Twitter Mailbag: Healy's costly joint, MMA's Ten Commandments, Wandy the Vampire

I’m not going to lie to you, there’s a lot of discussion about marijuana in MMA in this week’s Twitter Mailbag. Like, really a lot.

Don’t like it? Blame your peers. They’re the ones who bombarded the TMB with questions on Pat Healy‘s big bummer, and not without reason. But don’t worry, there’s also room to talk about UFC 160, Nick Diaz‘s new fight promotion (!!!), and the Ten Commandments of MMA.

You can contribute to the discussion by firing off your own question to @BenFowlkesMMA on Twitter. Or just keep taking and taking without ever giving anything back.

@benfowlkesmma TMB: Does Healy apologizing so much and not taking a stand put the entire ‘weed in MMA’-discussion on lockdown? Where to now?

— Max de Vries (@MaxWdeVries) May 15, 2013

I don’t blame Pat Healy one bit for going the immediate apology route. We know the UFC tends to be kinder to those who take their punishments and shut up about it than it is to those who stand up and fight for their right to party like it’s 4:20. Plus, Healy’s case is different than, say, Matt Riddle’s. Healy’s not a medical marijuana patient (or at least he hasn’t said that he is). He’s just a guy who got stoned with some friends too close to his fight. I still think it’s ridiculous that we even bother testing pro fighters for marijuana, because honestly, who cares if Healy smoked pot with his buddies? It’s not like Jim Miller‘s sitting around right now going, “Man, if not for that joint, there’s no way that guy would’ve beat me.”

As for your question about whether Healy should take a stand to help advance the discussion, well, I don’t think he has to. I mean, here we are discussing it, right? The timing of the news makes the hypocrisy of MMA’s current drug battles even more obvious. This Saturday we’ll sit down to watch Vitor Belfort fight in Brazil – the third time he’s fought there in his past four outings – and chances are he’ll once again show up looking jacked out of his mind thanks to synthetic testosterone. Nevada says it probably wouldn’t give him permission to use it, and we know he has a history with the type of performance-enhancing substances that can damage a person’s endocrine system, yet the UFC allows him to keep fighting in safe havens where no one asks too many questions. Meanwhile, Healy loses out on the biggest payday of his career due to his use of a recreational drug that stays in the system far past the point where it’s active in the user. I think most of us can see how insane that is without Healy risking his employment status by claiming persecution.

@benfowlkesmma At the top of #MountXyience, you find 2 blank stone tablets & a chisel. What rules / guidelines do you + or – for MMA? #TMB

— Tim Bennett (@tcbennett84) May 14, 2013

I. Thou shalt not become a downed opponent simply by putting thy fingers on the mat.
II. Thou shalt immediately lose a point if thou poketh the eyes or grabbeth of the fence to avoid a takedown.
III. Thou shalt make weight.
IV. Thou shalt not sing along with thine own entrance music.
V. Thou shalt stop declaring thyself to be a “brand new fighter” (or old version of thy former self) before every single fight.
VI. Thou shalt not receive permission to use testosterone just because thou art old or tired or suffering from the effects of prior steroid use.
VII. Thou shalt not complain about being taken down by superior grapplers, nor shalt thou put thy hands in the air while lying feebly on thy back as a plea for a standup.
VIII. Thou shalt never butt-scoot.
IX. Thou shalt not refer to every mismatch between fighters of different sizes as a superfight.
X. Thou shalt compose thine own tweets, or thou shalt tweet not at all.

@benfowlkesmma I’m getting mine in early…So WSilva want to suck CS’s blood. Creepy, scary or awesome? Or all of the above. #tmb

— TheKidd (@VineStreetLife) May 15, 2013

Really, really creepy. It’s one thing to say you’re going to break another person’s spirit, even beat him “into a living death.” Those are the vague, often stupid, threats we’re used to hearing in MMA. It’s when you get specific about the various ways that you’d like to play around in someone’s blood like a toddler in a bathtub that it starts to get weird. It also makes you sound like a character in a sketch comedy routine, and that ain’t scary.

@benfowlkesmma #TMB When will fighters stop smoking weed? There’s an easy argument that it helps reduce pain during training.

