Trading Shots: Would you let your child do MMA? How about as a career?

In this week’s Trading Shots, CNN wants to know if you’d let your child do MMA. As retired UFC and WEC fighter Danny Downes and MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes discuss the matter, they’re also forced to wonder if your answer would change once that child became an adult.

Fowlkes: I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this, Danny, seeing as how you follow CNN’s schedule with an almost religious fervor, but tonight the homie Lisa Ling will be taking a look at child MMA. The CNN Twitter account plugged the program recently with the question: “Would you let your child take up the controversial sport?”

Setting aside the question of whether CNN means to imply that MMA is itself controversial or just controversial when children are doing it, I’m curious as to your answer as a former professional fighter. And, if you’d be so kind, I’d like your answer for two different interpretations of the question:

1) Would you let your child do MMA, as in the kids’ version, while they were, you know, a kid?

2) Say your child wanted not just to do this as an after-school sport, but to pursue it as a career path. Say your child wanted to become a UFC fighter, just like daddy. Is that something you’d support and/or encourage?

Downes: I have a four-week-old son, so I suppose I’ll have to confront this question sooner or later. So far, I haven’t really given the idea much thought beyond using it as a joke to upset my wife.

As for your first question, I don’t see too much trouble with “kids MMA.” It has special rules to minimize the more violent aspects. (e.g. no strikes to the face). That still leaves the potential for injury, but that holds true for any sport a kid participates in. The only thing that makes MMA different is the optics.

Put children in shoulder pads and helmets and place them on a field? No problem. Dress them up in your Brazilian jiu-jitsu pajamas? Not a problem either. If the athletic endeavor takes place in a cage, though, be ready for the Helen Lovejoys of the world to cry out.

The second question is much more difficult to answer because there are so many unknowns. Right now I feel fairly healthy. My shoulder and elbow joints belong in the same trash heap as your neck, but I haven’t been diagnosed with any neurological disorders. If that day ever comes, it would change the way I view the sport and my participation in it.

All my son currently does is eat, sleep, poop, and cry, so I haven’t really had time to discuss his 10-year plan. But I do know that I want him to be happy and have a fulfilling life. I know my own parents did not care for my MMA career, but they eventually came around. They saw how much time and effort I put in and knew that it wasn’t an excuse to avoid getting a “real” job.

I suppose it would be hypocritical for me not to give my son the same support, but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t rather hear him say that he wants to study winemaking in Australia as opposed to fighting in a cage.

How do you feel about children and MMA? One of your daughters is at least old enough to realize that daddy spends his time watching people beat each other up for a living. What if she comes up to you one day and asks to put on the four-ounce gloves?

Fowlkes: My girls are a little older, so I’ve got a better sense of their personalities, and something tells me keeping them away from cage fighting isn’t going to be my big problem as the years progress. But hey, you never know what the future will bring, right? They’re all about princess movies and My Little Pony now, but in seven or eight years maybe that gives way to Superman punches and arm-triangle chokes.

What’s weird, as I consider the possibility, is that my answers to the questions are exactly the opposite of what I suspect many people’s would be.

Which is to say, kids’ MMA? Sure, I’d let them do that, with the right rules in place. But an actual career in MMA as an adult? Everything I’ve seen and learned in my decade covering this sport tells me it’s a bad idea – unless you’re incredibly good and/or marketable.

And I realize that’s a weird thing to say. As a hobby and a pastime, I think martial arts are great. They help give you discipline, confidence, a strong work ethic, all that. More kids should be doing some form of martial arts. I’m all for that.

But as a sport and an industry, MMA is so exploitative. It chews people up and spits them out. The few who can make it dance to their own beat – people like Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey – are exceptions so rare that you almost have to remove them from the equation when calculating the risk and reward.

It’s not only the physical stuff, either, though of course that’s part of it. Pro fighters are just treated so poorly. They’re used. They’re taken for granted. They’re treated like disposable parts.

Again, there are exceptions. So I guess that’s what I’d ask my child who wanted to be a pro fighter. I’d ask if they really think they have what it takes to be that very rare exception. But isn’t that one of the problems with this sport, this dream, and this question? Doesn’t everyone who pursues an MMA career think of themselves as the exception?

Downes: I don’t know. Everyone who pursues it definitely overestimates their own abilities and importance, but that’s true for every profession. I wish some MMA writers I know were as humble as MMA fighters.

It’s true that unless the economics of the sport change, MMA is only sustainable for a very select few people. Many fans don’t understand that the reported payouts aren’t what fighters get to deposit in the bank account. They pay for managers, coaches, licensing costs, equipment, training camp, and a whole host of other things.

Besides that, there isn’t a 401k plan for fighters. All the money fighters make during their career has to last them when it’s over. I know plenty of fighters who have struggled in making a transition to the job market once they’re done fighting. It’s difficult to find a second career when your resume’s work history shows that bartending job in college and then “professional fighter” for a decade after that.

Despite all our cynicism, we should still remember that MMA has come a long way and (hopefully) continues to evolve. I don’t know who they’ll feature in this CNN piece, but I assume there will be the parent equivalent of one of those dance moms you see on TV, some parent who lives vicariously though their child and forces them to do something for their own ego.

I used to see it at the gym all the time. It was usually dads who hadn’t done anything athletic in over a decade forcing their sons to train. They would add their technical critiques even though they hadn’t trained a day in their lives.

On the other side, I’m sure we’ll see some concerned parent throwing out the words “barbaric” or “disgusting.” Like any sport or career, MMA has its pros and cons. Every parent has to look at the evidence, weigh their decision, and decide what’s right for their children. The only thing that would make your choice “controversial” is if you did it for the wrong reasons.

Fowlkes: The question of motives is a fair one to bring up, though you might be leaning on a cultural cliche a little too much. Not every kid in Little League has a psycho baseball dad, so there must be a few kids on the mats who are the products of healthy families.

By the way, new dad, I’m saving this email exchange in my archives so I can forward it to you in about 10-12 years. I’ll be interested to know what you think about the parents of kids who do MMA then.

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.