Not My Masculinity (Karim Zidan's Version)

Welcome to On The Bleachers! A podcast about the collision between sports culture and pop culture inspired by the love of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey. I'm Zian Romanov and I'm a lifelong pop music fan, and I'm recording this intro solo today because Sarah had a bit of a traveling snafu, and fortunately, and so we weren't able to record together our usual kind of banter intro, talking about all the things that have happened this week. But I did do an interview with Kiddingsie Dan, who is an independent journalist who runs a substat called sports politica. He writes about the intersection between sports and politics, and in particular has written a lot about sort of combat sports, the UFC, and the rise of Donald Trump. So we are a little upset in corner adjacent today, but I think it's a really fascinating conversation. Really useful to kind of understand how Trump positions himself, how he is using sports, how other governments and strong men have used sports in the past, and also why he's not nearly as tough as he wants you to think he is. So I recommend giving it a listen, um, and Sarah and I will be back next week to, you know, engage in all of our usual foolishness. So here's Karin. So I'm here today with Kiddingsie Dan, who is an Egyptian Canadian journalist, short story writer and translator. His work has been featured in outlets such as the New York Times, the Guardian, Foreign Policy, ESPN, and the American Prospect, among others. His reporting on Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadidov was spotlighted in an award-winning HBO real sports documentary in 2017, and he has participated in South by Southwest in the Oslo Freedom Forum, as well as the annual United Nations counterterrorism conference. He currently runs an independent substat called sports politica, and we're very excited to have him joining us today. Thank you for being here, Karin. Oh, it was such a pleasure to be here. So I always like to start kind of at the beginning with, how did you get into combat sports? Like, how did that become part of your life? Were you boxing, turjitsu-ing, were you just watching? I mean, like all kids, or really, at least the majority of kids I tend to think, you get into martial arts at some point, your parents put you in martial arts classes and stuff like that. So that's sort of my first experience with martial arts, was getting to like red belt and take one. And I remember really, really enjoying it at the time, but then we were doing a lot of traveling, and the connects country we moved to didn't really have those. So I ended up just giving it up at the time. And I didn't really think about combat sports very much. I was a big pro wrestling fan. It'd have to be a fan growing up. Like, I mean, the attitude there and all that. That won me over as a kid. That was very much my generation. And then that also fizzled out. But it wasn't until I came to Canada to Toronto, and to basically to study at the University of Toronto, where a bunch of my roommates were really into MMA, and they were really into the UFC. So that was my first introduction. It was around 2010 in Canada. And it took me by storm, honestly. I found it fascinating and quite seen anything like it. Individual sports have always been my thing. I've always been a fan of tennis. I mean, of course, I'm an Egyptian. So football is our national sport. But still, there was something about one-on-one competition that always fascinated me. I am very much an individualistic, want to work on my own type of person and also competitive. So it's just sort of spoke to me. So combat sports and mixed martial arts, boxing, all that sort of made sense. And I've just been down that rabbit hole ever since. And it was also through combat sports that I got my entry into writing. Now, my true love in life has always been writing. I've always wanted to write novels and fiction stories. I've been doing it since I was a kid. And I thought to myself, well, if I want to get into this industry, I studied sports. I actually, I had studied political science and economics. And I thought to myself, well, that's not your easiest entry into journalism. I didn't have the network or anything. So I decided, all right, you know what? I'm really into this MMA thing right now. Let's start a blog and see where it takes us. This was, like I said, 2010, 2011. This sort of digital age was upon us where everybody was starting something. And Twitter was a big thing. And social media all felt like a whole brave new world. Little do we know what it would turn out to be. But at the time, sort of, we were all-- at least I was very excited about it. And naive and gullible, all in one. But that was my entry into the sport. And I ran this little blog for a few years. I made a lot of friends, got a little bit of a reputation, eventually got hired to my first actual job straight out of university, which was at Bloody Elbow. This sort of rebel combat sports website that was known for its sort of dogget investigative reporting. And sort of sticking it to the UFC, the ultimate fighting championship whenever possible. So that's sort of where I came up. But what was the turning point for me? What led me down the career path and the niche that I currently have, covering sort of combat sports and politics, was in my first year with Bloody Elbow. I decided I wanted to do a story about a Russian mixed martial arts organization. The oldest one, to rival the UFC, almost. It was also started in the '90s. It's called M1 Global. And it was run by this Russian oligarch, low level oligarch called Vadim Finkelstein. Now, I wanted to interview him. So I got on the phone with him. And he doesn't really speak any English. So there was an interpreter there. And midway through this interview, he stops me. And he goes to the end of the interpreter having this conversation in Russian. Eventually, she turns to me and says, "So Vadim really likes your voice. Would you be willing to do commentary for us in Russia for some of these events?" Now, Zan, I was 22 years old, but I know. So, of course, I was going to say no to free trips to Russia. A whole different world to me. I knew nothing about Russia except what you see in the movies and all the different stereotypes. And between 2014 and 2017, I was making regular trips. It seemed to St. Petersburg, to Moscow. All around Russia, to places that most people don't go. So I went to Sochi after the Olympics. We actually stayed in the Olympic-- the athletes village, actually, at the time, as well. I've been to Ornberg, and I went all around the neighboring countries as well, to Azerbaijan, to Georgia. It was