— Charles Edling (@CEDLING) May 15, 2013

And that’s a bad thing… why? Just because a substance has beneficial properties for an athlete, that’s not reason enough to ban it. Aleve reduces pain during training too. So does ice. Do we ban them too? When it comes to marijuana in MMA, we hear these sorts of arguments all the time. It reduces pain and aids recovery. It numbs the mind and helps you train for hours and hours. It gives you sick jitz, bro. It makes staying home and watching “Snow White & The Huntsman” on HBO actually sound like a good idea. The unstated assumption here is that if it helps a fighter in any way, that’s justification for keeping it on the no-fly list. What we should really be concerned about are the risks, not just the benefits.

For instance, take prescription painkillers, which are popular with pro fighters and football players and lots of other types who beat their bodies up on a regular basis. They’re also incredibly physically addictive and potentially deadly. Marijuana’s addictive powers might be debatable, but it doesn’t kill people. Then there are the performance-enhancers like steroids, which have a long list of potentially deadly physical side effects, not to mention disturbing mental ones. One of the reasons we try to keep this stuff out of sports is because it’s incredibly bad for the users, yet it also gives them advantages that would almost certainly entice more non-users to become users if it went unchecked. Marijuana isn’t even in the same universe as those substances.

Should fighters stop smoking weed anyway? From a practical standpoint, yes. As long as it’s banned, it’s probably more trouble than it’s worth. Healy’s toke cost him at least $130,000. I’m not even sure I want to see the weed that’s worth that amount of money. Healy knew the rules and he broke them. Now he’s paying the price. I just don’t see how anyone can reasonably claim that the price is fair, all things considered.

@benfowlkesmma When you heard that WAR MMA 1 was actually going to happen in Stockton, what did you feel? Disappointment? Disbelief? Both?

— CagePotato.com (@cagepotatomma) May 15, 2013

At first I thought the report I read on it said Stockholm. Wow, I thought, that Nick Diaz really is full of surprises. He’s going straight for one of the more tightly regulated locales in the MMA world, and announcing his organization as a global force at the same time. I thought perhaps I’d even make the trip to check it out. Maybe eat some meatballs, check out the Vasa museum, make a little vacation out of it. Then I realized it was actually in Stockton, Calif. Oh right, I thought as I came crashing back down to earth. That makes more sense. I just hope he hires someone to make sure WAR MMA is paying its taxes. I’d hate to see Diaz fall into financial ruin over a local MMA promotion, which is exactly the kind of thing that seems like it could financially ruin most people who attempt it.

@benfowlkesmma Michael Johnson gets Joe Lauzon after two straight losses to guys ranked below him. Should he be thankful or fearful?

— Olof Holmgren (@fiendeland) May 15, 2013

Fearful, especially considering the circumstances. This fight is slated for the UFC’s debut on FOX Sports 1 in Boston. If you’ve ever heard Joe Lauzon talk, you know he’s, uh, from that area. It’s a city near and dear to UFC President Dana White’s heart, and he’s promised to give the Boston fans a fight card to remember. So if you’re Michael Johnson, a fighter out of the Blackzilians camp riding a two-fight losing streak, you have to wonder if this isn’t the UFC’s way of giving a local favorite a winnable fight all while shuffling you out of the organization at the same time. Two birds, one stone, that whole deal. The upside is, a win over Lauzon injects a lot of life back into Johnson’s career. In that sense, it’s a great opportunity. It’s also a tough night of work, and in an environment that will probably not be terribly friendly to him.

@benfowlkesmma RFA & Bellator: both recruit potential but one is willing to feed to the UFC but the other is not.Which makes more sense?

— Chris Cheung (@christopher_kit) May 15, 2013

It depends what your goals are. According to RFA President Ed Soares, the upstart promotion has no plans to grow into an MMA powerhouse that competes with the UFC. On the flipside, Bellator’s Bjorn Rebney says he didn’t get into this to be No. 2, and his organization has no desire to be a feeder league for the UFC. That is, of course, pretty much exactly what RFA is trying to become. So whose strategy is smarter?

If we look at the relatively short history of MMA in North America, it seems like battling it out with the UFC is the quickest path to the graveyard. Then again, Bellator didn’t get here by immediately throwing a bunch of money at the problem, the way Affliction or the IFL did. It grew slowly, climbing the ladder one rung at a time, and now it’s mostly owned by media behemoth Viacom, which could at least theoretically afford to pump it full of cash. The recent run of bad publicity makes you wonder if it’s willing to do that, but the point is that Bellator now has a partner that understands and appreciates MMA, even if we don’t know yet what it’s willing to spend to make it work. RFA, on the other hand, has modest expectations that are easier to achieve, but what will it have achieved if/when it gets there?

