UFC 88 made me feel ashamed of America
Monday, September 8th, 2008Here’s something I noticed about the crowd at UFC 88: They booed every fighter that wasn’t American or white.
They booed Rousimar Palhares when he entered the cage. He’s Brazilian, and Brazilians are pretty commonplace in the UFC and in MMA in general, so my guess is that they’re not longtime fans. Katt was surmised that they were probably the kind of people that wanted all Brazilians to go back to Mexico. And unsurprisingly, at the main event, they booed Rashad Evans, who’s American, but also black.
When Korean fighter Dong-Hyun Kim walked out, they broke out the “U! S! A! U! S! A!” chant. When he won by split decision, they booed like crazy to take away from his win.
Now, decisions in MMA and pretty much any other combat sport are subjective and always subject to controversy, and I could understand this fight being called either for Kim or his opponent, Matt Brown. Kim easily took the first round. Brown had the second. In the third, Brown threw more strikes and Kim’s takedown attempts were mostly unsuccessful. However, Kim landed a very heavy elbow shot to Brown’s head, the only significant event of the round.