quite an experience. And it was through that that I got my introduction to sort of the dark underbelly of combat sports. It's involvement with oligarchs and gangsters. Actual mofiosos were involved. I mean, I was drinking with XKGB officer, spending time around oligarchs. At one point, I was around a bunch of fighters who were trained with a UFC fighter who went on to become a alleged hitman in Russia. So just you can imagine the type of conversations we were having, and it blew my mind. Because I was just watching UFC as a teenager and thinking, oh, this is just a regular sport. But in the back of my mind, I'm realizing, OK, MMA is being embraced by all these really nefarious entities that are exploiting the sport for a variety of reasons. And that sort of became a running theme of my reporting. And I really ended up being spotlighted immediately when I started covering Chechen Dictator, Ramzan Kediro. So the year I got to Russia was the same year this Chechen Dictator decided he wanted to start his own fight club. And through this fight club, which was basically, he was paying a bunch of Chechens a stipend to come and train this massive facility he had built. And then he started his own MMA promotion. And he started sending fighters to compete in the UFC. Now, people didn't take the story too seriously. They just saw this guy as an eccentric warlord who happened to be interested in MMA. Wouldn't be the first, as I heard a lot of times from people at the time. But what made the story really important was it was only a couple of years later in 2017 or so when Ramzan Kedirov actually started committing a pogrom in Russia, basically purging Chechnya's LGBTQ+ population. Like, it was horrific. I mean, I had a bunch of sources at the time that were relaying some really awful stories. And I was writing those stories. And I was writing about this connection. And that drew a lot of attention to me, both in a good way in terms of the journalism I was producing. But at the same time, it's when I started receiving death threats. And it was told in no uncertain terms by, you know, the cohorts of people I was around in Russia that I was no longer welcome there. And I could not be kept safe anymore whenever I came to Russia. So I stopped going to Russia. But I continued to do this type of reporting. And it was specifically the Kedirov story that led to sort of legitimize the type of work I do. HBO picked it up and did a documentary on it that I was involved in that won some awards. I ended up joining the Guardian and working for them as a columnist doing a lot of this type of reporting primarily for them. So yeah, that's how I got into this. Combat sports has taken me down a journey that you would have asked me about 10 years ago to told you it was impossible. But here we are. Right, you did not get into it expecting to be drinking with future warlords. And I mean, the phrase like you can't be kept safe is that's ominous in a way that not, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you just can. Some of the stories are too absurd. That even right now, at the time, there was one MMA event in Russia. I'll say the story very quick. This is a little anecdote here. I love stories. I had arrived at this event and usually I'm only doing the commentary for the main cards. I was sort of walking around the ring and drawing myself in. I let's just say I look different in Russia. I mean, I've got long hair tied in a ponytail. I'm a little darker skinned. I'm tall. I'm very noticeable, let's say. So at one point, I get this guy in a suit and he's surrounded by bodyguards and he comes up to me and he looks at me. He's like, Muslim, Muslim, Muslim. I guess he's pointing at me. He thinks I look Arab. I look Muslim. He's asking me, are you Muslim? And I think I'm thinking to myself, okay, I could explain to him I'm culture Muslim. Yes, I come from a Muslim country. Or I could just nod my head and not along and see what happens. There's a lot of intimidating bodyguards here. So I nod my head and immediately this guy's fascinated. He starts blurting things out in Russian that I do not understand. But eventually, he leads me by the arm to sit by next to him in the front row. And I end up finding out from one of the interpreters or bodies. guards of people next to him that this is the president of Ingushetia which is the neighboring Republic to Chechnya. He is a Muslim and he's fascinated by the fact that this MMA promotion has a Muslim working for them and wanted me to sit basically and enjoy some of the fights with him. So this last, this would be fine later on at the time he was just the president of Ingushetia. Now he serves as the deputy defense minister in Russia. So one of the people responsible for Russia's war on Ukraine. So you see what starts as a funny anecdote. There's always like a little dark element to it and that seems to be the undercurrent of my entire journey so far. Yeah exactly and I think that that's you know really ties into one of the big reasons I wanted to have you on is because I listened to you and I'd be loved as maybe sort of the wrong word was was horrified by your podcast in the red corner about how MMA helped Donald Trump you know become who he is and get elected and now as we know re-elected it was also sort of hard listen I listened to it post-election and you're like recording it in the run up to the 2024 election being like I hope that exactly what's about to happen is gonna happen but that you can listen to it and there's this sense of what you're like yeah yeah yeah of course Trump is into you know the WWE and MMA like you know performative big strong man the same way that you think is reality do you want to think that his reality TV stuff is silly and then all of a sudden reality TV and MMA and WWE are I mean quite literally you know the Secretary of Education in the country and you know who knows do you think Dana White wants a cabinet position? I okay so I've had this actually I've had this conversation with a few people right now who are absolutely convinced and these are significant people in the industry who are convinced Dana White wants a position in politics somehow whether he wants to run for president or everybody has a different interpretation of what he wants to do personally I don't agree again this is just my opinion I think Dana White loves power he is power hungry and he loves being associated with power but I don't think this is a person who people love to say that he's the person who built the UFC and in many ways he was absolutely fundamental to the UFC this brash persona that the UFC developed it's personified in Dana White himself and that's the branding through and through but