Sydney’s New Love For UFC: Is It Healthy or Just Glorifying Violence? (Naked City)

As somebody who has lived in Sydney for a most of their life, I have a strong affection for the good old Sydney Town Hall. So many great memories – like model train expos in the basement level, a Roland Kirk concert where a mad hippy danced precariously along the balcony railing and numerous other events. But when I switched onto a recent Four Corners episode on ABC, titled Heavy Hitters (the dark side of the UFC), I was saddened to see a UFC fighter on the stage of the Town Hall, welcoming a large crowd of testosterone charged teens and young men with the words: “Watch out you fucking degenerate cunts.”

The occasion was a fan day to promote an upcoming United Fighting Championship event, heavily funded by our own generous State Government. The potty mouth fighter was infamous USA celebrity Sean Strickland, notorious for his homophobic and misogynist rants.

Oh, to give him some credit he did previously claim he supported women with the statement: “Women are the glue to society … women don’t need to work, they need to stay home and raise a family.”

Admittedly Chris Minns reacted and called out Strickland’s various comments as “absolutely appalling”. It was the same description that many applied to his decision to fork out a whopping $16 million to bring the UFC to Sydney in a supposed effort to boost tourism and inject money into the local economy.

Maybe Clover Moore and co need to look more closely as to just who is allowed into the Town Hall, particularly if they are spruiking a brand of vile and incendiary crap. They don’t need to become autocratic censors but would they throw open the doors and roll out the welcome mat for a get together of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Party?

In endorsing the State Government’s support of the UFC, Premier Chris Minns came out with the extraordinary statement that mixed martial arts promote a healthy lifestyle. As for two men or women standing head to head and belting the bejesus out of each other, it’s unlikely a single doctor in NSW who would agree with him, let alone a neurologist or brain surgeon.

@chrisminnsmp The fact is that #MMA and the @UFC promotes a healthy lifestyle. @UFCANZ #UFC ♬ original sound – Chris Minns MP

With a largely youthful following of young males,  it’s hard not to see the UFC as just another proliferation and glorification of violence amongst that younger demographic. From ‘kill all before you’ video games, through body count movies, to a real life physical confrontation, punching somebody in the face soon achieves a kind of perverted legitimacy.

Minns himself would not deny there’s been an increase in particularly violent youth crime in NSW with home invasions and street gangs wielding machetes, not to mention what the current epidemic of domestic violence.

The Four Corners program also highlighted the close connection that UFC boss Dana White has with Donald Trump and the role that the UFC played in helping elect the orange TACO. White, who was in Australia to sign the sponsorship deal, and supposedly champions free speech, hit back at criticism from both the State Opposition and local press describing the latter as the “biggest pussies I have ever seen in media in my life”. With a personal fortune estimated to be around (US) $500 million you wonder why he ever had his hand out to Minns in the first place.

Not surprisingly, the current climate of celebrating brain destroying biff has started to spawn other questionable activities. The game ‘Run It Straight’, in which two burly competitors deliberately collide with each other in a bone shattering impact, is now a legitimate sport in New Zealand with the RUNIT Championship League offering thousands of dollars in prize money. Despite the recent death of one young participant, it’s only increasing in popularity.

Hopefully we will never see a return of ‘Dwarf Tossing’, a much-criticised event which was popularised as a pub attraction in the 1980s on the Gold Coast in Queensland. The short lived debacle involved people of short stature, clad in special protective suits, hurled onto mattresses or Velcro-coated walls. Needless to say it was a shameful and despicable form of entertainment.

On the other hand, bull fighting still enjoys a certain popularity in countries such as Spain and Mexico, even though Mexico City has now adopted a bloodless version of the ‘sport’. These bloodless fights are limited to 15 minutes, after which the still traumatised bulls are sent back to their owners and ranches.

The main bull ring in Mexico City caters for crowds up to 40,000 and when the State Government hear that – look out amigo! With a healthy subsidy we could well see a team of Mexico’s best matadors filling the Sydney Cricket Ground, if not in their own right, at least during half time when the Swans are playing.

We could even get the jump on the Brisbane Olympics by staging our own festival of moronic, dopey and downright stupid so-called sports: Cage Fighting, Bull Fighting, Run It Straight, Pigeon Shooting, Street Racing and Base Jumping.

As long as it promotes a ‘healthy lifestyle’ there could be a State Government subsidy awaiting!