The Takedown | UFC: Jon Jones and Israel Adesanya’s next level trash-talk now requires they fight and settle this feud
- ‘Bones’ and ‘Stylebender’ have been yammering away on Twitter during void created by Covid-19
- UFC president Dana White needs to get these two into the Octagon as soon as he can, and put an end to the endless social media jabs
One of the most beautiful things about mixed martial arts is the specific concept of trash talk. Now trash talking is nothing new to sports – athletes do it all the time before, during and after games.
But outside boxing, the UFC is arguably the only professional sport league where not only is trash-talking accepted, it is actively encouraged and promoted to help hype the narrative. Fights take on a wildly increased sense of relevance if the fighters genuinely hate each other, and have been verbalising that in the lead-up to the bout.
The second concept around MMA and trash-talking is another beautifully violent part of the sport. Most trash talking in professional sports does not come with serious repercussions, with ice hockey where fighting is legal being one of the exceptions. Many teams and players have rivalries, but rarely does it even get anywhere near say the hatred between someone like Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov, or Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz for you older UFC fans.
Hypothetically speaking, NFL, basketball and baseball players can run their mouths all they want, and the worst they might get is an extra slide tackle, elbow to the face, hit by a pitch, or taunted if they lose a game after talking smack about their opponent.
But the beauty of MMA means trash talking invariably requires a trip to the bank. If you can’t cash that cheque you’ve been writing with your mouth, it is time to pay up. This is what makes the sport so bloody enticing for fans – we get to watch grown men and women lay into each other verbally, and then one night, they collide like asteroids filled with nuclear waste.