "Gee Free" Freeman pointed out when he first sent me the link, any world class fighter who challenges an obvious non-pugilist to a fight is about as close to a coward as a pro fighter can be. And if he's not a coward, he's at least a bully. Either way, his challenge feeds right back into the stereotype MMA advocates are trying to dispell (see above about thugs and pumelling for fun).
Second, if Volkmann was as really politically aware he'd realize he could hardly give Obama a worse beating than the one disenchanted voters delivered during mid-term elections in November. As I type the new, republican-dominated congress is convening for the first time and their chief objecttive is to cut the legs out from under the health care reform Obama fought so hard to achieve.
So relax, Volkmann.
Soon enough the American citizens priced out of decent health care in the past will be priced out once again. And when that happens you can go back to finding a way to crack the 155-pound division's glass ceiling, and leave the half-baked political rants to the professionals.
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