Donald Cerrone Isn't Alone in His Homophobia...
...the uncritical MMA beat media is in it with him
Fighting legend Diego Sanchez’s latest coach/guru/physical therapist/healer/massage therapist/manager Joshua Fabia is unqualified and clearly taking advantage of the MMA fighter’s vulnerable state as he leaves a marriage and nears the end of his career. Fabia, who has a long history of peddling nonsense like Systema and other new-age snake oil, has not done Sanchez’s twilighting career any favors, routinely centering his own experience and opinions, and showing aggression towards others without real cause.
At the same time, Sanchez himself is making great points about how the UFC exploits fighters, and how he hasn’t been treated fairly that are all absolutely correct. It is a shame that Sanchez isn’t representing himself and instead all-too often in the past couple years has his charlatan coach speak for him.
People who have been around the pair have, even when trying to be gracious and generous to Fabia, painted a picture of disturbing dynamics between the two, with Fabia pulling strings. Beyond that, the structure itself of Fabia’s all-encompassing role in Sanchez’s career itself reveals the exploitative nature of the relationship.
No one has merely one coach as Sanchez says he has with Fabia, and throughout the history of pro fighting athletes who put religious-like faith in one person to be both coach and manager and similar career and life-controlling positions are routinely taken advantage of. I remember Quinton “Rampage” Jackson telling me years ago that Juanito Ibarra was now not just his coach but also his power of attorney and thinking that no good could come from this.
Indeed, very little subsequently did and Jackson would later say that Ibarra took advantage of him. Coaches who tell fighters they need to be involved in their financial decisions are a problem just as managers who act like they have valuable coaching advice are.
In any case, with Fabia at the helm of his career, Sanchez is now out of a scheduled final career fight with Donald Cerrone and out of the UFC entirely. He’s been cut by the promotion after some strange and ill-informed requests from Fabia of the promotion.
With Sanchez out of the fight and out of the UFC, company man Cerrone, who has been exploited and damaged about just as much as Sanchez has by the organization but is too much of a promotional lackey to speak up about it, gave his thoughts on the situation. Much of what Cerrone recently said about Sanchez was reasonable.
Cerrone said that he believes Fabia is exerting too much control over Sanchez, for example. Then, for good measure, Cerrone threw in homophobic remarks – saying without basis that Fabia and Sanchez are “lovers.”
The implied joke there, of course, is that it is supposedly hilarious and embarrassing for two men to be in a romantic relationship with one another.
Donald Cerrone is simple. He doesn’t stand up for himself to the UFC, his own career, and therefore doesn’t stand up for his own family’s well-being.
He’s told me, face-to-face, in the past that he doesn’t think about the long-term ramifications of his decisions to fight for the promotion whenever it asks him, no matter how injured he is and no matter the notice, for the relative pittance that he gets paid to do it. Additionally, Cerrone has made it clear that he has simple-minded, bigoted ideas when it comes to the larger world as well.
Cerrone has a history of saying homophobic things and supports explicitly homophobic and racist politicians. So, his latest homophobic remarks aren’t a surprise.
Sadly, just about everyone in the MMA media who I saw report on his remarks this week made themselves complicit in Cerrone’s homophobia.
Take a look below at some of the headlines and click through to their full stories. By in large, the headlines simply repeated Cerrone’s homophobic remarks, uncritically, and didn’t bother to call them what they were or provide context to readers that he has a history of saying homophobic things.
If a media outlet re-prints a homophobic statement, in a headline no less, without calling it homophobic, they’re complicit in compounding and spreading the original homophobia. The news isn’t that Sanchez or Fabia are in a romantic relationship because there’s no reason to believe that the coach and fighter actually are.
The news is Cerrone’s comments. Cerrone’s comments are homophobic, so the news is that Donald Cerrone has, once again, said something homophobic.
Any headline covering the remarks that doesn’t point that out in the headline and flesh it out in the body of the story by providing readers the context of Cerrone’s pattern of bigotry is merely exploiting his homophobic remarks for the shock/gossip value. In short, they’re doing bad journalism and are no better than Cerrone himself in the moment he said what he said.
You figure that guys who get sweaty and roll and around with each other would not be so damn afraid of men. Go Figure! It's insecurity. I was one of those idiots at one point.
Then I was taught. I cannot hate someone you don't know. If I did it was fear or ignorance. Elias you have been kicking my ass recently in self reflection. Grateful for it.