The FF-Files: Say What Again, I Double Dare You

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“NOT FOR MIXED RACES: First thing id say that you need to explain this is not a friendly place for Mixed Race couples, My wife is black & We had people telling all kinds of racist things at us , So we had to leave the next day .. Was a shame also because we wanted to See Some of the old churches & places around there... It was a wake up call & aslo pay attention to the name of the place you going. Like Reconquista. HAD NO idea it is a racist statement..”

This little ditty was not directed at Sherdog or its staff, but rather from the review of a Ukrainian club that ran fights every Friday for a few years. Reconquista Club, named after the 15th Century ejection of the Moors from Spain, has an exceptionally checkered past fraught with fancy ciders and neo-Nazis. Once located in Kyiv, the joint closed in July 2019, and it was subsequently replaced by a flower-topped establishment called Frau Rosa. The venue has since been converted to the Oasis Concert Hall. Years later, this non-Ukrainian commenter decided it was safe to post his complaint about Reconquista without fear of reprisal, but it too has been pulled. 0/10, would not do business with again.

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In lieu of a standard opening section with song lyrics, we thought it best to get that segment out of the way. The sport of mixed martial arts is beautiful at times, but it can also be downright nasty. Nazi punks, buzz off.

As we have chronicled a few times in the “Say What?” branch of the FF-Files series, there is a lot of gold to share from these submitters emailing from around the world. Some messages are subject to translation error, others are individuals trying to talk tough from behind their computer screens. Death threats are not coming in as often as they used to, but that could be in part due to us pointing and laughing at their nonsense. These are but a fraction of the seemingly random, bizarre and outlandish requests and demands made of the Fight Finder team. As a reminder, Sherdog staff members are human.

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“I would like to ask you a favor
Could you please not post on my sherdog pictures from Bellator when I lose?
Best regards, thank you.”

What, you mean these pictures? Please understand, redacted fighter who wrote in and can be identified by these images: Fight photos are gathered together after each event and placed in galleries so that fans can peruse the action and get an idea of what went down. It is hardly personal that your knocked-out face is featured on the photo list of either you or the person who beat you. It is not out of malice, desire to shame or anything else that we put them up. However, when you write in asking that we remove photographic traces of you getting flatlined, we may make fun of you for asking and will definitely post them again. Take it on the chin and let it go. It’s part of the fight game.

* * *
“Hello, we are Patong Combat League, a fight promotion based out of Phuket, Thailand.
“We want the sovereign control over the results' posting as we want to make sure only official information is displayed.
“In addition, we negotiate with our fighters beforehand and agree wether they want their record to be displayed or not. If we do not get the consent of both fighters, we do not display the results. For this reason, we ask you to remove all results you currently have recorded in Patong Combat League's name as the fighters did not give their consent and this makes us lose credibility.”

Are you kidding? Can you imagine if real organizations acted like that? If, for example, the UFC instructed a neutral recordkeeper that they have the right to leave off fight results if they do not want them displayed? That would be chaos. Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together…mass hysteria! Promotions do not have the authority to wheel and deal with their fighters to determine before or after the fact if a fight actually counts. That’s not how this works at all. You want a sport where records don’t really matter? Check out muay thai.

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Through Google Translate: “I fight my whole life I come from a difficult childhood and a much more difficult life and that made me a machine, that's natural for me, God made me to fight”

And…? Is that all? Narrator’s voice: “That was all.”

* * *
“good day me vs [fighter redacted] was an amateur match without an elbow 3x3 min amateur mma rules I don't understand how you can make such a mistake and write it in my professional record please correct it have a nice day you have a walleye”

Holy mackerel, there’s no reason to get upset. One of our favorite parts of receiving these submissions is the indignation shown when contacting us. In 10 such requests—by the way, this guy was legit, the fight was amateur 3x3 with no elbows after all—likely seven or eight of them are if not openly hostile, at least bring a whiff of the “how dare you” tone you can read above. It was a detail accidentally overlooked by the organizer that submitted these fights, and as an extremely low-level pairing on the Central European circuit, it is not a miscarriage of justice or dereliction of duty that it slid under the radar.

* * * Rouls of slaping
“Hello, sweden here !
I’m a fan of powerslap and have some questions regarding the slaps I have seen slaps that are more straight and the angle of the hand does so the hit is with the lowerpart of the palm. Like the craisy hawai”

We…don’t do that here.

* * *
“Hello, I am asking you to please restore my athlete's profile. He is being accused without reason and falsely. I am asking you not to restore his profile.”

Well, which is it? Restore or not restore? We don’t take public notes on profiles lightly, and we do not pen them by mistake. This fighter had more than three strikes by the time we had to shut him down. In the span of a few months, he or his representatives tried to change his name multiple times and add wins to his record that never actually happened. Worse yet, he served as the matchmaker for a league that he competed for and “won” at. Would you believe he changed the spelling of his surname, deleted his Instagram, plugged himself in as the main event for that org against an MMA newcomer and then deleted the announcement post to cover it up? Too bad, because screenshots live forever.

Feel free to send your Fight Finder-related inquiries to fightfinder@sherdog.com, but leave your comments in your pocket.