Anybody probably can do it, but only a percentage of a percentage of the world’s population is willing to walk up those four steps and fight. It takes a special kind of courage to put it all on the line like that, man or woman, amateur or professional. And whatever the reason there is for putting on the gloves, those who do it deserve respect.
That’s not always the case, though, so when Swanson sent out a Tweet on February 12 that read, “I think all MMA media should be required to have 3 amateur fights. Thoughts?” it created a bit of a firestorm, but also some interesting discussions.
“It was kind of like a wishful scenario,” Swanson. “I didn’t expect that they would take it so negatively, as if I was discrediting them. That wasn’t my intention, but the biggest thing is that it caused a lot of discussion and I think that was good.”
Follow-up Tweets by Swanson explained his position, but his initial point in posting was a valid one. No one needs to fight in order to cover the sport, but doing so does offer a different perspective of the fighter’s life.
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“As far as the taking fights, all I wanted was for them to understand what it is we go through and have a deeper respect for what we do, especially on fight week,” he said. “And no one ever asked me why I said three fights. The first fight, you just don’t know what to expect and you kind of go into it blind. Win or lose, you understand that pressure and you have to look back. The second time you fight can be scarier than the first time, especially if you lose. You’re like, holy s**t, why did I sign up for this again? I’m remembering now what it was that I felt that first time. You kind of block it out, like a woman having a baby; you mentally block out that pain and that suffering of the build-up. And the second time, you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I remember this; this is terrible, this is frightening. That’s all I wished that they would understand when they ask me these questions, is understand where I’m coming from, that’s it.”
In other words, the 37-year-old understands that the media has a job, but he doesn’t like to see interviews turned into clickbait without getting into the heart of the story. And anyone who has covered the Californian for any length of time knows that there are few people as thoughtful as he is when the microphone is on and the questions are flowing. And considering that he’s not one to make incendiary statements or trash talk, seeing those interviews get washed away by a flashy headline still irks him.
“For me, my own social media is so key because I get to release the way I want to be portrayed,” he said. “I get to tell my story and I get to give you a glimpse into what I want you to see. When I do an interview, of course I’m using their platform to hype my fight, but they will always ask me one stupid question last minute. ‘Well, what do you think about Conor?’ or ‘Who’s gonna win this fight?’ And then that’s the headline. And I’m like, man, we just did this great interview and then you just trash it. I get it, I know why, and I’ve had guys tell me, ‘Hey man, I don’t want to do that, but if I don’t, my boss gets on me.’ Sports media people and media people in general, they need to get the story, and I recently put out a second tweet comparing clickbait headlines to PEDs and people didn’t really like it too much. So you would ask a fighter, ‘Why did you use PEDs?’ ‘Well, it was the only way I could compete with everyone around me.’ It’s the same justification and it’s why I made a second tweet (on the topic). They say, ‘Well, you could have done something else with your life.’ Well, a journalist could do something else with their life instead of stooping to click-bait headlines. The way they justified it was what I compared it to.”
