(Also at 411Mania.com)
This past Sunday Mike Goldberg was in the broadcast booth for FOX. However, there was no UFC event. Instead, Goldberg got to call an NFL game between the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings.
If you’ve ever listened to Goldberg call UFC fights, you pretty much knew how this was going to go.
Goldberg constantly mispronounces the names of fighters, doesn’t understand techniques, and has a general lack of knowledge of the sport that he’s been watching cage side since 1997. So it’s not shocking that during the Vikings/Lions game he misidentified players, didn’t understand the rules, and showed a general lack of knowledge of football and the NFL.
In today’s social media world, people are quick to comment on things, especially things that they don’t like. And Mike Goldberg was not well liked on Sunday. Goldberg decided to respond to the criticism with some name-calling.
It’s not the first time Goldberg has done this. He’s responded to twitter haters for years, usually with the vocabulary of an enraged teenager who wants to out with his friend, but his mom is making him clean his room. He once had a New Year’s Resolution to ignore the haters on twitter. That lasted for about a week.
However, it’s the first time Goldberg was actually punished for his actions.
Following his poor performance and twitter immaturity, FOX and Goldberg mutually agreed that he shouldn’t call this week’s Buffalo Bills vs. Minnesota Vikings game so he wouldn’t be a distraction. Both parties can spin this how they want, but the truth is that Goldberg was punished (whether by his own choice or not) for not being good at his job and then acting unprofessionally when called out on it.
You know why Goldberg thought he could get away with his actions on twitter? Because he’s stuck in a UFC bubble where the rules are different for public figures and employees.
How could Dana White possibly punish Goldberg, or anyone else for that matter, for name calling on twitter when he does it on a weekly basis? In UFC, acting like a professional has a completely different meaning than in a real sport where there are actually consequences for wrong actions.
There’s nothing wrong with responding to mean spirited people on twitter, there’s just a right and wrong way to do so. Name calling is the absolute wrong way to respond. Goldberg just didn’t know any better because he’s been doing this for over two years now with no repercussions and he’s seen his boss do it for years as well.
It’s an unfortunate pattern in UFC and one that definitely needs to change if they ever want to be accepted as a mainstream promotion.
Fighters and personalities can’t just go on social media and respond to fans in a derogatory way. They can’t talk about killing a fellow competitor or make a rape joke or question the sex of their peers. They have to realize that they are not only representing themselves, but a company as well. Anyone who is employed in the real world knows that when you do something, it not only looks bad on you, but it looks bad on the people that employ you as well, which is why most of the time they will take action against the employee who does something stupid.
Yet UFC fighters continue to do stupid things and they continue to get away with it for the most part. Maybe they get a little slap on the wrist, but that’s about it. Once again, how can Dana White punish anyone for doing those things when he’s done them himself?
I know there’s some UFC Code of Conduct out there, but that’s a bigger joke than the UFC Hall of Fame. They’ll pick and choose who they want to punish, fine them a little bit, and give them a meaningless suspension that will result in them missing zero cage time.
In MMA there’s this “screw you” attitude because the sport these guys compete in is a cage fight. There’s a rebel mentality amongst fans and fighters. It helped make the sport what it has become today, but it’s also going to keep the sport from reaching new heights.
The UFC wants to be mainstream, but it won’t get there anytime soon unless outside activities get under control. That means no more idiotic tweets, no more public shaming of fighters, no more calling fans racists, no more fighter racism, no more staged brawls inside and outside of the cage, no more acceptance of liars and cheaters in the sport.
Don’t get me wrong, other sports aren’t perfect. The NFL has screwed up big time in the past couple months. But they are the largest sport in America and have built up enough good will with fans that mistakes, no matter how large they are, will be forgiven because people really love football. People don’t love UFC the same way. Every mistake they make, no matter how small they are, will be put under a microscope.
I’m not asking the UFC to be a squeaky clean promotion, but actions need to be taken and people need to be held accountable. It’s not hard to trash talk without having to resort to derogatory name calling. It’s not hard to sell a fight without having the two competitors fight each other beforehand. It’s not hard to punish those who cheat.
I hope the Mike Goldberg situation is a reality check for UFC. I hope they realize that, to reach the level of mainstream that they hope to reach, they can’t allow fighters and personalities to act like college students with no guidance. It’s got to start at the top though. Dana White doesn’t have to act like Roger Goodell or Adam Silver, but he does need to carry himself in a more professional manner, especially if he hopes to take the UFC to be bigger than soccer.
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