Trading Shots: What outdated tradition should MMA ditch once and for all?

Cat Zingano

In this week’s Trading Shots, retired UFC/WEC fighter Danny Downes joins MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes on the first day of daylight savings time to discuss outdated aspects of the MMA world that they wouldn’t mind seeing disappear entirely. Naturally, the fellas are not in total agreement on what should stay and what should go.

Downes: Well Ben, I hope you remembered to set your clocks an hour ahead this morning, because another daylight savings time is upon us. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we keep 19th-century ideas alive in the 21st. I hear smallpox is even making a comeback! Some people, though, aren’t big fans of this practice.

What struck me as I arose an hour earlier this morning, though, is, “What’s the daylight savings time of MMA?” That is, what rules, practices or thoughts do you consider arbitrary, outdated or unnecessary? We all know you’re full of complaints, so lay it on us.

Fowlkes: You know what I like about you, Danny? When there are no obvious topics to discuss, you use the thinnest possible excuse to pick one that allows me to complain about stuff. What a guy.

As long as we’re using current events as a jumping off point, you know what I think is an outdated tradition in MMA? Ring girls. Seriously, how is this still a part of the sport? Is there anyone out there who really needs a girl in a bikini to tell them what round it is?

I can see how, back when fight sports were relegated to smoky arenas where men in fedoras gathered to enjoy all the seedy thrills they could cram into one night away from their wives, maybe it filled a niche. But this is 2015, dog. The Internet is teeming with beautiful people in all states of undress. You can watch pornography on your phone (or, you know, so I hear). How much excitement are ring girls really bringing to the table?

We have women as part of the actual athletic competition in MMA. We have a multitude of female fans. Do we really need to keep up this between-rounds beauty pageant, even if it means forcing female fighters to look through the chain link and see someone who, as Ronda Rousey pointed out, may be making more than them just to smile and walk in a circle?

Downes: You’re right, Ben. I’ve just never had quite the same grasp of syntax as you. “The Fowlkes Finds,” I mean, wow, how did you come up with that one? Did “Get BENt” not play well in the focus groups?

Anyway, I don’t know why you like picking on Arianny Celeste so much. What has she ever done to you? I understand that ring card girls are “unnecessary,” but then so are cheerleaders, mascots, T-shirt cannons and anything else not directly associated with the action on the field or in the cage. Take any modern stadium. It’s filled with a lot of things a refined gentleman such as yourself would find “irrelevant.” You know what, instead of playing at the Staples Center, maybe the Los Angeles Lakers should just play inside a high school gymnasium.

While you attack Ms. Celeste, I have something more substantive that I wish would change. I would like to get rid of all the MMA nostalgia. Have you watched UFC 1-10 lately? The fights aren’t good. You can talk about the legends of the sport all you want, but Royce Gracie still won a fight by pulling on some guy’s ponytail.

I have no desire to watch Honus Wagner play baseball and no desire to watch old MMA. As much as people want to complain about how the UFC is oversaturated and people aren’t “UFC caliber,” the most unproven fighter on the roster today has more talent and skill than the majority of fighters 10 years ago.

You know what else needs to end? The whole “PRIDE NEVER DIE!” mentality. Did PRIDE have a lot of incredible fights and fighters? Absolutely. Was it the perfect organization? Not at all. You can have all your nostalgic posters and DVDs, but it doesn’t change the fact that the product inside the cage today is above and beyond better than that of yesteryear.

The same people that decry the UFC signing Phil “CM Punk” Brooks praise the same organization that brought us Daiju Takase vs. Emmanuel Yarbrough. How can the same people that badmouth current MMA rock their PRIDE t-shirts? You complain about the UFC, but I bet you still have your K-1 2003 Dynamite DVDs. Butterbean vs. Genki Sudo!

Fowlkes: First of all, I’m not sure the author of “The Downes Side” should flee the comfort of his glass house just to get to that pile of stones that’s sitting on the porch.

Second, who said anything about Arianny Celeste? I didn’t even mention her name. She seems to have done well for herself as a model or TV host or whatever, so good for her. That doesn’t make ring girl an actual job, though. At least cheerleaders and mascots have to know how to dance. And those T-shirt distributors you disparage? They clothe the masses, Danny, one pneumatic burst at a time. Ring girls are just ambulatory human decorations. No one has ever bought a ticket or a pay-per-view to see them. Enough already.