There’s an awesome story about Julius Caesar, who supposedly passed through a miserable little village of half-starved wretches one day on his way to beat up on some Gauls. As the Romans were smirking at the squalor of the place, one of the soldiers remarked that, even here, there were probably people battling it out to be top dog. To which Caesar is said to have replied, “As far as I am concerned, I would rather be the first man here than the second in Rome.” That’s totally insane, but maybe you have to be a certain kind of crazy in order to keep chasing that top spot.

RFA doesn’t have that affliction. If it can have a small piece of the kingdom, it’ll gladly pay its tribute to the UFC and remain a subject with no designs on becoming a ruler. Bellator is pretty solidly in control of the No. 2 position in MMA right now but insists it won’t be content to stay there. That’s the kind of ambition Caesar would be proud of. It’s also how he ended up bleeding out on the floor of the Senate while his friends and rivals watched.

@benfowlkesmma Is it hypocritical for the UFC to advocate 4 commissions 2 lessen penalties for marijuana but they take Healy’s bonus$? #TMB

— David Massey (@GeminiTiger86) May 15, 2013

Not really. The UFC’s stated policy is that you don’t get your bonus money until you pass your drug test. Healy didn’t, so he doesn’t. I support the UFC’s move to get commissions to rethink how they handle marijuana offenses, and if the UFC announced that the bonus money rule no longer applied to those who get caught using marijuana, I’d support that too. But to do it now, suddenly and without prior notice of the change in policy, it’d feel arbitrary. The UFC is doing the right thing by seeking an official change on the part of the commissions first. It’s not hypocritical to follow the rules while simultaneously trying to convince others to make them more fair. If it’s hypocrisy you want, look to Brazil this Saturday night.

@benfowlkesmma If you could arbitrarily strip a UFC champ of his title to create excitement within the division, who would it be? #tmb

— Matt Murray (@mbmurray) May 15, 2013

Wow, what a mean premise for a question. It’s like you want to be the anti-fairy godmother, waving a magic wand to unmake wishes that came true. But fine, I’ll bite. Whose dreams would I shatter for no other reason than my own selfish desire to shake things up? If I wanted to be at least slightly fair about it, I’d choose Dominick Cruz. He’s been hurt for so long that at least you could justify it by saying that the other fighters in the division deserve a real belt to fight for, even if it’d be a heartbreaker for Cruz. If I wanted to be totally, indefensibly jerkish about it, I’d go with Benson Henderson. His title reign so far has been remarkable only for how narrowly he wins fights, and the lightweight division is still one of the most talent-rich weight classes in all of MMA. If there’s any division that could be made more interesting by a heartless agent of chaos, it’s that one.

@benfowlkesmma #TMB what R your thoughts on Brandon Vera going back to HW? I Would love to hear his thought process but ill settle for yours

— Ryan Meleedy (@rmeleedy) May 16, 2013

There are changes in weight class that seem logically sound and physically inevitable, and then there are ones that seem like a desperate search for a clean slate. Brandon Vera’s move back to heavyweight feels like the latter. He’s been up and down as a light heavyweight, and already suffered a face-smashing at the hands of the current champ. His prospects at 205 pounds seem limited, so why not go up in weight and see if he can’t find success as the smaller, faster, more athletic fighter in a division that seems pretty evenly split between lumbering giants and agile attack dogs? I can’t say I see him becoming champ there any time soon, but at least he’ll be well fed.

@benfowlkesmma Many say Bigfoot has “no chance”. I say “dosSantos vs Velasquez 2?. Do MMA fans generally suffer from short-term memory loss?

— Mark Horgan (@sparkymarky_) May 15, 2013

Short-term memory is what we excel at in this sport. It’s remembering anything beyond the last fight that’s tough. Maybe it’s all that weed we’re smoking in an attempt to get some sick jitz, bro. The reason people don’t think Antonio Silva has a chance against Cain Velasquez is not because they forgot how the last rematch for the UFC heavyweight title turned out, but because they remember how Silva got here and they’re still not totally sold on him. I get it. He beat Travis Browne after Browne got the MMA equivalent of a flat tire. Then he beat Alistair Overeem in a tortoise-and-the-hare kind of fight that felt more like a triumph of cosmic justice than athletic superiority. Now he gets another shot at Velasquez, despite being nowhere near competitive the first time they fought. It’s reasonable for people to think the second go-round will look a lot like the first. It’s also reasonable to remind ourselves that, especially with heavyweights, one punch can change everything.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie.com and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.com.