Is the president of Ultimate Fighting Championship — the same guy who threw around the term “fucking faggot” — now coming around and welcoming gays to the sport?
UFC chief Dana White found himself on the receiving end of some unhappy gay activists after he called out one of his critics as “a pussy and a fucking faggot.” In a YouTube video, of course. So how come the league’s topper is now so open to UFC’s obvious homoeroticism?
“Any guy involved in grappling is the furthest thing from homophobic in the world,” White tells Thaddeus Russell. “I honestly think it would have no impact whatsoever with not only our fighters or our fan base [if there were out gay fighters]. The guys in the UFC, everybody is so cool, it’s great sportsmanship, everybody has respect for each other. I honestly, it wouldn’t be a big deal to me and most of the guys I know in this sport, it wouldn’t be a big deal for them either.”
That’s quite a statement coming from the head of a major athletics league. And it’s hard to tell just how much of White’s “we love the gays!” sentiment is a reality, when members of the league are known for their homophobic outbursts. Heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar told a female fan, after she let him know than her male friend that he was cute, that “I don’t like gays … Write that down in your little notebook. I don’t like gays.”
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It’s not unique to UFC; boxing’s Bernard Hopkins feels similar. And as boxing loses fans to mixed-martial arts sports, they’ve tried painting UFC as nothing more than a bunch of guys trying to screw each other in front of a crowd. (Promoter Bob Arum says MMA is like “guys rolling around like homosexuals on the ground,” notes Russell.)
But aren’t all of these sports — where athletes are muscled, shirtless, and sweating — engulfed in some level of homoerotics? Certainly, and they have been through history. All those Romans wrestling with each other? Naked? It would’ve been a whole different ballgame match if television cameras were there to capture it all.
dontblamemeivotedforhillary
Obviously, any women’s team!
Ted B.
Oh, I’ll admit to lingering on UFC and it’s TV brethren…even WWF (or whatever they call themselves today)…if there’s two hot guys in the ring. And lots of their guys are still-hot with some bulk and muscles while in their late-20’s and 30’s.
I just wish they’d wear bike-shorts instead of those baggies.
Jonathan
Haha I honestly used to jerk off to UFC all the time when I was like 13. That shit’s hot.
Wasn’t there a profile of a gay UFC fighter in the Sunday Times Magazine a year or two ago?
jason
What’s gay about it? Gay refers to a homosexual relationship, not a look. We have to get away from this notion that gay means looks.
*J_C*
shhhh!!! queerty your giving away our secrete love of watching grown sweaty men roll around on a mat late at night,
*J_C*
dang i use to get off at those bowflex commercials with just one guy and his red shorts now 2 and in sometimes shorter Lycra undies, heaven lol
Jerrold
The funny thing is, YES there are out gay fighters, I have read bios on them, and there are gay fighters who stay in the closet who people pay lots of money to watch fight, because that’s how they like it, even if the other fighters know.
How does that work? How can your peers know, but your fanbase not and it matter?
Well, when you choke out your peers, kick and punch the fuck out of them, and generally prove you are better either way, there isn’t much one can say about what you do later. But if your fans (largest base being guys in their 30s who think the word fag is funny, no, seriously, like stop and laugh at it) will stop buying tickets, then you would lose your career, because real fans don’t care about your record (only how short your shorts are).