Dana & Barry Mcguigan discussing MMA n boxing

[stevieb]

Taken from Dana's Youtube blog.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=oyFjprA2ZMU

[Annitsford]

two faced fucker, every interview McGuigan has been in he slagged the UFC off with venom in his voice..

[jimmyTHFC]

I was thinking the same thing.... I used to like McGuigan until I read his UFC
related interviews. And your right, they were filled with venom. I wonder if Dana knows what McGuigan said? He might have slapped a calf cutter on him if he did.

[Smiler]

Hi,

I was training with Barry and his son Shane on Tuesday and you know what? I've never heard him have anything but respect for the fighters, the skills, the training - nothing bad ever about MMA, kick, Thai - in fact, its all been praise.

But he has always maintained that for him boxing is the ultimate fight sport.

Smiler

[jimmyTHFC]

This was from Micheal Bispings blog on the UFC website, about a year ago:

(maybe he has changed his opinion since then)

BARRY BOXES NOT SO VERY CLEVER
Don’t know if you guys have seen it, but I couldn’t believe the comments former boxing champion Barry McGuigan made about the UFC last week.

For those of you who haven’t heard of him, Barry McGuigan was a world champion boxer in the 1980s and has gone on to become probably the best known boxing TV pundit in Britain.

In an interview last week he was asked about his views on mixed martial arts in general and UFC in particular and he just launched into this really ridiculous rant.

Before finishing off by saying there’s no skill to MMA, he called UFC “trashy”, “undignified” and “dirty”. He also talked some complete rubbish about some imaginary “statistics” proving boxing is safer than MMA, which we all know is complete crap.

UFC fans are well used to reading or hearing all sorts of ignorant things said about our sport, I know, but McGuigan is a former fighter and I just couldn’t believe his comments, to be honest.

I know boxing is his bread and butter and maybe he’s worried that UFC will replace boxing or something but I’ve never heard any MMA fighter disrespect an entire sport and all its athletes the way McGuigan did.

There are plenty of sports I don’t particularly like, but I respect that sport’s athletes at the very least and I think McGuigan was out of order by not extending MMA athletes this same courtesy.

He was very, very disrespectful and there was absolutely no need for it.

I don’t want to be one of those fighters who starts challenging the best boxers to get in the Octagon because, at the end of the day, MMA v boxing would be like American Football v soccer: you can’t match one against the other because of the different rules.

But I’d like to invite Barry to visit the Wolf’s Lair MMA academy where I train in Runcorn and I’d happily do my best to try and educate him as to the various techniques we use in MMA. I’m confident that as a former fighter who is supposed to the one of the best fight analysts in the UK, Barry would appreciate the skill levels required to compete in the UFC – if only he could be bothered to learn.

If he can’t be bothered – that’s fair enough, as well – but in that case next time he’s asked about MMA he should just say he’s not a fan and doesn’t watch it. Better to do that than make a fool of himself by being so disrespectful and ignorant.

[Rob T]

It's not really surprising for you to find out that someone's personal opinion is different to the opinion they give in articles they are paid for, is it?

[jimmyTHFC]

No but like mma, boxing has its fair share of people knocking it, if he didnt mean what he said did he really need to go as far as he did? he didnt need to do that IMO. I can understand someone from a different walk of life saying that but an ex boxer?

[Rob T]

It's sad yeah, but about £££ as usual.

[Casej1313]

McGuigan is an asshole

[Smiler]

Actually Casej, he is a very, very nice bloke, very astute, very clever.

Smiler