Since I haven't participated in any of the Joe Rogan related stories of the past couple days, I have reserved the right to put my two cents in. Plus I swear I saw the horse twitch.

While growing up in the 80's & 90's the words Fag and Gay made up 50% of my insulting vocabulary...never was a fan of the word Faggot though; not sure why that is. During that time one of my best friends was gay.  All his close friends knew he was gay even though he would never admit it. Looking back I find it very odd that even though one of my best friends was clearly gay, I never felt that using the word Fag or a derogatory Gay was inappropriate.  I never made the connection that the reason those words were used to hurt was because people didn't want to be labelled as Gay. My friend ended up finally declaring he was gay to his roommate in college...and paid for it with a trip to the hospital. I haven't used the word Fag or Gay in anger since.

I've always found it odd that someone who was truly homophobic would be comfortable watching a sport that often ends up with two sweaty half-naked men rolling around on the floor together. It seems like football or Hockey might be better suited to their prejudices.

One of the reasons I've always liked MMA was because how inclusive it can be. Different countries, different races, different fighting styles all add up to what makes MMA interesting. I would hate for MMA to be perceived as being hostile to 10% of the population.

I hope one day soon someone has the courage to confront the prejudice against homosexuals that have taken root in MMA (or any sport for that matter). I would love for one of the top fighters to declare he was gay...I'm not sure the sport is ready for such an occurrence but I would love it none the less.

I'm not so naive to think that we're only a gay fighter away from harmony, but it has to start somewhere. Baby steps is what we need...for example, a few months back I was stroking it to some cute Asian chick online...only to find out halfway through that she was a Ladyboy. Did I close the webpage in disgust?, No, I finished stroking it. That my friends is called building bridges.

The way I see it is that there are two sides to MMA: Sport & Spectacle.

The Japanese MMA scene seems to lean more towards the Spectacle while the North American scene seems to prefer the Sport side.

Now I will freely admit I love both sides of MMA. The thought of watching BJ Penn destroy Kimbo makes me giddy, but I also feel that there is a time and place for all of life's guilty pleasures and for MMA that is 4:00 am and in Japan.

The rumoured signing of James Toney has my spectacle side all a twitter and my sport side completely disgusted.

I think the only way I'll come to accept James Toney in the UFC is if he's dropped in the deep end and made to sink or swim.

I suspect we will find out how the UFC plans to treat him very soon. With M-1 coming down with a bad case of sandy vagina, perhaps Dana feels he can deliver a death blow by counter programming Strikeforce with a live card on April 17th featuring Toney.

I think people will look back on these past three weeks as being pretty significant to MMA's growth.

The events that have occurred have caused an apparent sudden surge of interest in MMA websites. Unfortunately along with this surge I've noticed an alarming drop off in civil debate. Sherdog, MMA Junkie and Bloody Elbow are three of the biggest Forum sites on the net and they all seem to have been inundated with antagonizing posters.

Granted when you're on Sherdog it's hard to tell if things have gotten worse....Pissing into an ocean of piss and all, but MMA Junkie certainly has gone down hill, so much that I find that I no longer visit very often.

Bloody Elbow is my last refuge.

Now I'm perfectly aware that I have only contributed a handful of times, but I assure you that I have an 8th Degree Blackbelt in Lurking.

Here are some of my thoughts about posting:

1. How you defend your opinion is more important than what your opinion is.

There will always be people that have an opposing position. That's what makes forums work. The key is to try and make them see things from your perspective not make them want to leave and never come back again.

2. Less is always more.

Carpet bombing a thread will only cause people to start skipping your posts. Three dozen bland comments will often mask the one or two gems you've written.

3. This isn't real life...Stalking won't get you laid.

Arguing with the same person across multiple threads is never helpful. A person's opinion depends heavily on context and thus may change depending on the thread.

4. Argue opinions, not points of view.

Telling someone that they only think that way because they are a "Tuf Noob" is pointless. They can't go back in time so they will always have the point of view of a "Tuf Noob". If they hate the UFC they will likely always hate the UFC.

5. Pretend you're married...know when to drop it.

Sometimes a debate will turn into a lost cause and it's best to give up and move on. It's often easy to tell because posters will start to gang together. Once the wagons start to circle it's nearly impossible to change any one's mind.

I'm sure everyone has a couple forum pet peeves...lets hear'em

The Tim Silvia/Ray Mercer debacle has got me thinking about the structure of open contracts.

Using Tim as an example, let's say for discussions sake that his contract was for 3 fights with a compensation of 800G for the championship fight and then 500G for the two other fights.

He fulfilled the 800G fight with a rather disappointing showing and then he took an outside fight on an unsanctioned card in which he was knocked out in 9 seconds by a 48 year old boxer.

Now I have no idea what metrics Affliction were using when they decided Tim was worth the money they decided to pay him, but I imagine his performance with Ray Mercer has them rethinking his marketability. Affliction might be on the hook for a million bucks and they have no way of protecting his drawing power.

Does anyone know if open contracts have performance clauses for fights outside the organization?

I find it very interesting that there hasn't been any serious talk of Vaseline impacting a fight in the past. I've been watching MMA since the early 90's and other than the occasional accusation there has been little to no discussion on the subject. Let's put aside the How's and Why's of the St Pierre situation and just skip to the real problem: Vaseline usage.

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