apart from that he's I like to think of the metaphor he's like a he's like the you know a kid on a bicycle but just with with the kitty wheels still on he was never he's never been he's never been led to run an industry or an organization on his own entirely he always had for instance his business partners Lorenzo and Frank Fatita who were really the behind the scenes like bosses of the organization while Dana White ran his mouth yelled at journalists and yelled at fighters et cetera and now the organization is run by R.A. Emmanuel is extraordinarily influential figure in Hollywood and beyond in the world of business Dana White's never truly the person in charge and I think he understands where he is most beneficial and most powerful truly not even an insult to him by the way I think he truly understands what he's good at and he wants to continue to do that and to him having this incredible friendship with Donald Trump has not only sort of reinvigorated his brand but has offered him a whole new wealth of opportunities including getting placed on the board of meta just because Mark Zuckerberg wanted to ingratiate himself to Donald Trump so it's just Dana White understands that he's now it's closely tied to one of the most powerful people on the planet I think that's good enough for him yeah you know and smart man I'm like no one lost long in the administration so you know I would stay right where I am if I was him I don't want to spoil too much of the podcast but you do tell the story of Donald Trump and the UFC and sort of how he and Dana White became friends could you just give us kind of a brief like look at that and also actually could you talk a little bit about what the UFC is because I I will say I've sort of ambiently absorbed it like I box like little boxing gym so you know I've seen many at UFC fight but I didn't I didn't understand the orange I was like oh it really is just like it started out who literally who's the best fighter and now has evolved in sort of its own style of fighting okay so the UFC is a started in 1993 as this renegade outlaw organization that literally went by the motto there are no rules and it was attempting to appeal to young men with this sort of very in your face style of violence it was no longer trying to present this demeanor of discipline and self-control that came with martial arts or this very calm nature with what that we associate with things like martial arts this was the exact opposite this was sort of let's put all these people together and let's have them fight to the death and see what the hell happens right those coming from this very different sort of darker more bloodthirsty place I'd say that's why we came to be referred to as a blood sport in many ways and that's not what martial arts are so there's a key distinction from the get go between martial arts the traditional disciplines and mix martial arts and the UFC comes to embody this new modern interpretation of fighting and in many ways it was a massive success the very first event was supposed to be all right we're going to bring all these people from these different martial arts traditions and see which one is actually dominant it comes from this long-standing debate that people used to have that my martial art is better than you are as mine is the one that's actually going to win in a fight well the UFC's whole basis the whole concept of the organization was all right we're going to prove now which one's the best and what was really interesting and what you couldn't script that night in a very first event UFC one is that the scrawny Brazilian guy wearing a jujitsu key would end up beating everybody out people much bigger than him by just choking the mountain with moves that you know most Americans had never ever seen before a sport that was practiced primarily in Japan and Brazil and this really took the world by storm at the time like like Hoist Gracie was a sensation and the UFC itself sort of captured this very interesting moment in the transition of martial arts and combat sports into mixed martial arts but it didn't take long for politicians in the United States to turn against it and it was really the UFC's own presentation is this renegade no rules organization and then when I say no rules I mean the only two rules that existed in the organization were no eye gouging and no fish hooking so that's it there were no even time limits the original and the original was there were no time limits there were no rounds there were no weight classes everything we understand of from boxing roll of the combat sports that we see professionally now price fighting that did not exist in the UFC of the time so of course this while while this is what helped the UFC gain that attention and that notoriety which brought in the young males that it wanted to begin with it also of course brought attention from people like Senator John McCain who infamously referred to the UFC as human cock fighting and really went on a massive campaign to get the sport banned across the United States and at one time it really was banned and I'm what 38 states across across the country the UFC wasn't even able to air its events on paper view porn was on paper view but the UFC was not so it really spoke to sort of this moment where it was a step too far it really was apparently and I'm going to highlight something now because we're going to come back to this later and I want I want your audience to see the difference here in 1996 it was the Republicans led by John McCain who were trying to ban the UFC later on we're going to talk about what the Republicans are now actually doing with the UFC but just to show you what it was like what 30 some 31 years ago they were trying to ban the UFC they saw it as something that went against their traditional values the UFC now actually goes on to represent traditional values in some weird irony but I digress so to tell you how how Donald Trump came into the picture so around 2001 the UFC is still this ostracized company it's relegated to small venues places like Mississippi Alabama that's it's really John McCain's job he had managed to do it human cock fighting is what the UFC was stuck with that label at that time the UFC owners decided okay we have no money we need to sell Dana White enter Dana White who now is the UFC CEO but at the time was a boxer-sized instructor who had transitioned to become a MMA manager for two of the UFC's biggest stars at the time Chuck LaDelle and Tito Ortiz so while he was at one of these events with Tito he hears that the UFC's in trouble and needs to sell so he goes to his old high school buddies these two casino tycoons that it's good to have friends like that I guess Frank and