The Hype Machine

Part I: Two Case Studies

2/6/10

The hype machine. It's a phrase most of us are familiar with. Used primarily by longtime MMA fans almost interchangeably with "the UFC," it's a concise way of alluding to the fact that the UFC makes more out of a given fighters skill set than history has shown. The most obvious instance of the hype machine is the now infamous phrase "Houston Alexander is for real" uttered by Joe Rogan at UFC 75 after Alexander's second fight with the promotion. After that fight with Alessio Sakara, Houston would go on to lose all of his subsequent UFC fights and five of his next six.

But the UFC isn't the only organization manipulating it's audience by overemphasizing one of it's fighters. Strikeforce: Miami aired on Saturday and showcased two new prospects from the San Jose based promotions stable: former professional and Olympic athelete, Herschel Walker and amateur and professional wrestling sensation Bobby Lashley. Both have received much MMA media attention in the previous few months, yet neither have done much (and in Walker's case, almost nothing) to deserve it.

By comparing two fighters (Brock Lesnar and Kimbo Slice) in positions in the UFC similar to the one's Lashley and Walker hold in Strikeforce, we'll see that they hype machine knows no allegiance and in fact may become the mechanism upon which the sport of Mixed Martial Arts relies for its continued growth.

Lashley and Lesnar

Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley both have collegiate wrestling pedigrees. They both engaged in physically demanding professions after college; Lesnar, briefly in pro football and Lashley by wrestling with the US Army. Most obviously, both spent five plus years wrestling professionally. Given this, the case could be made that the two pedigree grapplers were in similar positions as they transitioned into MMA over the past two years. It is, however, obvious that despite their positions as newcomers to the sport, they enjoyed radically different treatments by their respective promotions.

After beating his first opponent (Min Soo Kim [2-5 at the time">) Lesnar was given a fight with the man who held the UFC championship belt a mere five fights earlier in his career--a fight that saw much promotion on the part of the UFC. Never, I think, has any MMA practitioner made his debut with a major promotion after only one professional fight, with such fanfare and attention.

The story of Lashley's "big time" debut is a bit different. Having successfully dispatched a severely unprepared UFC veteran in Wes Sims at this past weekend's Strikeforce event, Lashley brought his record to a perfect 5-0. So, in this instance, how was Lashley's arrival treated ?

Prior to the event, one may not have even known he was fighting. Much of Strikeforce's promotional material was focused on the three other big names on the card, Nick Diaz, Christiane Santos and Herschel Walker, to the extent that Lashley's name was completely omitted from the vast majority of billboards, web banners, etc. Why? We've seen how successful the UFC's marketing strategy with Brock Lesnar has been, so why would Strikeforce not treat their "analagous star," analagously?

There is so much invested in Brock Lesnar on behalf of the UFC, the aura of invincibility that they've created is so pungent, that should he lose (again, or even more devastatingly, repeatedly) not only will his skill as a genuine mixed martial artist be called into question, but the UFC and their heavyweight division will be severely discredited; the hype machine-at least temporarily-would stall.

Thus, one can understand why Strikeforce is handling Bobby Lashley much like they'd handle any somewhat-highly touted heavywieght with four fights under his belt who just made his promotional debut. The organization has much less invested in him and rightly so: even with the victory over Sims, Lashley is still largely unproven as a fighter.

Between each promotion's handling of their "giants" (who both also have similar backgrounds) Strikeforce seems to have learned from the UFC's mistake and is taking a cautious route in their promotion of Lashley that is very much the opposite of common hyping techniques.

But we should remember that Strikeforce isn't immune to the allure of the hype machine, either.

Walker and Ferguson

This past weekend, we got to witness the MMA debut of the uber-athletic Herschel Walker. His bout against a totally unknown and basically unskilled fighter, Greg Nagy, showed us that although he's accomplished a lot by entering the sport at all, let alone at 47 (almost 48) years old, he lags far behind most in terms of MMA skill. Yet in Strikeforce's promotional efforts, much was made about the Heismann Trophy winner's debut. Why? For much the same reason Lesnar's debut was similarly hyped, and the reason the hype machine exists at all: to sell tickets.

Walker is just the most recent product of the hype machine, however. The MMA world knows no better example of a product of the hype machine than the UFC's Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson. Going from backyard brawling, youtube sensation to UFC superstar in little more than two years, Kimbo Slice is in large part responsible for the saying itself.

Despite UFC President Dana White's comments, I think the comparison of Walker to Slice is valid, only insofar as they are both, more than anything, products of the hype machine.

Herschel Walker was an all-American division I football player at the Univeristy of Georgia and eventually won the Heisman trophy in 1982. Entered into the NFL in 1985, and at the time of his retirement was second all time in total yards amassed. During that time, he became the only player to gain 4000+ yards in three different ways. Walker is also a fifth degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and has also performed professionally as a ballet dancer. He trains with and has gained the respect of top fighters at the American Kickboxing Academy and gives away all of his fight winnings to charity; he's a jack of all trades if MMA ever knew one.

Slice spent the early years of his career fighting all comers in his native Miami; literally outside on the streets of the city. He was given the honor of training with MMA-legend Bas Rutten but squandered the opportunity to booze and philander.

It's obvious that if you look at other aspects of their careers (i.e. their pre-MMA backgrounds, their training history, their goals and aims in competing) they are about as different as two fighters could be, but solely to the extent that they are novice figters with little well rounded MMA skill, Slice and Walker are symbolically equivalent within each of their organizations.

The Hype Machine

Anyone criticizing the UFC on the grounds that they're merely concerned with perpetuating "the hype machine" must not forget that it is an equal opportunity mechanism. Although there may be a difference in the degree to which or the frequency with which fighters are hyped, Strikeforce is every bit as susceptible to hyping fighters unnecessarily to accomplish the same goal the UFC shoots for: profit.

However, for this neither organization can be blamed. As I'll show in Part II, unlike many other mainstream sports, the hype machine is a phenomenon very much endemic to mixed martial arts to almost the exact extent that the rise of sport itself is endemic to the internet.