Trading Shots: Fowlkes, Downes on fighting friends, Bellator PPV, illegal knees

Here at MMAjunkie.com, we are pleased to announce that after much negotiating, a little pleading, and no small amount of blackmailing, we finally convinced former UFC and WEC fighter Daniel “Danny Boy” Downes to join our team for some spirited discussion.

Because hey, wouldn’t it be nice to include in our discussions someone who actually has firsthand knowledge of this professional fighting stuff? We thought so, which is why we’re pleased to give you this first installment in our “Trading Shots” series.

In this edition, Downes and I put our heads together for some spirited debate on all the latest news, from UFC Fight Night 30 to the event formerly known as Bellator MMA’s first pay-per-view. Here, I’ll go ahead and get us started.

OK, Danny. As we were reminded several times throughout Saturday’s UFC broadcast, Lyoto Machida and Mark Munoz are buddies. They had a nice moment together after the fight, but UFC play-by-play man Jon Anik noted that they each just seemed glad to be done with it once it was over. Does knowing that neither one of these guys really wanted to do this particular fight make the experience of watching it different for you? Or do you not care as long as someone kicks someone else upside the head?

Downes: Fighting is an emotional sport. Some guys can divorce their feelings from the business at hand, but the majority aren’t capable of that. It’s on the extreme side, but for me, fighting always harkened back to the press conference between Nick Diaz and Frank Shamrock when they fought in 2009. When asked about why he gave Frank those dueling Stockton hey buddies, Diaz said something to the effect of, “I’m just trying to hate you right now.” When you step inside a cage to cause another human being physical harm, you can’t like him. You have to build animosity and hatred to cause another person physical pain.

Ultimately, that’s the difference between a sparring session and a fight: hatred. In a sparring session, you may be punching another guy in the face, but you aren’t trying to knock him out. You don’t knee to the face, elbow or do a variety of other techniques. If you know a guy and have a personal relationship with him, it’s much more difficult to get in the mindset to hurt him. That’s why I never talked to my opponents. I don’t want to know you. I don’t want to hear about your family or where you come from. It should be a business-only relationship. Once you start talking and getting feelings in the mix, it makes things much more difficult.

Fowlkes: If that’s all it takes to make it emotionally difficult for you to hurt me, here, let me tell you all about my family history. It’s a long story, so at the very least you’ll be too drowsy to punch me by the end.

But honestly? Your answer to this question only makes me feel worse about the friend-on-friend violence we witnessed on Saturday. I don’t want to watch two dudes who have been pressed into combat against their wishes. I’m not some evil “Star Trek” species that gets a kick out of forcing two best bros to hurt each other. I’m not saying every fight has to be a grudge match – that gets old in a hurry, plus it just feels so fake most of the time – but I’d rather not think that I’m watching two gladiators who have been thrust into the arena at the point of a spear all for my entertainment. I don’t need them to hate each other, but is too much to ask to restrict ourselves to fights where they at least don’t really like each other?

So Ben, what’s the verdict on Saturday afternoon fights? Was UFC Fight Night 30 a simple aberration because it took place in England (the next U.K. fight isn’t until March 8), or it an example of the oversaturation problem facing the UFC? If social media buzz is any indication, this was not a highly viewed event. Is this only applicable to American fans, or a larger issue?

Fowlkes: My guess is that the start time had less effect on North American viewership than the fight card. I’m all for freeing up the occasional Saturday night by getting our MMA in before the sun goes down, but people with lives and families and, you know, literally any other interests probably aren’t going to cancel their plans just to watch Jimi Manuwa and Ryan Jimmo. Personally, I DVR’d this one so I could take my dad to a college football game, which then allowed me to watch the fights at my leisure (and skip through the multitudes of UFC 167 promos) once I got home. That was a fine way to watch. In fact, I highly recommend the experience. But man, if I’d had to sit through all those commercials in real time just to see fights like Norman Parke vs. Jon Tuck, which is prelim-quality material on most other cards, let’s just say I wouldn’t be so thrilled at the UFC’s use of my Saturday afternoon.

Downes: I think you’ve touched on this before on the CME podcast, but everyone seems to judge UFC events like they all should have equal weight. There has to be a different measuring stick for Fight Nights compared to pay-per-views. Does that just mean we should lower our expectations? I don’t know.

There are a lot of things at play here (roster size, money, lack of marketable stars, etc.), and it’s hard to be a global organization. If the UFC wants to have that international presence, that means that people in the Eastern Hemisphere should be allowed to watch fights at a reasonable hour. This weekend’s event started strong with John Lineker and Nicholas Musoke earning finishes. The momentum was hurt by the strange endings in Manuwa/Jimmo and Melvin Guillard/Ross Pearson, but then there was a spectacular head kick knockout from Machida.