Lorenzo for Tita and convinces them to buy the UFC for $2 million they agree they buy the UFC in the year 2000 now the UFC was already undergoing this process of becoming a regulated sport they were running towards regulation at this point they started instituting weight classes they changed all that so the UFC that Dana White got was the newly polished UFC and their job was to make sure the world understood that so their very first event under that Zufa banner which is what they renamed the organization that owns the UFC was an event at the Trump Taj Mahal it was Donald Trump who took that chance on the UFC when it was still an ostracized company and said hey you come to Atlantic City and I'll host you for three consecutive events or three events in the span of four for events something along those lines and it was two events in the Dana White era that they hosted and those events really went a long way in helping the UFC gain that foothold and various other states soon they had started you know hosting larger scale events and they ended up taking that home base of Las Vegas which they still have to this day when the UFC did eventually return to Atlantic City in 2005 I recall that Dana actually credited Trump as that businessman who gave the UFC their first shot. He literally referred to it as their first shot. Now, this is myth-making at its finest. I don't think Donald Trump saved the UFC in any way, but he happened to be there at a very pivotal moment, and that ends up becoming part of the myth of the Trump UFC Alliance moving forward. So 15 years removed from that Atlantic City event, Dana White starts repaying this favor from Donald Trump. During the 2016 Republican National Convention, White actually spoke on Trump's behalf, right, who he was then running, obviously for, for the presidency. So I remember him saying something along the lines of, "He's a fighter and I know he'll fight for his country." So you really see that symbolism right there. You've got the most famous fight promoter in the world coming out on the stage at the Republican National Convention and telling the audience that this is a fighter. Listen, I know the fight game, I've dealt with fighters for years. This man right here, he's a fighter and he's been a fight for you and fight for you for your country. Now, that symbolism, that's so essential because that's part of this strong men appeal that Donald Trump has always been after, and he's never really managed to achieve it on his own and on his own merits. He's needed things such as, you know, cheating in golf, bullying Vince McMahon at WrestleMania, and things along those lines, right? I mean, if you want to present yourself as a strong man, is there any better way than having a hype man like Dana Whites or fighters fresh from a knockout knocking somebody clean out in the most violent fashion, you know, giving Donald Trump a hug and saying, "This man, this is my president, this is my leader, he's a strong man." I mean, Donald Trump couldn't pay for this kind of PR. So it's worked out incredibly for him, I think, over time. Yeah, absolutely, and I love if you could talk a little bit more about that connection, because as you're saying, like, that kind of Republican notion of masculinity has transitioned from John McCain, the self-disciplined soldier who endured torture and, you know, all of this to the Trump, Dana Whites, you know, kicking, spitting, blood, and like, why it is that, as you say often, on the podcast, right, that political strongmen are so attracted to these literal strongmen. Oh, you're asking a very complex question. I'm going to try my very best to try and succinctly answer this one. Sorry, yeah, that's a big one. It is a big one, because there's so many overlapping and different issues that sort of come together in this giant Venn diagram at the end. But let's take it from the first question with regards to Donald Trump specifically, and what they gain out of this. Now, I think by embracing the UFC's ethos in general, Trump is really able to blur the lines between politics and spectacle. That's what he's good at, right? He is not your traditional politician. So what he does, and through that, is he ends up reshaping American culture in very profound ways. And this is something that I've been saying for years, but the ramifications continue to shift in ways that I couldn't have even predicted. I never thought the relationship would get this deep, and they would be this entrenched, and it would be this relevant in day-to-day political life. So to me, it always felt like a grander sort of philosophical discussion about the state of manhood, etc. Now we're actually seeing it in action in day-to-day politics. And that, I think, is extremely dangerous. But Trump himself has now embraced this idea, and his persona, really, of the fighter, this unrelenting warrior against the, what do they refer to it? The decadent liberal establishment. And right, and the close. It's just so funny, because like, not to body shame anyone, but if you've seen Donald Trump, like, I just don't think that man could take a punch. Of course he couldn't, right? But think about this. People still thought he could when they put him against Joe Biden. That was one of the discussions at the time in the lead-up to the 2020 campaign, if I'm not mistaken, was Donald Trump kept saying I could knock him out. I could not sleepy Joe out. And people believe they're good, because Biden's a little older, etc. And yeah, I mean, that's the only person basically that the world could see, and they hung on to that one, right? And that's okay. Trump, he will give you that one. Trump, you can knock him out. And Republicans ran with it, right? But I believe very firm that his ties to the UFC help bolster this image, right? You see it now as he walks into a UFC event, and just the spectacle of it, right? This absolutely staged propaganda show at this point where he's coming out to a theme song, right? Usually kids rock kid rocks American badass, by the way. And you know, he comes out with his entourage, and his entourage now is actually his cabinet. So he's coming out with this full cabinet to Elon Musk at his side. It's a magas celebration, and it's the only place where he can reliably get cheered, guaranteed. I mean, in midst the trade war crisis that we're seeing right now, and his sort of approval ratings plummeting in a variety of ways, and people legitimately being concerned with how he's handling the economics of the country, let alone every other issue mind you, which was expected at least. He went to a UFC event just a few weeks ago in Miami, and the crowd, of course, reliably cheered for him. It's Florida. They actually