The Ear...
am I the only one who had nightmares about that ultimate fighter’s exploding freak ear? He wanted to keep going but that floppy monstrosity tapped out for him. He was the real life version of Sloth from the goonies, baby ruth chocolate bars should sponsor him…No! I’d never seen MMA or UFC or anything like it before, but I was at a party last night at which it was playing, and by the time the fight you’re referring to came on most of us had wandered into the front room where the enormous television was showing it.
Many of the others were interested in the proceedings with the rather more serious attitude men like to develop towards sports, but it was immediately obvious even to me that the Manchester fighter was intended to lose. I was impressed by him only insofar as I recognized his cauliflower ear from Hemingway’s story “The Battler.” That this sacrificial lamb carried such a grotesque scar from previous fights made the scene compelling.
The ear was repulsive and probably should have been addressed long before the fight, as it had the capacity to prematurely end the affair (and did). The presumptive favorite, Kimbo, was lucky, too: while he’s obviously capable of throwing a strong punch, he seemed totally unable to handle the contender’s wrestling.
Stranger than the bizarre ending was that in several fights I noticed an embarrassing lack of conditioning: the fighters were punched out in the second round! The rounds are five minutes, but one would think they’d take cardiovascular exercise more seriously as a result.
That man’s ear was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen, and I said before the fight that I really hoped it would be popped just to diminish it; I’m sure CBS is unhappy that actually happened. The two main fights were stopped, and the crowd chanted “bullshit” as audibly as any SEC stadium I’ve ever been in.
1. Gross.
2. Thanks to YouTube, I just watched a guy drain his own cauliflower ear.