MMA isn't for everyone. We know that. Too often when folks from the 50-plus demographic speak about the sport they complain about the violence and the blood. So it cames as no shocker that there was complaining from veteran writers like Bob Ryan and Dan Shaugnessy. But they took a different stance both pointing out that they didn't see what all the excitement was about."In all honesty, I’m just telling the truth. The biggest revelation I got from
spending that evening at the Garden was how astonishingly BOOOOORRING this thing
is," Ryan said CSN's New England’s "Sports Tonight". "It is the most overrated … I do not remotely understand the appeal. There
isn’t enough blood, there isn’t enough action."Ryan said the first fight on the pay-per-view between Marcus Davis and Nate Diaz was solid but he didn't enjoy the ground work in the later fights."The fans don’t like the wrestling," said Ryan, who is now an expert after taking in one live MMA card.Ryan also knows how knowledgeable each of the 15,000-plus in attendance were. "There are a sophisticated few martial arts experts who appreciate
when there is a well-executed martial arts move to create a submission, yes,
that is not the majority, it’s a small minority," said Ryan. Apparently, Ryan spoke with lots of fans to find out what they enjoy. "The people want to see boxing,
slugging, and they want to see when a guy gets down his face punched, that’s
what gets them excited. It is the most boring nonsense," said Ryan. "Most of the fights in the
early, and granted it was described to me as batting practice, the early bouts,
are guys in wrestling matches in which they were bad collegiate wrestling with
nothing happening." Who gave Ryan that description? Someone on press row? We'd love to know what MMA media regular says the early fights are "batting practice". This is why shows like CSN's "Sports Tonight" and ESPN's "Around the Horn" are unbearable at times. The panel is made of older media dudes who are speaking for the fans yet most haven't had anything beyond a 10 second conversation with a fan in 10 years. The crew on the embedded CSN video was mostly pro-MMA. Longtime boxing and NFL scribe Ron Borges has more than given MMA a fair shake. He's the "expert" on this panel. Sadly, you can't count on one hand the number of boxing writers who've really embraced MMA. Check out the lead host Mike Felger, he describes the Davis-Diaz fight as sort of gruesome and then says he loved it!Quotes via Fight Opinion
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