even standing ovation, the whole thing lasted five minutes with the entrance. It was a, it was yeah, proper propaganda, absolutely. And I'll never forget this afterwards on Air Force One, he starts the the gaggle with the with the reporters by saying, did you hear that? Did you hear those that sharing that says we're doing a good job? So he's even using that as sort of a barometer. And even he doesn't have to believe it himself. He just has to convince you or not even you. He has to convince his cult. That's the case, and then then there you are. The game continues, right? So he's using both MMA, but he's also reliably using sort of old world pro wrestling cafe tactics to really continue this very incredible facade. I say incredible, but I don't mean it in a good way. I just it just fascinates me, fascinates me how he's able to pull off such a wide-scale global, you know, ploy of this level using these these spectacle sports. So moving on to the bigger question here, which is why does MMA really appeal to these strong men like this? There is there's context to that, and I think it depends on the politics of the country as well. Brazil, yeah, you're Bolsonaro had a lot of support from the combat sports community, but it wasn't just MMA. It was actually jujitsu as well. But and people would say, well, why? Why would you think that? It's like why jujitsu the sport that's supposed to be rooted in tradition and discipline? Well, the Gracie jujitsu that is what's popularized now around the world, the Gracies, the founder of the Gracie family, not Gracie jujitsu, was a homophobic bigoted fascist. But I'm not even exaggerating any of those statements. It is all three of those, and he was a fascist, and he absolutely believed it. I believe in. He was a fascist, and he jujitsu from the very beginning unfortunately has its roots in fascism, and again has become one of those sports where conspiracy theories, radicalization sort of seeped into its culture, and became one of those sports co-opted by toxic machoism and masculinist sort of tenants that I still to this day can fully understand. To me, I view combat sports far more from an anti-fascist sense. I see its roots of resistance making more sense like that, then I see this idea of, you know, the victimized man reclaiming his manhood. It's a concept that simply I cannot relate to. I just don't understand it on that level. I try to understand it from a distance. I try to make sense of it through the work I do, but to me, I view it from an anti-fascist lens, and gyms around the world do as well. There's plenty of anti-fascist gyms in places like Greece and the United Kingdom even with strong roots, some of them are women run gyms as well, which is fantastic, but you've got this extraordinary focal minority, these fan bases in this atmosphere, and that's where they come into this. They've embraced, and by the way, they don't embrace martial arts, as I said, which is why I distinguished them in the beginning, martial arts and MMA. They're embracing very specifically the UFC. They don't even care about the whole MMA sport. The UFC, they understand as a brand that is sort of an antidote to woke liberal sports, like the NBA and the NFL. Don't get me started about how it ridiculous, it is to even call those woke sports, but it simply doesn't make sense to me, but again, I can't make this logically make sense. But they do see the UFC as the counter-cultural antidote to all the something that embraces their conservative ethos, and therefore they should embrace it as well. It reflects their personality. They wear it like a badge. I watch the UFC, and then that in itself can unfortunately now come off as a dog whistle. There's plenty of non-maga UFC fans and MMA fans, but you don't hear from them because a lot of them are now extremely ashamed. These emails all the time for people saying, "Hey, what's happened to our sport?" In many ways, mixed martial arts has been exploited, has been weaponized, and has been used to radicalize, disenfranchise, and disaffected young men in a variety of different ways. And the ones who weren't radicalized by it, the ones who already found this sort of path of new masculinity as they're referring to it, have just taken the UFC on anyway. And it's really, really upsetting, but I do believe very firmly that if you love something, if you care for something, you're not giving it up, I refuse to see territory to fascist. I'm just not interested in doing it. That's the reason I haven't left Twitter because to. me I'd rather troll them than leave anyway but like somebody's got to do it. That's just me and I understand the people who don't want to. Yeah I want to talk a little bit about those fans that you were just saying you know you get emails from saying like I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm watching UFC like do you think that that will ever actually manage to hurt their business model or is there are there just too many people who love what they're doing or don't care what they're doing? That's a great question by the way. Something I've been thinking about a lot recently and unfortunately I think the answer is no but it's not no because the reason you might be thinking of let me tell you so it in my opinion the UFC at this at this moment owned by TKO this this sort of co-owned UFC WWE entity that they created as part of our Emmanuel's business empire now or sports empire I think their whole brand right now sure they're appealing to the conservative and they're absolutely milking it for all its worth but they're also value extracting everything they can milking the entire product for what it's worth. This applies to both the WWE and the UFC. In my opinion I think it's a matter of years now a couple of years before they choose to sell the organization. The WWE I believe sells to Saudi Arabia and I'm starting to really believe there was a time where I thought it would be the United Arab Emirates that would take the UFC and I think they're going to be in the running here but I also think I think just Saudi Arabia buys TKO lock stock and barrel to both entities so that is actually why I say no I don't think the leadership currently in charge is ever going to suffer from this because some online Dana White's already checked out from the UFC. Ari Emmanuel has no legitimate love for the organization he's just met the UFC kept the rest of his endeavor empire alive during COVID because was the only thing that could run so Ari Emmanuel understands how valuable it is but like any businessman he'll sell when it's the right time to sell and if the Saudis come calling which I know they are that's that's going to be too hard to resist one day especially