To the sites whoring for Rio Heroes
December 11, 2007 – 4:37 pm by fightlinker
I just thought I’d point out that Rio Heroes has bought out pretty much every blog there is out there. Yesterday I noticed MMAJunkie shilling for the no holds barred company, and today I noticed Five Ounces of Pain linking it with an affiliation code. Now I’ll let things slide a bit with the MMAJunkie guys … for all we know, that site is actually written by robots with no morals or scruples whatsoever. They’ve never pretended to be for or against anything, so I can’t really accuse them of being hypocrites.
On the other hand, Five Ounces of Pain is a very human site that’s just as much commentary as it is reporting. Prior to selling out, the site featured two very negative articles on the promotion. One of those articles even had the gall to call out Sherdog for carrying Rio Heroes banners since Sherdog was associated with ESPN.
Now maybe I’m missing something here, but isn’t Five Ounces of Pain run by one Sam Caplan, a man who’s a regular contributer for CBS Sportsline, head writer for MMA company ProElite, and a member of the would-be sanctioning body WAMMA? That sure seems like a lot of connections to organizations that shouldn’t want to be associated with this dangerous fight promotion. Well, I guess you can take ProElite off the list of people who care because they’re selling ads to Rio Heroes too. But what can you expect from a company that books neo-Nazi fighters for their shows?
Hey, on a personal level I don’t really give a shit about Rio Heroes. It’s pretty terrible with fighters less skilled than you see on IFL and HDNet cards. What I have an issue with is the apparent two-faced position everyone takes: “MMA is safe, we’re all working hard to bring it to the mainstream, blah blah blah blah blah. But we aren’t above taking money and whoring for a company that is the absolute antithesis of what modern MMA is supposed to represent. ”
How can you pretend to be a positive representative for the sport of MMA when you’re encouraging people to support a glorified streetfight? When some Brazilian gutter rat gets crippled or put into a coma, are you all just going to take the banners down quietly and pretend you never promoted this shit?
Rio Heroes embodies everything MMA has worked so hard and long to move away from. By helping Rio Heroes make money, you’re helping set up an environment where there will be more companies holding more insanely unsafe fights. But what’s that??? Laos Heroes will pay 100 bucks to put up banners promoting their 8-boy slave tournament? Fucking sweet. Then never mind the fact that you’re whoring your site and sullying MMA’s reputation. Just sign up and do it. Who the fuck cares.
