The UFC will tarnish its name forever if it goes ahead with the Justin Bieber vs. Tom Cruise farce
Alan Dawson 9h
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Justin Bieber, Dana White, and Tom Cruise. Getty Images
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The Justin Bieber and Tom Cruise UFC fight rumor refuses to go away.
The UFC president Dana White even gave the bizarre bout his seal of approval when he said he had a mystery phone call about it.
He said he'd be "an idiot not to make this fight" and that the UFC was willing to hold talks to make it happen.
Bieber vs. Cruise in a charity format would be fun, if not weird. But the moment UFC slaps its name over it, its name would be tarnished forever.
I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen, as the fight game is riddled with sideshows, and this may well be the next circus in an already absurd industry.
The UFC has thrown its weight behind the Justin Bieber vs. Tom Cruise spectacle, turning the whole thing into a farce that would only tarnish its acronym, name, and brand-value around the world.
It all started with a single tweet when the Grammy-award-winning singer Bieber said on June 10 that he wanted to fight Tom Cruise in a UFC Octagon, telling the Hollywood hard man he'd "never live it down" if he refused. Bieber even tagged UFC President Dana White in the post, asking if he was willing to organize the event.
The tweet has so far attracted 40,000 comments, 45,000 retweets, and 226,000 likes and has dominated news sites, helped, no doubt, by fight star Conor McGregor's apparent interest in wanting to play a part.
Quote:
Conor McGregor
✔
@TheNotoriousMMA
I challenge Mark Walhberg on the very same card.
Back when mark wahlberg was marky mark, I’d’ve still slapped the ears off him and took my ufc shares back.#Shares #Streams #Dazn #Espn
McGregor Sports and Entertainment
27.3K
6:47 PM - Jun 9, 2019
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Though Bieber backtracked a few days later, saying it was "just a random tweet," it seemingly did not perturb White from pouncing on a potential business opportunity.
White told TMZ that he'd be "an idiot not to make this fight," adding that he had a mystery phone call from people wanting to help make the fight, that Cruise himself wanted it, and that the UFC was willing to hold talks to make it happen.
Really, we shouldn't be surprised, because combat sports history is littered with circus events.
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Boxing booth owner Alf Weston challenges locals to fight his boxer, Santos Martin.Photo by Charles Hewitt/Getty Images
Decades ago, "boxing booths" were commonplace because of the appeal in challenging a trained athlete and maybe even winning in front of your friends and family in your hometown. A booth fighter would travel throughout Britain with the fairground, accepting challenges from eager locals in front of flabbergasted crowds.
If a punter could last three rounds with the booth fighter, they'd win a prize. Step right up, if you dared.
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Boxing booth fighter Santos Martin pummels a poor punter.Photo by Charles Hewitt/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Boxing booths are rare these days, but carnival-type fights still run rife.
This was perhaps never more apparent than when former circus strongman Primo Carnera, a lumbering giant who bystanders said stunk of garlic, won the world heavyweight boxing title thanks to the mafia in 1933.
He didn't know at the time, but Canera was backed by the colorfully-named gangsters of his day, and they threatened or bribed his opponents so that they'd lose on purpose.
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Primo Carnera.Photo by J. A. Hampton/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images
Even though the sport has moved on since Carnera, the fight game still loves really weird things, which helps explain the wildly popular fight YouTube rivals Logan Paul and KSI clumsily contested, looking every bit the competitive novices they were in a six-round draw in 2018.