I’d agree that the endless string of UFC 167 promos was tiresome and hurt the pacing, but what’s the answer? We don’t want fights to go to decision, but when we get first-round finishes, something has to be done to fill airtime. Would you rather them kick it back to the FOX Sports studio and recap/preview the remaining fights again?

Fowlkes: No! Anything but that! I’ll watch the commercials and be a good boy, I promise! Just please, no more awkward studio time. I can’t take it.

But let’s talk about Bellator, Danny. Tito Ortiz gets injured, and now the pay-per-view becomes an unusually stacked Spike TV event. Is it me, or did Bjorn Rebney and the Viacom crew somehow catch a break here? We all know people weren’t shelling out $45 to see the HBB and the ghost of Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, so now Bellator gets spared the indignity of a failed PPV launch and gets some quick press for its next event in the process. Accidental win?

Downes: In the end, Bellator saved face. Regardless of the reasons for putting it on free TV, it avoided embarrassment. The fact of the matter is that few MMA fans were willing to shell out the money to watch a Bellator PPV. We all know that the media and certain competitors would be throwing those buy numbers in their face and using that as proof that Bellator is a second-tier organization. Now, I’m not a fancy big-city lawyer, but I think the real loser here is Eddie Alvarez. I have to wonder how this plays into his negotiating power. He was promised some PPV money, and now all that has gone out the window.

As a side note, shouldn’t this whole episode be the nail in the coffin of the Tito Ortiz MMA career?

Fowlkes: Let’s not even start talking about what should, in a fair and just world, sound the death knell of Ortiz’s career. Clearly, this is not a man who is all that concerned with leaving the sport gracefully. As for Alvarez, yeah, he probably got jilted once again, though who knows how much it will affect his bottom line in the end. Most contracts offer fighters a cut of the pay-per-view for each buy beyond a certain number. If his incentives didn’t kick in until, say, 250,000 buys, he probably wasn’t going to get much anyway because, as we both agree, fans were not about to buy this thing in great numbers. Now that it’s free, at least more people will see him fight. And hey, Alvarez and Chandler are the true main event now, as they should have been all along.

If you’re Bellator, I really only see two major downsides for you here: 1) trying and failing to put on a pay-per-view makes you look dumb, and 2) after you throw all your best stuff on one Spike TV card, how are you going to fill the airwaves for the next few months? The upside is, at least they pulled the plug in time. And at least now they don’t have to pay Ortiz and Jackson way more than they’re worth just to show up and do way less than they used to, which, come on, is exactly what was going to happen there.

Downes: It seems weird to think that losing you’re main event ultimately makes your card more respectable, but that was the case here. Similarly, they’ve avoided the jokes about Cheick Kongo winning the heavyweight tournament for a little while longer.

So Ben, instead of debating whether or not Melvin Guillard is living up to his potential, we’re debating the old knees on a downed opponent rule. Is this simply a reactionary response to a rare occurrence (when was the last time a high-profile fight was decided by the rule?), or is this something that needs to be addressed?

Fowlkes: Please, for the love of the MMA gods, let’s address it. It’s a stupid rule that invites these troubling gray areas – often at times when the attacking fighter is least likely to be examining the full extent of his opponent’s anatomy before deciding on his next move – and it serves no real purpose. It doesn’t make the sport safer or even less bloodsport-y in the eyes of the uninitiated. If a fighter wants to be a downed opponent, let him put his knee down. Let him make some sort of tactical sacrifice in order to get that protection. It’s just too easy to pick the hand up and put it down, intentionally or otherwise, which then forces our already beleaguered refs to make hasty decisions that will affect the outcome of the fight.

You’re right that we haven’t seen that many bouts ended controversially due to the rule (though here’s one, and how many do you need?), but if the best argument in favor of it is that it only screws up a fight every now and then, I’m not sure that’s reason enough to keep it around.

Downes: So putting your hand on the ground is too easy and a knee isn’t? You clearly have never been to a Catholic Mass. As the defending fighter, putting your knee on the ground doesn’t really change that much. I wouldn’t call it a “tactical sacrifice.” Making the rule apply to one knee on the ground will just be the MMA equivalent of Campbell’s Law. Fighters will manipulate that, and we’ll be back in the same position. The only real answer is to allow knees to the head at all times. And if the we-haven’t-seen-too-many-no-contests argument isn’t a good reason, then, “The sport is already really violent, so what’s wrong with expanding the rulebook,” isn’t that good either.

Fowlkes: I just want to point out that, in the same paragraph where you started by referencing your attendance at Catholic Mass, then followed up by citing some law that the soup people came up with, you ended by advocating for a return to PRIDE-style brutality where we knee ‘em all and let the medics sort ‘em out. Awesome.

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.