Matt Hughes Has A Very Selective Memory

Alright, I know that the readership out there is pretty split on mixed martial arts (MMA): some people think it’s the coolest thing to come along since beer, while others seem to take it as another sign of the decline of Western civilization.

As for me, I’m a big fan, and I’m learning some of the martial arts involved in MMA, so expect to see posts on it from time to time. Having said that, I’m pretty psyched about UFC 79 at the end of the month, because not only do we finally get to see the firefight that Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva promises to be (raise your hand if you think that fight has a snowball’s chance in hell of making it to a decision), but we also get the rubber match in the heretofore awesome Matt Hughes vs. Georges St. Pierre series.

If you’re not familiar with Hughes, he’s arguably the greatest UFC champ ever, having beaten Carlos Newton (2001) and St. Pierre (2005) for the title and successfully defended his welterweight (170-pound) title seven times. He’s only lost twice since 2001: once to BJ Penn–considered by some to be the best pound-for-pound MMA fighter on Earth–in 2004 and once to St. Pierre in 2006. Clearly, he’s a winner in every sense of the word.

Of course, along the way he’s acquired a reputation for being something of a jerk. Whether he was famously ‘apologizing’ to Joe Riggs’s ladyfriend (”Sorry that I just beat the crap out of your significant other.”), insulting everyone’s favorite de facto 51st state (”Canada’s not really known for its warriors, is it? I mean, can you name some famous warriors from Canada?”), or generally disparaging all of his opponents in one way or another, Hughes has earned a label of ungracious at best or a ‘dick’ (according to current welterweight champ Matt Serra) at worst.

Since I’m not his biggest fan, I enjoy how he’s not planning on changing anything from his last fight (where he was essentially knocked out when St. Pierre nailed him with a brutal head kick) and how he hasn’t watched footage of the last fight. Since he’s known for playing head games, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s lying, but since he’s also known for being an arrogant jerk, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s not.

In any case, courtesy Fightlinker (and Mr. Sunshine), you can enjoy listening to Hughes’ answers, or better still, his non-answers. In fact, he could probably hire himself out to the Bush administration’s press office to give lessons on how to completely stonewall legitimate questions. If you get bored, you can turn it into a little game: see if you can make it through the whole thing without actively rooting for someone to kick him in the head again.

Sporting World Shocked: Baseball Players Willing To Cheat In Order To Earn Ridiculous Sums of Money

Those of you who still believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny may want to stop reading right now.

Are they gone? Good.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but apparently some baseball players like steroids. And by ‘like,’ I mean really, really like steroids.

Apparently, the lure of tens of millions of dollars is too hard for some to remain pure of heart and remember the game that they loved so much as a child. You know, when their parents drove them to and from the field and gave them orange slices and Cokes after games. Before they had families and mistresses and Bentleys of their own. Before they had to pay the bills.

Now, unlike everyone in the sports media, I’m cynical about professional sports and actually pretty naive about the rest of society. I’m not shocked or outraged that Rafael Palmeiro would lie to Congress, his parents, and the kids down the street about juicing, because he stands to make a lot of money for it. I try to save my shock, frustration, and rage for other stuff, like illegal wars, genocide, lack of health care, CEOs cheating their workers out of their pension funds, and the price of beer in trendy bars.

Having said all that, Don Fehr impressed me with his willingness to at least take some responsibility for the ‘crisis’ (again, world wars are crises, while a bunch of guys injecting each other in the ass in order to get or stay rich qualifies as just plain silly), while Selig went against Mitchell’s recommendations and promised retroactive retribution for guys who’d cheated in the past (before baseball’s cabal of rich old white guys had actually installed any, you know, rules banning steroids and stuff). Nothing like using what should be a time for a major mea culpa on everyone’s part to try and stick it to the players yet again, Bud.

This isn’t exactly a revelation, but everyone’s to blame here: the players for blatantly juicing, the owners for implicitly encouraging it, and us (yes, us) for willfully suspending belief–gee, how did Ron Gant gain 30 pounds of muscle in 8 months, anyway?–and then acting like it was sullying our souls after someone finally admitted to it, when we’d been watching it happen for years and subtly wishing it away.

Like I said, I’m cynical about professional sports, and I have been since I was old enough to know the difference. I don’t dislike Barry Bonds because he’s a steroid cheat (after all, apparently everybody else was doing it); rather, I dislike him because he’s a short-fused, spoiled asshole. I find it sad to think that he would’ve probably made it to Cooperstown without juicing, but knowing what we know about his personality, I’m not surprised that he’d get mad with someone else grabbing the limelight.

At this point, I don’t think that people’s records should be invalidated or removed. If you want to put an asterisk by them, go right ahead, but make sure to note that these statistics were from baseball’s steroid days. Most historians note statistics as being from the ‘Dead Ball Era,’ so why shouldn’t the reverse be true?

I could go on and on about this, but if you’re going to ban Bonds from Cooperstown, then you might as well ban Selig, too. And ban the Busch family on behalf of Mark McGwire. And Peter Angelos over Palmeiro. And everyone else who gave the whole steroid culture a wink and a nod. Frankly, maybe that includes us as well.

And while everyone works themselves up into a nice, frothy mood, remember that innocence in professional sports died a long time ago. Save your anger and outrage for something that really needs it.