The Personal Side of Picking...

There is a picture of me and Alexander Schlemenko that one of my co-workers and friends, Adam Geller, posted on Facebook. I have my famous "I Must Break You" Ivan Drago tee on and Schlemenko is pointing at it and smiling. It a nice pic I think. As soon as Adam posted it someone posted a comment asking if that was before or after I picked Bryan Baker to beat him in the middleweight final. I guess he thought I had no business smiling next to someone I thought would lose, or that my pick was somehow an underhanded stab in the back and NOT made on national TV.

Its a small example, but it highlights one of the difficulties in being commentator in a sport as intimate and unpredictable as MMA.

I have interviewed about 800 or so fighters in the last 3 years. Most of them are damn nice guys, I can count on 1 hand the number of fighters who rubbed me the wrong way, and even then their hostility was rarely directed at me. Due to the tournament formats of both M-1 and Bellator, I've had the pleasure of getting to know the fighters pretty well as I often see them many times as they advance in the tournament. There are always after-parties etc., and some of the fighters already know me from training in so-cal. As a result, the relationship between the fighters and the production crew can get a little personal.

In the end it doesn't matter, I still have a job to do. The fact that I thought both Jared Hess and Bryan Baker were going to beat Schlemenko doesn't mean I don't like him, I actually think he is a great guy. Of course Hess and Baker are decent guys as well, but I have to forget about those factors when making a prediction about who is going to get their hand raised at the end of the fight.

Unlike a lot of MMA insiders, I generally don't like making picks. With M-1 I almost never did it. With Bellator I do a lot of preview work, talking about upcoming fights etc. In that capacity a big part of my job is talking about who I think will win. I'm not worried about personally offending anyone, Its just that MMA is an EXTREMELY unpredictable sport. There are always favorites, but even the most mismatched fight can go the other was as the result of a single mistake.

I prefer talking about what each fighter needs to do in order to win and what mistakes they need to avoid. Breaking down the ins and outs of the fight is, to me, a lot more fun than simply saying who I think will win. In MMA just about anyone can win a fight, especially at the higher levels where competitive fights are the norm. Describing the pathways to victory, or defeat, and letting the audience perhaps see them unfold is a fun part of the job.

Even when making picks I try to stay away from the kind of phrases that make it sound as though i have some kind of personal crystal ball in front of me. Too often MMA writers make every fight sound like a blowout from the start, maybe because the hyperboles make for such exciting reading, I don't know. I might pick who I think will win, but I certainly never say that the other fighter has no chance.

Some fighters understand the professional distance required in my job, others do not. Joe Warren and I had a great laugh over the fact that I picked Pitbull to beat him. He said he thought I would have been insane to say otherwise, even his wife understood the pick. After his dominant win over Dan Hornbuckle, Ben Askren said he won in spite of a lot of people "not believing in him". I have no idea if that comment was directed at me, as I , along with most people, picked Hornbuckle to win. His comment does point out a certain double-standard among fighters: they thrive on being the underdog, and yet get pissed when no one thinks they will win. They simply can't have it both ways, you cant fly under the radar and feel disrespected when people favor your opponent.

I loved seeing Warren win, any fan of MMA has to love a performance like the one he put on.

Its certainly a common misconception that I would want my picks to work out in order to seem more knowledgeable, that isn't true at all. I can only speak for myself, but I love an upset. If that upset comes at the expense of my perceived MMA intelligence, then so be it.

I see the same fighters over and over again, and have yet to get into a Shields-Shamrock cycle of animosity. I consider that kind of thing to be extremely unprofessional and hope i never have to deal with it. That doesn't mean I'll back off of any of the comments I have made while doing my job, even when I have been wrong I still said what I firmly believed and that's all that can be asked of anyone. As long s the fighters keep doing their jobs, I'll keep doing mine...