John McCain - Enter The Opportunist & Mixed Martial Arts Biggest Enemy

From the beginning, there was going to be some establishment resistance to mixed martial arts. The sport, with its absence of structured rules, did not fit into the regulations that were laid out by the athletic commissions across the country. In fact, most of the regulatory people didn't understand it, and therefore had no idea how to classify it. It certainly wasn't boxing, which used hands only, or kick boxing, which allowed for kicks and which was sanctioned in some states. And it most definitely was not a “worked" sport like professional wrestling, which also fell under the jurisdiction of some of the athletic commissions.

Plus, there was not really enough mixed martial arts activity going on for the states to take the time out to draft rules and regulations for it. If there was the possibility of only a couple of events per year, why would they go through the process of engaging commission attorneys to draw up a new set of rules, or approach the state legislature with a bill to be passed, in order to accommodate it?

Besides, there was a growing - and influential - constituency of people who looked upon mixed martial arts as “barbarism" and “bloodsport." Many of these people used an expression that became a standard for cheap shots as time progressed - “human cock fighting."

When you have pervading mainstream attitudes like this, the atmosphere is ripe for political opportunity. And sure enough, out of the rubble emerged one of the great political opportunists of recent years.

John McCain, a United States Senator from Arizona, had gotten a lot of mileage out of his five-year internment in a Vietnamese prisoner of war (POW) camp; rather than the more realistic portrayal of him as a pure victim, the slick public relations machine he had cultivated was able to spin him into a full-blown hero. More often than not, McCain was successful in co-opting the press in what was a somewhat blind pursuit of political glory. His critics opined that he never met a camera he didn't like or headline-grabbing issue he was not willing to sell himself out to. But he had a following, particularly among the media, that was willing to ignore the fact that despite his public stance for campaign finance reform, McCain was one of the great abusers of the process; in fact, he was one of the disgraced members of the “Keating Five," which doled out political influence in exchange for hefty contributions and financial favors.

Though he had been labeled a “maverick" by most of the press corps, McCain was hardly that; rather, he was he was a very calculating political animal who often saw which way the wind was blowing and hurled himself - with sycophantic media grasping on to his boots - in that direction.

McCain purported to be a lifelong boxing fan, and claimed to be a boxer of some note at the Naval Academy, where he gained admission as a “legacy" (his father was an alumnus) and graduated near the bottom of his class. He favored legislation to bring about some federal control of boxing and would later spearhead efforts to pass more extensive bills in that quest. He was quite fond of accepting free tickets from the very promoters his legislation would have regulatory authority over. Coincidentally, these gifts and gratuities often landed him ringside, right in camera view, during an HBO or Showtime telecast.

It was only natural that McCain would jump on an anti-UFC bandwagon that already existed.

And in doing so, he became a major thorn in their collective side.

McCAIN BECOMES THE SPORT'S BIGGEST ENEMY

The leading purveyors of mixed martial arts had, in a sense, dug their own graves, promoting the sport as a no rules bloodsport that - at least in the case of the publicity surrounding one UFC card - could even end in death. Whatever the severity of the hype, there was always the atmosphere of impending danger hanging over the events, and the promoters didn't do too much to tone it down. Lack of safety had, in fact, become a selling point.

Senator John McCain, smelling an opportunity the way a pitbull smells fear, made his big grab at anti-MMA airtime in 1995, right before the “Ultimate Ultimate" event was to take place. He made an appearance on CNN's “Larry King Live" with Marc Ratner, then the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, as his main support. Ratner was a big critic of the UFC as well; his interests at the time, of course, were tied up in boxing, and ironically he would join the UFC as a lobbyist years later.

McCain may have been influenced a great deal by those in boxing; his wife, Cindy, had inherited one of the biggest Budweiser distributorships in the country from her father, Jim Hensley, and Budweiser had a long-time relationship with boxing, where it had pumped a lot of money into sponsoring the sport. Then there were the numerous gratuities McCain had taken from boxing promoters. Whatever the motivation, he already had an agenda laid out, and that agenda was to bust up the sport of mixed martial arts any way he possibly could.

He famously made the comment that MMA “appeals to the lowest common denominator in our society," an expression that is often misused by opportunists. Of course what he was basically saying by using the term “lowest common denominator" was that “a lot of people seem to like this stuff, and they're all pretty much scumbags."

Bob Meyrowitz was on hand to defend the UFC, along with Ken Shamrock, but this was one confrontation where, like so many wrestling matches, the outcome was decided well in advance. The former POW's instincts were correct in this case; that the political correctness of his pitch was going to resonate with members of the general public, and the media, who were predisposed to thinking that mixed martial arts was little more than a sideshow.

McCain was hardly the maverick here; indeed, he was taking what would have been considered the “politically correct" road, and King offered little resistance to him. After what had to be termed a success on CNN, he sought to build on his momentum. He tried to solicit a lot of support from state governments, whether they did or did not have a boxing commission. What these governments should have told him was to shut up and mind his own business. Perhaps some of them did just that.

Just not enough, evidently.