By now you’re probably aware that the International Olympics Committee – long known for being a bastion of integrity and morality – has decided to do away with amateur wrestling as a Summer Olympic event. You know this because you read about it in a rational news source or Joe Rogan rage-Tweeted your feed or because Chael Sonnen screamed it into your eye holes, but either way it was bad news. And it sucks because there are dudes and young ladies around the world who busted their asses and devoted their formative years to something that they really loved. Now they’ll all probably turn to a life of crack and crime.
At least that’s what TV has taught me.
There are some people, though, who don’t care about who is hurt, and they just see this as a reality. Ultimately, we’re all going to have to get used to not watching amateur wrestling every four years, and guys like UFC President Dana White think that won’t be a problem because nobody was watching it anyway.
“The problem is nobody wants to watch it,” White said. “Any sport, especially these days, it’s about selling tickets and eyeballs and viewers and all these other things. And there’s been a lot of people saying, ‘You’ve got to f—ing do something,’ but – and Garry (Cook) and I were talking about this yesterday –what this could be is the evolution of mixed martial arts becoming an Olympic sport.” (Via MMA Junkie)
Now to be fair, some people are taking that quote out of context, because it’s fun to say, “BROS, D-White is being a total hater”, but he has mad respect for the game.
“I’ve been battling this problem for years now,” White on Wednesday told MMAjunkie.com after a news conference for UFC on FUEL TV 7 in London. “Colleges are dropping it. High schools are dropping wrestling. The problem with wrestling is, it’s an awesome base for mixed martial arts, for everything – I mean, I’ve never wrestled, but what I hear it does to guys that wrestle, it changes peoples’ lives. It’s this grueling, hard work and dedication – all the things that go in with being a wrestler.”
White is just being an optimist, realist and opportunist all rolled in to one shiny-headed, shouty body, because he thinks that this is MMA’s grand opportunity to step in and win the IOC over. But if White or any other MMA bigshots are serious about this, they’re going to have to speak the IOC’s language.
What? Noooooo, I’m not insinuating that the IOC is corrupt. Don’t be ridiculous.
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