when they understand the tide might turn against them we don't know how the next few years shape out if it turns that Donald Trump first by some miracle is remembered as this great president will the UFC can ride this wave and say look at us we're we're attached to the right person in history that's not necessarily where I think this is going based on the first three months of the of the presidency but even if they see this turn the tide turn against them well they've already created a parallel economy whereby the vast majority of the fan base that they appreciate anyways conservative and it's part of this game that's being played all the sponsors that they have you say well what about the sponsors they're now replacing their standard sponsors with conservative equivalents and when I say that I mean you've gone from whatever brand of razors standard ones they were using before Gillette let's let's call a Gillette they switched that out for some conservative one owned by Ven Shapiro the same thing has happened with the coffee brand they're using black rifle coffee if I'm not mistaken which is a super mega coated as well so they've created this bubble for themselves and I don't know what it's going to take for that bubble to burst and if it burst the UFC just sells and voila they all come out squeaky clean they're able to essentially launder their reputation and their money and I also am I remembering right did you write about this that Dana White is also thinking about starting he wants to start like a boxing equivalent of UFC that he's like I want to kind of reshape boxing you know and make it exciting and sexy again the way that I did for for martial arts the bunch of the bunch of Saudi money speaking of sports washing I actually did not that wasn't was not the one who wrote about this it was actually a colleague of mine that had done stories with before the New York Times Tart Punja who actually broke that story initially and then it was reported out by a bunch of other outlets I actually haven't had a chance to write an essay approaching this topic yet but I'll tell you how I feel about it I mean of course Dana White's been looking for an in in boxing for years now they attempted to start zoo for boxing a few years ago but realized they weren't going to be able to exploit boxes the same way they were exploiting MMA fighters the UFC rose to become this powerful monopoly doing two things eating its competition especially when organizations like pride in Japan died once they started merging those powerhouses and taking those stars that continue to build that UFC's brand but the magic ingredient here was exploiting the fighters making sure that the revenue split with the fighters was abysmally low where it is in the 40s and 50s in the vast majority of mainstream sports the UFC revenue share up until a few years ago I can't tell you what it is in 2025 or 2024 was around 16 to 18 percent of their revenue despite having record breaking revenue years it never goes up so that just tells you what the fighters are making there's no fighters association there's no union protecting them there's no regulations or laws even really protecting them right the UFC actually finally settled its anti-trust lawsuit with the fighters that was filed 10 years ago this year but they settled for what three hundred and sixty million dollars for one of the suits and I can't remember exactly for how much for the other something long those lines but they've basically gotten away with exploiting the fighters and now they continue to operate this monopoly what made them reverse course and decide okay we might have an in in this boxing thing is when Turkey shith and Saudi Arabia of course came calling and said hey we will fund this thing and we want you with the face and running it and let's see if we can reshape boxing Turkey share and Saudi Arabia have really people have talked a lot about the various different sports they've talked a lot about Saudi Arabia buying new castle united for instance they've talked a lot about live golf and the golf venture and trying to merge with the pj tour actually hostile takeover of the pj tour let's be real they're purchasing purchasing sort of getting to host the 2034 world cup these are the major sort of achievements of Saudi sports strategy but I think the really understated one the one that has really paid off for them has been boxing because boxing was a sport that was a listless at this point funny enough had the opposite problem with the UFC the fight the you know the the managers and the fighters had too much power almost and when I say too much power it's too much power in the eyes of some I like the fact that they were getting paid but truth be told we were in a generation where we weren't seeing the best fights happening and that was because you know managers couldn't come to agreements the fights just kept fizzling out things like that Eagles got involved then Turkey shith showed up you know and he is the let's call him one of bin Salman's henchmen and you know one of his loyal soldiers and this is a person who's now in charge of the general entertainment authority so these their entertainment are in Saudi Arabia he's the person who started bringing the WWE to Saudi Arabia and still shows up at their events regularly boxing has become his big success though because in a matter of years he just threw money at the biggest fighters saying hey what's he gonna take for you to fight this guy what's he gonna take for you to fight this guy just threw money at them and to the point that none of these fighters could say no and suddenly boxing fans who've been hungry and itching for a good fight are seeing an embarrassment of riches in front of them and that was exactly what it takes to win people to your side right it's the same as when you buy a football club like Newcastle United and you have this loyal fan base that is dying to see their team do well loves their team so much and then suddenly you help bring that to make that a reality well those now suddenly you have a bunch of loyal supporters as well so Turkey shitheaded that in football and now he's doing that in boxing so to him okay I have now secured the biggest fights in boxing I'm seen as one of the most influential if not the most influential figure in boxing how do I control the entire sport and to him he views using the Dana White model of exploitation and control of the amateur ranks which is what they're trying to do here as the stepping stone to really taking over boxing entirely so that's what's trying to happen this is a hostile takeover of an entire sport Saudi style exactly like sports washing and and the ways in which you know various