UFC – journal.wiredreflexes.com

I’m not one to support athletes, but when I do, I do it for the oddest reasons most of the time. I’ve been watching The Ultimate Fighter season 20, and I can’t help but absolutely being amazed at Joanne Calderwood. Her in-cage personality is the polar opposite to the out-of-cage personality. She carries herself quietly and respectably, which stands in stark contrast to some of the other athletes.

Rose Namajunas is another great example. She’s so open and honest about her emotions while still being an absolute mercenary. She reminds me of the bits of “honest fight hyping” Jim and I used to do while drinking.

I guess it has little to do with ability — or rather, ability is not the only thing that’s important. I guess all those sports management companies know what I’m talking about and try desperately to craft and mould the public image of their athletes, but that just leaves them appearing stale and saltless. Perhaps supreme talent and honed ability often comes hand in hand with a dislikeable personality — someone hyper focussed to the point of appearing to lose most of what makes a person human. I have neither, so I wouldn’t know, but it would explain why so many public persona’s are so… crafted and synthetic.

With the rematch between Junior Dos Santos (JDS) and Cain Velasquez (CV) set for tonight where they will battle for the UFC heavyweight championship, the inevitable story of CV’s “brown pride” tattoo has come up again. He claims the tattoo signifies the struggle and hardship his parents went through in order to provide him with a good life. It honours them and their sacrifices.

Detractors and critics will say that brown pride has the same connotations as white pride and that disallowing one type of bigotry should mean you disallow all types of bigotry.

Personally, I’m very much on the fence about this one. On the one hand, the term “white pride” has been hijacked been hijacked by racist and fascist groups and while I truly cannot comprehend taking pride in a coincidence, or in a concept you had very little to do with overall, it’s true that white pride no longer means the same thing as brown pride does. So if he’s proud about being brown, fine.

On the other hand, brown pride, like white pride or Irish pride or gay pride or Jewish pride, does claim a superiority by one people over another. On top of that, there’s a special intensity of that conviction that comes with applying a permanent mark on your body in the form of a tattoo to signify your pride. I immediately distrust people who so narrowly represent themselves.

Tag: UFC

The Oddest Things

Cain’s “Brown Pride” Tattoo