As for early MMA nostalgia, dude, that’s what nostalgia is for, is making the past seem better in our memories. We do it with just about everything, from music to literature to politics. Led Zeppelin were jerks, William Faulkner was a drunk, and George Washington was a ruthless slave owner. But when bathed in the hazy glow of nostalgia, even Tank Abbott gets to call himself a pioneer.

But OK, as long as we’re making our little list, I’ll add one more thing I hate: The puncher’s chance. Also known as, “anything can happen.” Also known as, what promoters say when they can’t be bothered to justify their matchmaking decisions.

Everybody with the physical ability to throw a punch has a puncher’s chance. Of course anything could happen. A light could fall from the truss, “Birdman”-style, and knock one of the fighters out cold. The ground could open up and swallow the entire cage. Is that really supposed to convince me to give you my 60 bucks?

Downes: So nostalgia’s great because it’s nostalgia? I must say Ben, you sure showed me. If tautologies were considered viable proofs, I’m sure history would place you up there with John Fitzgerald Kennedy as one of the great orators of the modern era. So what if there was that pesky Bay of Pigs fiasco. Who needs objective reality? We have feelings?

I do share a similar disdain for the whole “puncher’s chance,” however. It’s just a lazy trope to justify mismatches and somehow compel us to pay attention. I will say, though, that “anything can happen” is one of the reasons why we watch the sport.

We can discount it, but a single punch can change the entire momentum of a fight. From Matt Serra to Dan Henderson, that “puncher’s chance” is one of the most exciting aspects of MMA. It’s the same reason why we’ll tune into the NCAA basketball tournament. The rankings are just a number. Upsets will happen, we’ll find a new “Cinderella,” and that will make for exciting television.

The last thing that I would add to our little list is the post-fight interview. Sure, sometimes they add a little bit of flavor to the festivities, but how often does that happen? They’re just an easy way to fill time. Most of all, though, we need to get rid of the post-fight interview with the losing fighter. Case in point, Cat Zingano last week.

At its best, it was a waste of time. At its worst, it hurt Cat Zingano’s career. This isn’t meant as a diss to Zingano either. Yes, we could describe her responses as ineloquent, but who could blame her? She just had the biggest fight of her career and lost in 14 seconds. Considering all the complex emotions and adrenaline, who could expect more from her comments?

I think it’s unfair that we expect Fowlkesian levels of articulation at such occasions. Having one of the worst moments of your professional career? Lets shove a microphone in your face and ask you to talk about it. It’s like when we force NFL coaches to give a comment while they’re losing at halftime. What are we really expecting to hear? We exploit fighters enough, can’t we just let them collect their bearings? Do we really need a sound bite that badly?

Fowlkes: I’m not saying nostalgia is great simply because it’s nostalgia, or even that it’s great at all. But when you complain that you wish people would stop remembering this thing from the past as if it was better than it really was, what you’re essentially saying is that you wish nostalgia wasn’t a thing. That’s what nostalgia does, is put an artificial gloss over the past.

I don’t want to go back and watch UFC 3 any more than you do, but I understand why some people want to act like the good old days were actually good and PRIDE was a delicate rose crushed by a world that couldn’t handle its beauty. We all tell ourselves stories about the past. Remember Strikeforce? We berated and mocked it while it lived, but as soon as it died we all loved it. People get flowers at their funerals, Danny, whether they deserved them or not.

As for post-fight interviews, yeah, I’m mostly with you there. Speaking of nostalgia, remember the old “Talk us through the Mickey’s (malt liquor) replay” days? How many times did that actually result in the fighter saying something coherent and/or interesting?

I kind of have to disagree with you on the interviews with losing fighters, however. If we’re going to do post-fight interviews at all, we should do these. Maybe (probably) I’m just a weirdo, but for me the agony of defeat is a major part of the human drama of fight sports. Seeing a losing fighter choke back tears or sputter angry invectives? That’s compelling, in its own way. That’s as real as it gets.

You want us to hold off because it’s exploitative or painful or possibly detrimental to a fighter’s future? Dude, this is MMA. When have legitimate concerns like those ever stopped us before?

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Danny Downes, a retired UFC and WEC fighter, is an MMAjunkie contributor who also writes for UFC.com and UFC 360. Follow them on twitter at @benfowlkesMMA and @dannyboydownes.