countries but Saudi Arabia in particular are using sports and entertainment to sort of make themselves look attractive and fun is as a topic that we don't have time to get into sadly today the people can subscribe to your substock sports politica if they want to read more about all of that and the last thing I really wanted you to talk about was like you mentioned earlier you know you're feeling that you don't want to see ground to fascist and you're feeling that there is something in martial arts still you know that's worthwhile and and even is anti-fascist in its origins so I love if you could talk a little bit about the sort of left wing fight clubs that are popping up we've been talking about like the media spectacle of combat sports there are also these so-called active clubs among right wing folks right where they are learning to like go out in the streets and physically fight people and prepare for the coming race war or whatever but there are also people in the left right who are who are reclaiming this and who are sort of like they're you know we are going to make this in our image and and do this for our own reasons and not see that territory so I love if we could end on on that note so it's been a while since I've had I've had the opportunity there was a point when during my time of bloody elbow especially really as Donald Trump's rise was just as we were leading up to the 2020 election I remember I was just really depleted at that point thinking I cannot believe the sheer influence mixed martial arts is having on the election this was at a point where UFC fighters were out hosting I mean Jorge Maspedal who was one of the biggest fighters at the time was hosting a fighters against socialism bus tour with Donald Trump Jr like they were Really? involved in the election. Mind you, they're also involved in 2024 election, but this was at a time where I'm like, okay, I need to find some alternative here, some other way to tell this story. It can just be everything mixed martial arts is. And that's when I really started going out and finding some of these gyms. And what I'm trying to do right now actually is get in touch with a lot of these gym owners that I spoke to four or five, six years ago and see where they are now, see what's changed, see what they're doing at this point. I'll never forget one of the most colorful characters that I encountered was a Greek man Elias Lampur. And he was running, he ran a anti-fascist fight club right out of the, out of Greece. And his just his whole history of just activism in Gaza, activism here and activism there. He was so involved and so passionate and his ideas, I know you absolutely should be punching the Nazi. I spoke to him at a point where Greece was dealing with its own rise of new Nazis in the form of an actual political party called Golden Dawn. And they were a horrific party. They've lost a lot of appeal recently, which is fantastic. But Greece went through what Europe is going through now a few years earlier with its economic crisis, et cetera. In times of crisis, this is what happens unfortunately. This type of desperation leads us towards fascism. It rarely leads us towards democracy, unfortunately. So that's Golden Dawn's rise. And Elias was immediately thinking, well, I need to make sure I'm training people to prepare for this because the Golden Dawn was starting its own fight clubs and trying to basically send thugs into the street to intimidate protesters. So he said, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is nonsense. And he was looking at the videos of them and he's like, these are people don't know how to fight. Let me show you how to fight. And he take all these, you know, young anti-fascists, have them study, talk to them. And he was not even like he was attempting to radicalize them in any way here. He was just saying them, hey, this is what we're facing here in Greece. Do you want to be scared or do you want a solution? And he wasn't even telling them, all right, we're going to go out and groups and go find these people. It's just but if you're ever in this situation, if you ever find them at your protest, you now know what to do. And I was honestly so impressed with that. There's a lot of people who are going to be like, oh, well, why are you promoting violence? It's not what I'm doing. It's not that's not what this is about. This is an awareness in the fact that, you know, self-defense is just that self-defense. It's not about aggressively bullying or targeting people. It's a self-defense to be used when needed. Resistance is that self-defense as well. Those two go hand in hand as far as I'm concerned. When you have, when you're staring down fascism, when you're staring down the rise of authoritarian states around the world, and let's take it from somebody who has grown up in authoritarianism. When I was younger, it wasn't in combat sports that we presented this resistance, but it's a concept that's so strong for me because of our national sport football. I grew up around a ultra-s group in the world of football. So you can call them hooligans if you want, but in Egypt, they were revolutionaries. But they didn't know that yet. It was 2007, still a few years away from the 2011 Arab Spring. But in 2007, when the ultra-sahlewi, the ultra-sahlewi belonging to my favorite club, Al-Ahli in Egypt, was formed. I had cousins who were members at the time, and I would be taken along to these events when I was 14 years old, too young to be a proper member, but still allowed there because it was attached to other members. And I'd go to matches with them, and I'd sit there in the stands as they're chanting, and they weren't chanting anything. Racists were bigoted. They were chanting at the government because they knew that they had no future whatsoever in Egypt, and it was the government's fault. The government was abusing them, the government was taking away their future, their opportunities, all sorts of things. And they were chanting directly, I'd say, the police chief would be patrolling down on the field, etc. So eventually they'd come up and start attacking the crowd with batons. And that's when I started seeing these regular kids, just a couple of years older than me, getting attacked by the police like they were terrorists or something like that, and they were treated as though they were terrorists. To this day, the name of the ultra-zehle we is dirt to a lot of people, but it was those experiences with the cops that prepared them for the uprising in Egypt. When it came time to it, when there were millions of protesters in the streets of downtown Cairo, and they had no idea how to handle things like tear gas and police strategies on the streets