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“If you go by the rules, you end up being an accountant.”
Written by Mike Wilkerson | Monday, September 15 2008
MMA enthusiasts are 'pack animals' by nature, but what about fans of the sport that due to circumstances beyond their control are forced to 'go it alone'? Mike Wilkerson considers the plight of these 'MMA orphans'.
The adrenaline that resides inside my home theater is real.
The fights that I witness each week, whether via a DVR-based viewing or real-life pay-per-view events - those are real too.
What is also sadly real is that I am an MMA Orphan. Are you?
For those that are curious, an MMA Orphan is an individual that has true zeal in regard to MMA - and no friends locally that share and revel in that zeal.
Let me be plain - I have ZERO FRIENDS interested in MMA.
What's an MMA Orphan to do?
The short, curt looks when someone asks "what kind of hobbies do you have" have changed significantly over the years as my hobbies and social structure have changed. At one time it would have been collecting baseball cards. Another would perhaps be collecting movie memorabilia. But as my interests, time constraints and real -life have crept into my responses, a regularly-occurring stray eyebrow was almost always involved in responses to that very ordinary question.
"Sign Language..." "Oh (insert strange eyebrow movement), I see. That hand thing. Interesting. (Crickets begin a serenade)
"Podcasting..." Really? (insert strange eyebrow movement) Ah, I had a Mac when I was in 7th grade, the uh, Apple thing, right?"
"MMA..." Uh huh. (insert strange eyebrow movement) Into Karate, eh? All Bruce Lee and shit? I've seen those movies, bitchin'.
Recently, I was at my weekly Internet network computer gaming session (yes, where geeks of all sizes, colors and ages connect their computers systems and "shoot things and blow stuff up", that computer gaming) and mentioned MMA in an effort to see if anyone in the room of 10 or so truly had interest in seeing what is a grand sample of one of the fastest-growing sports in American. I received more or less the same response as above until one of them de-headphoned and uttered, "Oh, like the fight stuff, like UFC?"
Instantly, my eyes widened. The initial heartfelt tones of an appropriately-written Randy Newman jingle began dancing in the attic of my mind. Had I finally found a kindred spirit to help me instill a room full of geeks, gomers and computer-explosion induced boners with the adrenaline rush of Mixed Martial Arts? Would he help me build the foundation I needed to help become something other than a lonely, 38-year-old sports enthusiast lingering in the virtual land of mouse-entangled steroid-bolstered soldiers? I looked at him and said with delight, "Oh, you know about the UFC? The tales of Randy Couture - Chuck Liddell? The one and only Fedor, perhaps?"
"Nah, my sister has a poster of this dude that fights- Urinal Fagger - something - I don't know. I hate that sh*t. It's all fake anyway, like WWE."
The vacuum that was once my adrenaline-activated soul emitted the feeble auditory etching of "Noooooooo.....!"
Gone again were my hopes of finding a new, potential ledge to where my MMA-based olive branch could take newfound hold. All faces turned back to the blue/yellow glow of gyrating LCD screens and the maddening clickety-clackery of mouse buttons, followed by the occasional shouted expletive.
Somewhere inside this room, or perhaps inside of other rooms I frequent, is the person, the personality, the fellow fan of lashing leather gloves to help me understand the wrongs of those men (and women) who do not yet know of or appreciate “the savage science” of the art that captivates millions.
When will I find the battle-of-the-mat-hardened appreciative companion who has the same pathos for power and technique? Will I be the Brownlow to a younger, more inexperienced Oliver, as we eventually share the brilliance of a strangling gogoplata, or tendon-jarring armbar?
Will MY zeal to find kindred fighting spirits finally end in satisfaction or will I end up a herdsman in Northamptonshire?
Are you a member of this little community, who lead a life of simple happiness, united by ties of fighting affection and gratitude after a great fight – but have no one to share it with?
Am I doomed to live a life of half-hearted appreciation for the fights that I see or is there the hidden treasure under a still-stationary rock I've yet to uncover that holds a new, untended-to center of benevolence to all things that breathe the very essence of Mixed Martial Arts?
Or can true MMA Orphan happiness never be attained?
As I stride into my lonely home theater to spool up the previously recorded brilliance of “Urinal Fagger”, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, and a host of other MMA greats, will you help me come up with ideas to scribe on my eventual television-laden, Mixed Martial Arts Orphan tomb?
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