The Young Master Says

Is anyone else sick of looking at Rachael Ray? Anyone? Well I am and I don’t care if Alan thinks she is ‘sneaky hot’. There was a meeting of the Torontosportsbloggers minds on Sunday night. It was an eventful evening filled with chicken wings, small white man beer (aka Coors Light) and general hazing of Alan's poor baseball fantasy management (he traded Adam Dunn for Brian Giles!?!?!). During this time we outlined our plan for this illustrious website and how we can bring its dedicated readers, all 8 of you, a better experience. What exactly did we discuss? Well that is top secret information, but rest assured, it includes more hate and salt than you can possibly handle. Enough about us, let talk about sports.



UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship for those of you with the same IQ as the fighters) has finally broken into the mainstream of sports. The Liddell/Jackson fight drew huge crowds and was the most talked about sporting event of the weekend. UFC provides similar drama to professional wrestling but with the added bonus of inflicting real pain. Didn’t John Lennon say “All you need is blood”? I personally don’t really like UFC but when there are good knockouts, the ones that hurt your soul, it is makes for great watching.



Those same knock outs are also making news. Sports Illustrated has an article about UFC violence on their cover this week. This isn’t a sport that you sit down and watch with your 10 year old, but the UFC promoters don’t care about that market. The sport is rapidly growing and both men and women enjoy watching the beatings. A woman in my office recently mentioned how much she likes UFC; clearly a lust for violence doesn’t follow gender lines. I should ask my wife what she thinks; I have a feeling she would really like it. She is a New Zealander and under the calm Kiwi exterior there is a blood crazed lunatic as evidenced in that country’s history of cannibalism and love of Rugby.



Violence has always attracted fans/mobs and is the subject of psychohistory majors not sports bloggers but the success of UFC says something about sports today. Basketball and baseball are creating stiff punishments in an effort to eliminate fighting. The NBA will even suspend a player for simply moving from the bench area to the court during an altercation; a rule that was misapplied and led to the end of the Phoenix Suns season. Both these sports are having problems drawing fans. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman can sense the same thing as the UFC promoters and refuses to ban fighting in his league. He knows that fighting is all that is keeping Americans interested in hockey but it can’t match the level of violence that the UFC provides.

There is a huge and heretofore untapped market of people who want blood. They want to see two people get into a ring with the intention of hurting each other as much as possible. My opinion is that if adults want to watch this then let them, but where do you draw the line. If you allow violence to creep into societal norms where do you stop it? Do we want “Running Man” style programs on T.V? I wouldn’t mind watching Stephen Harper and Stephan Dion try to escape a robo-Gilles Duceppe with chainsaws for arms; it would make for better T.V. than the House of Commons. Mr. Dion: “Mr. Speaker, the Honourable man from Laurier-Sainte-Marie has threatened me with dismemberment because I ask my questions in English!!!”


Anyway…..I think I was talking about violence. It isn’t realistic to keep violence out of mainstream sports and if we do then it will go underground anyway (remember when Rambo dipped his knuckles in glass?). Some enterprising producer should turn UFC into the next great reality T.V. show for washed up celebrities and athletes. Imagine getting to watch Tie Domi and Stephan Brogan tangle in the octagon, I would pay to see that.




Tony Romo’s stage name could be “The Butter Finger Kid” and he could take on Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams in the choke artist match. Or Ben Johnson vs Barry Bonds in steroid match sponsored by Balco; the match-ups are endless.

That’s all for now folks, happy June and keep a look out for the handsome torontosportsblogger near you!