and in small alleyways and we're not to be cornered, it was the ultra's that knew what to do and started leading people out of those places. They saved lives then, and they helped push the revolution forward. To their own demise, unfortunately, the story that does not end well, but it is still a story of resistance. And this is how you resist, and combat sports plays a role in that as far as I'm concerned. So we can either give this up and call it a MAGA show, and I'm not even saying let's redeem the UFC. I'm just saying that there is a world beyond the UFC and what that's become. There is still mixed martial arts, and there are still martial arts, and there's so much good that can come from martial arts in and of itself. I love that so much, and that's very much been my experience, like getting into boxing, sort of by accident, friends of my bridge, I was like, yeah, I'll go. But I always say I've learned more about consent, like I've understood more about consent in the ring than almost anywhere else in my life, right? About what it means to look someone in the eye and be like in this space for this amount of time, we are going to agree to push each other, and then we are also going to agree that that stops at a certain point. You know, if there's so much more there, I think then then a lot of the like loudest boosters of these sports want to talk about. So I always, I love to hear people talking about the sort of more interesting revolutionary possibilities. Listen, you make a great point here because I think I think we have to stress that the idea that martial arts and mixed martial arts belongs to these mageheads and to people like Andrew Tate, I say it's nonsense primarily because most of these people are utter cowards, and their bullies in the same way you handle bullies in high school, one punch in the face and they cry, and they turn around and they go in complain and they whine and they play victim, because that's what the right, this particular type of right, the far right, the alt right, whatever you want to call it, that's what the really good at is being the victim. And I'm sorry, that's not how you play mixed martial arts, it's not how you play martial arts, you can't be the victim, that's not how it works. I don't think they, people like Andrew Tate, there's a reason he's not a kick boxer now, people like all while he's a kick boxer, that's why he's a sociologist, no, he was a shit kick boxer, he couldn't handle it, there are videos of him being knocked out, he was useless at chess, you know, which is what his parents did, he was useless at kick boxing, what he was really good at was trafficking and raping women, like there's a distinction here, this is not a person who you celebrate for his fighting prowess, this is a coward who could only apply that to women who were weaker than him, that he had to manipulate. So this applies across the board, you think Donald Trump knows how to fight, no, but he most certainly knows how to abuse women as well, right, Tucker Carlson, that's a fighter, right, that he doesn't know how to pick the right shoes, I mean, I can go on and on about the, like how little I respect these people, these do not represent masculinity as far as I'm concerned, their interpretation of the UFC does not represent masculinity, they know why he was with his vulgarities and his attitude and his whatever fitness regime he's getting from some fucking idiot guru, now that's not masculinity either, I'm sorry, so yeah. Yeah, well, and I think that's exactly also why it's worth paying attention to this stuff is because if you're just from the outside, it's easy to be like, oh, they're fighters, they're all fighters, right, and then you learn a little bit about combat sports, and you're like not really, actually, like I don't have to be as afraid of these people as they want me to be, right, they are very good at spectacle and at promotions, what they're not good at is actually being strong in any way, that matter, exactly. So listeners, if you like this or interested in hearing more sports politica at substack, it's politica with a K, we'll have a link in our show notes and is there anything else like you're working on or excited about before I let you go that people should be looking forward to? Ooh, I almost have an announcement, but I cannot, I cannot legally say anything just yet, but I'm really hoping there will be a big announcement soon very much in the vein of what we've been discussing today's end. So it's almost like this is the precursor to this, this big sort of, let's call it a project for now, but that's the main thing I have to improve. Yeah, it looks called the project for now, and maybe we'll, maybe I'll be back one day, we can discuss that in more detail. Otherwise, my partner and I, who did be in the red corner series, Ellie Blire, he's really actually the mastermind behind the podcast. It was his idea, and he really pushed me to do this. He's like, listen, we have the whole thing here, we can turn this into a script, I'll sit with you, I'll direct you, I haven't done anything like this before, and it was really his doing. So if you enjoyed it, that, I mean, all thanks do go to Ellie and Andy, and I just happen to be there and talking. But we're hoping to do a bunch more episodes in due time, but we haven't, we haven't quite planned it out yet, but clearly it could not, the story could not end where we ended it, so we're hoping to pick that up again. Yes, all right, well, thank you, Kadeem, for coming, for talking to us through a sandstorm, and across many oceans. Hopefully we'll have you back on soon. Oh, it was such a pleasure, and thank you so much for having me. [Music] Okay, thanks again to Kiting for coming on and taking the time to chat with us. As I mentioned at the end, he recorded that from Egypt, there was a literal sandstorm happening outside of his window while we were chatting, so you know, the internet held and we were able to sort of have this like global conversation really, really grateful to him for that. This week, Sarah and I will be back as usual with I'm sure just a jam-packed episode full of all of our regular thoughts, shenanigans and nonsense. In the meantime, you can reach us on the bleachers pod at Gmail, and also we're on the bleachers pod on Instagram. We have a Patreon on the bleachers pod, and you can also of course, Sarah and I are on Blue Sky. God, having to do the whole outro by myself is hard you guys, but I do have to close as always by reminding you that in your life, you'll do things greater than dating a boy on a football team, and certainly there's some tiny dicks, little maggot assholes. [laughs] That's all right guys, see you next week.