Sports Entertainment: The Rise of Fake Personalities in MMA
There’s been buzz all week around Josh Hokit’s matchup with Curtis Blaydes, and little of it has to do with the fight itself. Hokit has been seen in press conferences and in interviews adopting grandiose characters, most notably a heavily breathing Randy Savage-esque persona. The reaction online, overwhelmingly, has been negative. Most MMA fans who see these over-the-top stunts find them cringeworthy or even sad instead of funny. Plus, Hokit himself seems to agree. After one interview, which he spent most of grunting and screaming, he took his headset off, shrugged, and said, “Sorry, guys.” If the fans don’t like it, and Hokit doesn’t like it, then why perform these stunts at all? The answer is obvious. He’s selling the fight.
When one begins to unpack it, selling the fight is a strange concept. Basketball players don’t have to sell themselves, nor do football players, soccer players, or any other athletes in major sporting organizations. In those leagues, players are paid based on skill and skill alone. It would be ridiculous if Nikola Jokic had to go on TV and start cutting promos like he was gearing up for a match at Wrestlemania because he wanted to get paid more. Such a precedent is unprofessionalism in its highest form.
In a sense, though, it’s unavoidable. A vast majority of MMA fans watch not because of their appreciation for the sport itself, but because they want to see two elite athletes fight one another. Like Boxing, MMA is prizefighting. It does not follow a season schedule, or have teams, or have a singular championship. The organization hosting the fights, in this case the UFC, is incentivized to make individual fights that fans want to see. Conor McGregor was able to raise the popularity and profitability of the company by several degrees of magnitude all on his own, partially due to his abilities in the Octagon, but largely due to his charisma and force of personality. The NBA benefits from big personalities, too, but it isn’t so reliant on them. Hokit’s strange antics are an unfortunate product of this business model, but it’s unlikely that it will change any time soon.
