Fighting for Respect, How Conor McGregor represents Six-Man Football:
Sport has always been a means of escape; a distraction from everyday life. This past week, I finally had enough of all the news feeds, tweets, posts, and arguments that have fueled so much strife here in America lately, so I engaged in that age-old remedy for such problems and turned to the biggest sporting event of the year, plunging myself deep into the analysis and hype that is Mayweather vs McGregor.
I have watched both these champions fight before; at least the last four fights each fighter has had. My knowledge of boxing is easily the strongest out of the two disciplines and to be honest, up until this week, I didn’t give this fight much thought because I believed there was just no way Mayweather could lose. However, this week I saturated myself in interviews with boxers, fighters, reporters, talking heads and casual fans alike. I listened to all the boxing people talk about this bout on Saturday and I listened to UFC folks, including Conor McGregor himself, talk.
As I listened, I began to feel like I had heard all this before. I began to realize many of the same thoughts and opinions the boxing crowd were vocalizing are very similar to things I hear out of those who say six-man football isn’t real football. How it is a joke the boxing commission is letting this fight take place; how while McGregor is great at his fighting discipline, boxing is just so much harder and no way he can walk in and compete with Mayweather.
How he has “Zero percent chance”.
They’re in a boxing ring. For Conor McGregor, “there’s no universe in which he can win.”
If you are from a six-man town or school, doesn’t the air of all this blather sound familiar?
So, the more I listened, and the more I watched, the more I bought into the underdog Conor McGregor and the more I wanted him to prove them all wrong. McGregor, who has fought his way to the UFC pinnacle, was once living the tough life in Ireland. He has now become a symbol, a beacon of hope and source of great national pride to the Irish people. In fact, he has come to represent so much for that nation and its people, that when McGregor is being written off and disrespected by the boxing and sporting world in this fight, they feel like THEY are being written off and disrespected.
It becomes personal.
Much in the same way six-man football is personal to those who have come to know and love it. These are the same things being shouted by the six-man football players, coaches and fans every Friday night across Texas, who say they are just as good as their more accepted 11-man counterparts and should be looked at and treat as equals proclaiming that “it is all football.”
The idea of acceptance, of validation, and the fight for respect McGregor is experiencing right now is the same fight playing out on those 40x80 fields in the outlying small towns across Texas every football season. Those who live in these small towns that play six-man football have come to make up their own nation, a six-man nation, and that sport has become a symbol of their lives, much in the same way Conor McGregor has come to represent Ireland and the world of UFC/MMA, in this fight against Floyd Mayweather.
Maybe I’m thinking a little too much about this. Maybe I’m vicariously hanging the weight of the six-man football community on McGregor’s shoulders in this fight, and maybe it isn’t as symbolic as I want it to be.
But I can tell you this…
I sure hope McGregor makes all those boxing folks look ignorant come Sunday morning.
Sport has always been a means of escape; a distraction from everyday life. This past week, I finally had enough of all the news feeds, tweets, posts, and arguments that have fueled so much strife here in America lately, so I engaged in that age-old remedy for such problems and turned to the biggest sporting event of the year, plunging myself deep into the analysis and hype that is Mayweather vs McGregor.
I have watched both these champions fight before; at least the last four fights each fighter has had. My knowledge of boxing is easily the strongest out of the two disciplines and to be honest, up until this week, I didn’t give this fight much thought because I believed there was just no way Mayweather could lose. However, this week I saturated myself in interviews with boxers, fighters, reporters, talking heads and casual fans alike. I listened to all the boxing people talk about this bout on Saturday and I listened to UFC folks, including Conor McGregor himself, talk.
As I listened, I began to feel like I had heard all this before. I began to realize many of the same thoughts and opinions the boxing crowd were vocalizing are very similar to things I hear out of those who say six-man football isn’t real football. How it is a joke the boxing commission is letting this fight take place; how while McGregor is great at his fighting discipline, boxing is just so much harder and no way he can walk in and compete with Mayweather.
How he has “Zero percent chance”.
They’re in a boxing ring. For Conor McGregor, “there’s no universe in which he can win.”
If you are from a six-man town or school, doesn’t the air of all this blather sound familiar?
So, the more I listened, and the more I watched, the more I bought into the underdog Conor McGregor and the more I wanted him to prove them all wrong. McGregor, who has fought his way to the UFC pinnacle, was once living the tough life in Ireland. He has now become a symbol, a beacon of hope and source of great national pride to the Irish people. In fact, he has come to represent so much for that nation and its people, that when McGregor is being written off and disrespected by the boxing and sporting world in this fight, they feel like THEY are being written off and disrespected.
It becomes personal.
Much in the same way six-man football is personal to those who have come to know and love it. These are the same things being shouted by the six-man football players, coaches and fans every Friday night across Texas, who say they are just as good as their more accepted 11-man counterparts and should be looked at and treat as equals proclaiming that “it is all football.”
The idea of acceptance, of validation, and the fight for respect McGregor is experiencing right now is the same fight playing out on those 40x80 fields in the outlying small towns across Texas every football season. Those who live in these small towns that play six-man football have come to make up their own nation, a six-man nation, and that sport has become a symbol of their lives, much in the same way Conor McGregor has come to represent Ireland and the world of UFC/MMA, in this fight against Floyd Mayweather.
Maybe I’m thinking a little too much about this. Maybe I’m vicariously hanging the weight of the six-man football community on McGregor’s shoulders in this fight, and maybe it isn’t as symbolic as I want it to be.
But I can tell you this…
I sure hope McGregor makes all those boxing folks look ignorant come Sunday morning.
