Decent Article on THe Humanity of MMA
The Lessons of Delson Heleno
6/28/2007
Story By Ben Fowlkes
Since the sport of mixed martial arts first began its long climb toward mainstream acceptance in the United States, the criticism against it has been fairly uniform. The sport is too brutal and too violent, say its opponents. It’s “human cockfighting”. It’s bar bouncers with tattoos. It’s guys who couldn’t make it in boxing. Etcetera, etcetera.
I won’t try to argue that MMA isn’t violent. Clearly, it is. Whether it’s more or less violent than other, more accepted sports (boxing, football, hockey, to name a few), is a question of degrees that is impossible to answer. MMA is a combat sport, so violence is part of it. And if I’m to be honest, violence is part of what I like about it. The point is, MMA isn’t only about violence. It isn’t brutality for the sake of brutality, and this is what so many of the critics are missing.
Case in point: at the IFL’s most recent event in Las Vegas, welterweight Delson Heleno caught Gideon Ray in a shoulder lock while the two struggled for position on the mat. To the untrained eye it might have looked like some schoolyard bully maneuver. But Heleno is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu master. He’s spent the better part of his life studying this art, and he knew exactly what he was doing. Within seconds he had applied the joint lock and had his man all but beaten. All that remained was the submission.
But before Ray could submit, his arm gave way. In the video from the fight, you can almost pinpoint the exact moment the injury occurs. But what’s interesting about this video isn’t so much what happens to Ray’s arm in the submission hold, it’s what happens immediately afterwards.
Notice how Heleno, on top of his opponent, releases the hold right away and tries to stabilize Ray’s arm to avoid further damage. He knows he’s won the match at this point. The urge to celebrate must be overwhelming. Keep in mind, he’s probably spent the past six weeks or so doing nothing but training and thinking about this moment. No one would have thought any less of him if he had dropped Ray’s arm and jumped up and into the arms of his teammates.
Instead, he stays where he is and holds the arm in the place. In a second he has gone from ultra-aggressive to almost tender as he looks after his opponent. It’s a strange moment, but it’s one that has a lot to tell us about the sport and why we like it.
As much as MMA has been erroneously compared to the gladiatorial games of the ancient Romans, there is one aspect of that comparison that holds somewhat true. The Romans, according to many historians, didn’t go to these games just to see the bloody spectacle of death on display. They went because, for them, the games were a kind of living morality play. They saw courage rewarded and cowardice punished.
It’s the same with an MMA fight. A man can’t hide who he is in the ring. When he gets tired and hurt and is feeling the pressure from his opponent, we’re going to find out something about his character. If he’s unethical, it will show. If he’s unsure of himself, we’ll know it.
If, in the case of Heleno, he is a strange mix of aggression and compassion, we’ll see that too.
Seeing two men battle it out in a ring gives us a glimpse of a kind of authenticity that is usually hard to come by. For those that think MMA fans just want to see blood and violence in its most extreme form, this clip will hopefully make them rethink their position.
No one wants to see Heleno rip Ray’s arm off and take it home as a trophy. We want to see him try his hardest to win, but once he’s done that his display of sportsmanship is what really tells us something about his character. MMA fans don’t want to see snarling animals in four-ounce gloves. They want fighters that respect the sport and any man willing to get in the ring with them.
They want guys like Delson Heleno, who have nothing but love and respect for their own craft, and who aren’t afraid to let it show.
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