As part of the well-received (and continuing) “Shill ‘Em All” series on the MMA media, I wrote part 3 on the “Fanboys” who populate the MMA industry.

The most direct response to the article came, not from an MMA fighter, but boxer Paulie Malignaggi during a press conference to promote his upcoming bout with Zab Judah:

The media has always been inaccurate or overly critical of Malignaggi when it comes to his fragile hands and close/controversial decisions he’s dropped.

FightOpinion.com’s Zach Arnold dissected Malignaggi’s rant, and came up with things that fighters can do in order to support change like attending commission meetings or pushing back at the right time. Zach’s point is that any change in combat sports requires fighters and managers act as active participants who are involved in all issues across the board.

Would Malignaggi be so upset about bad judging or the biased media if he wasn’t a victim of either? The conclusion is obvious: people agitate for change when they have a problem; when problems don’t affect them, they don’t care.

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Finally, I talked about the Shill ‘Em All series, the MMA media and my book on the MMA Dude Bro Podcast. You can listen to it here.