Idiots Should be Fired: Another Letter to Stupid People

By Me

To the Editor (of Town Times):

I just finished reading an article on mixed martial arts spawned by Chris Boulay and Jim Taylor, and, bluntly put, it made me want to vomit. Not since the 1990s have I been so disgusted by a piece of such phenomenal stupidity. Not only do the writers of the article demonstrate the fact that they know absolutely nothing about the topics on which they are reporting, they back up their unsubstantiated, uninformed opinions with a complete disregard for any facts what-so-ever.

Apart from the fact that your writers lacked enough knowledge of the sport to list three fighters (Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson, Ken Shamrock and Frank Shamrock) as men with “staying power,” a statement that any person with any knowledge of the sport would burst out laughing in the midst of, they compounded stupidity which might have been seen and justified as opinion by contradicting basic medical facts and rattling off rhetoric that was done away with almost a decade ago.

You authors make the rhetorical remark: “This ’sport’ is supposed to be immensely popular, but where are all of the stars?” Saying that boxing has bigger stars than mixed martial arts.

It is clear that the authors of the piece you have allowed to be slathered on your publication know as little about boxing as they do about MMA, because, if they did, they would know that mixed martial arts has created more success in crossing into the mainstream in fifteen years than boxing did in its first fifty years as a professional institution.

Let’s forget the fact that MMA has an incredibly successful TV program, inspired films (both fictional and documentaries) and has given rise to a half dozen big names in the Hollywood scene. Randy Couture, Quinton Jackson, Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell aside, the UFC (MMA’s major franchise) produces more celebrities at an event than any boxing match until the 1960’s and 70’s at which point boxing had been around for almost a century.

Even if I set aside the fallacious misrepresentation of the history and the clear lack of knowledge about anything, your writers make one statement that really needs to be emphasized for people to see how stupid this article is:

“Where will the disciplinary action come from in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, International Fight League, or other like-minded organizations should someone die?”

This statement was, at least in essence, spat from Senator John McCain’s mouth in the early 90’s, but I doubt your writers would have known that for the same reason they wouldn’t know that McCain was destroyed by Ken Shamrock in a debate over the issue and almost every credible medical professional to have released a statement on the sport has acknowledged that MMA is less dangerous than boxing, rugby, football or hockey, and that it is better regulated by state commissions than any of those sports.

It is my firm belief that if you don’t know something about a sport, you shouldn’t talk about it, and if your authors are considering writing another article, they should take President Lincoln’s advice.

“It is better to be silent and thought a fool then to speak and remove all doubt.”

Sincerely frustrated,

Joshua Stein