Trash talking is common in every sport, but the UFC takes it to another level. For years, we have seen fighters going back in forth in the events leading up to fights. Why is this so common and what effect does it really have on the fighters?
UFC Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya has been going back and forth on Twitter with former Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones since Adesanya’s title defense in September. The exchanges have gotten pretty nasty at times, we have seen Adesanya bring Jones’ late mother into the discussion. An argument could be made that this is too far and totally out of line, but then again look at the exchange that occurred in 2018 between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov.
So, why is trash talking so intense and so personal in the UFC?
For starters, the UFC is unlike any other sport, two people are in an octagon punching, kicking, wrestling and trying to beat the pulp out of each other for 25 minutes. Secondly, UFC President Dana White has made it clear many times that he will never censor his fighters, he fully believes in freedom of speech. Historically in the UFC, the best ratings come from fights with lots of tension. There is a sociological study that tried to show why athletes trash talk, but since it has not been previously studied enough, there was no conclusive result.
There is no safe assumption to be made here. We may never know why UFC fighters trash talk the way they do. While there are definitively fantastic displays of sportsmanship in the UFC, often times the trash talk and arguments take center stage. Kids watching the UFC can learn that sometimes being front, and center is not always a good thing.
S. M.
Sport, Not Games ⚽ 