It's not a total surprise to constantly see the glorification of conservatives and Trump in UFC events, but it's nice to know I'm not the only one with a bad taste in my mouth. I enjoy MMA, have participated and been a fan for a while, and interestingly enough it's one of the spaces where I think politics make everything worse, especially as polarized as people are these days.
In all seriousness, when I started making videos about this, I noticed a LOT more people receptive to it than I realized. It made me realize that there were entire communities out there for this. On reddit, it was MMAPoliticsAndCulture that was mostly left-leaning. Here, it's us.
The reality is that sure, it's a majority conservative. But not by a ton. The dems/libs/leftists are just quiet because who the hell wants to talk to conservatives when you're trying to enjoy a sport?
certainly more. I have trained for decades with others that are decidedly left of center politically. a minority, yes, but still...
love practicing, teaching and watching combat sports, but the politics have always been... rough. to maintain good rapport, politics and religion are usually left out of general conversation, but we all know its the after class training that is really where the action happens and all topics are fair game at that point; ideological leanings tend to slip out.
When you put it like this, this reminds me a lot of how conservatives handle dating apps. They literally have to hide their political affiliations to have a shot in cities.
With left-leaning fighters/fans, you have to basically hide your political affiliation in a similar manner in order to truly engage with the community as a whole. Fascinating. Edit: We need to go undercover. >_>
heh. I am currently in a somewhat conservative area, but I let my freak flag fly as needed - I think the highschool/college kids that stick around for sparring like to see the conservative monoculture challenged.
as an aside, its pure cognative dissonance bliss for me when I am holding pads for someone that I know is pretty right-aligned and RATM comes up on the music queue. I literally tell them, "Listen. To. The. Words. Dude!" if they are experienced and I don't have to call shots, I sing the lyrics for them to, you know, drive the point home.
Just stumbled on this and subbed. Appreciate people being willing to admit that that weird right-wing plugs in UFC fuckin suck. Led me to mostly watching ONE (helps they have KB/MT which I usually like much more than MMA).