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Front: (L) to (R) Owners BJ Santiago and Jon Hatton. I am the guy with his hand on his forehead.

I started MMA training back in 2000, but I didn’t really embrace it until I met Jorge Gurgel and Rich Franklin in 2003. I walked in and was immediately taken in as family by the most gracious school owner I have ever met in Gurgel. Instructors like he and Josh Johnson of E-town/Bowling Green Clube de Jiu-Jitsu met me and I was instantly their family, and it has been that way ever since. I trained for years with UFC fighters coming in and out of Gurgel’s gym and began to hold my own with competent BJJ practitioners and experienced strikers. Acquired skill is not the point here though, because without their absolute acceptance as a peer I would have never grown as much as I did.

I began writing for Bruce Buffer’s MaXfighting.com until it was purchased by another website that aggregated MMA news only. I then wrote for BjPenn.com, and finally found a true home here. The guys who run this site accepted me as a peer immediately and the owner didn’t know or care what color skin I had. It’s been that way since my beginnings in MMA.

I became the marketing director for the now defunct American Fight League. To have come so close, having tens of millions of dollars taken away at the very last second because of a larger organization’s promise of two free shows was devastating. I was angry, exhausted, and juggling a family as well as full time job along with it. The owners were a successful business owner / redneck country boy and a Hispanic professional genius. They were inseparable and they embraced every fighter, employee, and friend despite their ethnicity and that was on a grand scale, a national stage in a big organization. Even there – racism was vacant.

I have been a ring announcer since local shows essentially began. I have announced in school gyms all the way to huge venues like Philips Arena in Atlanta. I have been in shows across the Eastern seaboard and in the Midwest mostly. There are some great promotions out there and just because I don’t mention them doesn’t mean I think less of them. Jason Appleton, Josh and Tim Griggs, and Hardrock Higdon are the greatest examples of true promoters I have ever had the pleasure to work for. Why do I mention them? Because they are one of the hundreds of promoters who accept and respect anyone, rewarding fighters strictly on their merits. MMA is like that – everywhere.

My first experience with MMA backstage proceedings was a meeting with a fight team called G-force. Their team was as diverse as they get and they were a family. They cried, bled, fought, and they loved each other as brothers. Team Vision, E-Town and Bowling Green Beatdown, JG MMA, Reaction, Georgetown MMA, and the list goes on were the same way. Unconditional acceptance, losing record or not. Most importantly no one gave a damn about the color of someone’s skin – just the colors of their team’s logo on t-shirts. MMA was special and it was obvious from the start.

Phenomenal fighter Que Parks is a tall African American fighter who is as talented, and as the ladies say, he is good looking. He looked at me like he wanted to eat me for a second when he first met me, and then smiled, shook my hand, and I was in his family. I’m a white guy that took 2nd place in my high school dunk contest, grew up on Run DMC, and could dance in my youth, but I am still as white as they come. Que is a guy who came from a rough and tumble background with virtually nothing in common with me, but we have been friends ever since. Seriously, this guy has the blood of his fallen foes on him at times and he comes out of the cage sweaty. I’m in my suit getting ready to announce the next fight and I hug him congratulatory because I care about him and his future. If people don’t like a little blood on my suit then they are racquetball fans anyways and shouldn’t be at an MMA event. There is no color in the MMA family is my point.

Okay so maybe there is. There are fans who come from the sticks, raised to be racist in attendance. Guess what, a lot of them when they leave that night are less concerned about skin color and more taken with the story behind each fighter. It’s amazing to see.

Kentucky’s Boxing and Wrestling Authority  has two of the greatest examples of what I am getting at. Tim Gonterman and Todd Neal are concerned with two main things at all times – safety and fairness. White, brown, green, or any race they hold you to the same standards. If you get stupid, you get reprimanded. Period. They are how MMA and pro wrestling is different than the pockets of racism that live in this world.

KBWA Inspector Tim Gonterman and new Hardrock MMA Featherweight Champion Patrick Cornett
KBWA Inspector Tim Gonterman and new Hardrock MMA 145 Champion Patrick Cornett

The people in MMA are a family whether they come from the streets, the suburbs, farm, or from the boonies. If someone was racist in the back rooms of these shows they would get beaten down. For example, a guy was judging a ring girl contest and a redneck called him the “N” word for something trivial. All hell broke loose and that idiot redneck looking for attention got it, he was knocked out at least twice that night. He got beaten up by everybody – white, black, Hispanic, Indian, Brazilian, and anybody else that heard it who could reach him.

MMA is special and if the world would take a cue from this community we would all be better off.

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