What Are You Really Examining?

A random thought popped into my head today? What does it take to become a journalist? Is it having superb writing skills? Is it having a passion for the topics you write about? What is it exactly?

Recently there have been several “journalists” pop up in the MMA scene that I can’t figure out just yet; what are you doing? Are you trying to help out the sport? Are you trying to make a name for yourself? What is it?

For those that know me, I personally am not one to contribute my journalististic skills through writing, although I am capable of such. I like to display them through video. But this recent onslaught of plain “creepiness” by one person who tends to blog about Women’s MMA has me a bit frustrated and concerned.

Not too long ago I came across a post on the Examiner, written by Eric Holden, that rated I believe, the Top 15 or 20 “Hottest” Women in MMA. Being that I am not only a fan of Women’s MMA, but a fan of beautiful, athletic women, I was forced to click the link. After scrolling through the rankings and seeing pictures of these women, I was shocked and appalled by some of these rankings. I’m a huge fan of Ronda Rousey, and on this list, she was Ranked last…. LAST! Now, I know rankings are subjective to whoever is doing them, but come on now, out of ALL the women in MMA, she’s not in your top 5? Okay, fine, for whatever reason, you don’t think she deserves to be ranked that high, I’m cool with that.

Fast forward a few weeks and I’ve seen various Women’s MMA article of his (seems to be his “passion”), which all tend to throw out the phrase “sex appeal”. There are fighters who are trying to promote Women’s MMA in a legitimate way, not by being some “sexy girl fighting” or what have you, but by promoting their skills in the cage. Now, there are some who do a great job at selling the “sex” side of the sport like Ronda Rousey and Felice Herrig, but they are also handling business in the cage. To suggest that when two highly attractive women step into the cage to compete and you are reporting on the “sex appeal” and not their skill set, that’s a problem. I would rather not see Women’s MMA go the way of lingerie football (although I enjoy watching women in lingerie tackle one another).

Now to the point of my frustration. Today I saw a post about Jordan Gaza who has an upcoming fight against Amber Stautzenberger at Dakota Fighting Championships 15. Within the first paragraph of the article, he mentions how he had an exclusive interview with Jordan, and then later goes in to her upcoming fight. Well now I’m confused. The title of the article is “Jordan Nicole Gaza rocks cute Hello Kitty shorts during MMA training”. My problem here, WHAT THE HELL DOES HELLO KITTY SHORTS HAVE TO DO WITH A FIGHT?!?! Is it too much to ask for an “MMA Journalist” to report about fighting, rather than on what shorts the female fighter is wearing during training? Is it also necessary to use terms such as “vixen”, “beauty” and bombshell” to promote the sport? I get it, sex sells. But it’s not a journalist’s job to sell the sex, it’s the fighter’s. There’s a place for that in the world, but not necessarily when talking about female athletes ALL the time. Do your job in helping promote the sport of Women’s MMA, and not by creeping on these young ladies in the process.

UPDATED 5-27-13: Recently, a couple who both compete in WMMA, have come out about recent communications with Eric Holden

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10 replies on “What Are You Really Examining?”

  • David, I was hoping that was the case. i spoke to Eric recently and he is 100% serious. His words were that he’s trying to play the TMZ/Perez Hilton angle on women’s mma.

  • seems to me that a lot of those articles he writes are intentionally silly, written in a tongue in cheek style… I mean come on… Nobody could write those and be 100 percent serious.

  • You are one of the few. And I’m pretty sure the reason your wife hated combative sports prior to reading one of his articles was because she was uneducated about the sports. I know plenty of people who were in that same position. No one is on this soap box you speak of. Funny thing is, out of ALL the comments I’ve received, you are the first negative one. I’ve spoken to several female fighters, and they would agree with my stance as well. You have a goo day Mr. Whitley.

  • You have this all wrong. My wife hates MMA, boxing, wrestling(real wrestling) and anything else that is combative. I showed her one of Mr. Holden’s articles, and she saw there was a softer side than just beating the hell out of somebody. Now when I am watching, instead of. “can we turn that”, I get, “Any girls fighting?” So Holden’s may not appeal to you, but it helped me out. Step off the soap box dude, the women are about sex, and after Rousey’s last fight most of the headlines were about her sports bra, not her arm-bar.

  • What a hack. A creepy, creepy hack. His “resume” is shit and if it wasn’t for this article he’d be a complete nobody. Stop ruining the sport, asshole.

  • Plus he says in his Gaza article that she told him in an exclusive interview that “she picked up an awesome pair of Hello Kitty fight shorts to help her train for her upcoming bout against Amber Stautzenberger” and then she herself commented on his FB that it was old pic. His response: “O whatever I like it. I wanted to promote it.” ….. Seriously?

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