Everyone has an issue with sports these days.
The Left is up in arms over supposed “gender equality” in sports. Men’s and women’s sports can no longer be different in any way. Dare to mention that the reason why the women’s national soccer team is paid less than their male counterparts is a revenue shortfall? You’re a sexist. Offer a way for the WNBA to more closely resemble the NBA game in order to make the league more attractive to new viewers? You’re a misogynistic pig.
The Right also has an issue when it comes to sports. They’re tired of the political messaging that’s now ingrained in most major sports. Everywhere you turn, even now in the world of sports, the politics of the woke Left has entered the fray.
Thankfully, there’s a sport that won’t (or at least shouldn’t) offend either side.
UFC 261 took place in Jacksonville, Florida, this past weekend. It was the first full capacity crowd at a UFC event since March 2020, and masks were optional. At first glance, this would seem like a conservative paradise. Full crowds and no muzzling of the spectators?
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But hold on for one second. Men and women were competing on the same card, in front of the same amount of fans at UFC 261 Saturday night. The main card may have been Kamaru Usman vs Jorge Masvidal, but the women’s strawweight title stole the show.
Rose Namajunas’ vicious KO of Weili Zhang was the highlight of the evening, stealing the show and setting Twitter ablaze. It’s a fact that should be celebrated by people on both sides of the aisle.
In a sports world dominated by men, the women took center stage in Jacksonville on Saturday night. There was no difference in the coverage of the men and the women and the full-capacity crowd was equally energetic for all the fights.
The most beautiful thing about Rose's headkick is that it comes inside the guard of Zhang. Such perfect timing.
Zhang on the other side saw it coming as an inside leg kick (hips movement pull back)
Beautiful. #UFC261 pic.twitter.com/0uL4GdNAU8— Sweet Punch Memories (@SweetPmemories) April 25, 2021
The fight had a little extra juice as “Thug” Rose made some controversial statements leading up to the match.
Rose got herself in hot water for using a phrase commonly heard during the Cold War: “Better dead than red.” Zhang is from China and Rose’s family fled communism in Lithuania.
“If you’re confused about any of my opinions, you can watch the documentary and you could get a good idea as to what my family had to go through, the reason I’m in the United States today, the reason that I do mixed martial arts, all of that stuff,” Namajunas told ESPN’s Ariel Helwani the week leading up to the fight. “I’d probably have a really different life if it wasn’t for everything in that documentary, how Lithuanians had to struggle with communism oppression.”
“The reason that I brought it up and that I referenced it is because the reporter suggested I had animosity toward past opponents, and that’s what maybe caused some motivation in those fights, and in this one there’s no animosity so maybe there’s a lack of motivation. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
The reaction says it all 🤯 🤯🤯 #UFC261 @espnmma pic.twitter.com/NO1Uw98ULJ
— ESPN (@espn) April 25, 2021
And while the UFC does have a bit of politics find its way into the conversation, it’s not nearly as prominent as in other sports leagues.
President of the UFC, Dana White, wants to keep the political conversation out of the octagon.
“When you watch sports, you’re tuning in to get away from all the crap that’s going on in your life,” White told Candace Owens in an exclusive interview on the latest episode of Candace. “Whether it’s personal, professional, political, whatever’s going on in the world. That’s your time where you tune in. Never once did we talk about COVID, we didn’t talk politics, we didn’t talk about anything negative that was going on. When you come in and you watch two or three hours of our fights, you’re tuning in for fights. You’re coming in to watch a sport. You want to hear all that crap, watch any other channel.”
“It’s like we live in this world right now where nobody’s allowed to have their own opinion,” White added. “These are all grown men and women that fight for us. They all have their own beliefs, their own politics or whatever it is. They can say whatever they want to say, to a point. I mean, there’s some times that some things cross the line, but at the end of the day, too, this is the fight business. Guess what? They say really mean things to each other.”
The UFC has it all. Women and men fight on the same card, and all political thoughts are welcome.
So, give the UFC a chance. Their arms are open to all.
Joe Morgan is the Sports Reporter for The Daily Wire. Most recently, Morgan covered the Clippers, Lakers and the NBA for Sporting News.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.