CM Punk: If it was up to me, I’d be the first fight at UFC 225

[WoodenPupa]

I think that's kind of a screwy example of "privilege", at least in terms of equating it to white privilege.

When a person achieves a level of celebrity, there are more opportunities that open up to them, but that person still achieved the celebrity status. We're talking about a venue where the ultimate goal is to sell tickets and PPVs. And if you've worked your way into a position where you can sell those PPVs, that's not a "privilege" that's been given to you. Conor can jump into a fight with Mayweather because it'll sell. If Lebron James suddenly decided he wanted to fight in the UFC, he'd be co-maining or even main eventing a PPV.

Shaq makes more money selling and endorsing products now that he did playing basketball. He got to star in movies and release rap albums. Was he a great business mind, actor or rapper? Of course not. So is that privilege, too?

I don't hate on the guy for playing the cards he's being given. Pursuing the MMA dream and all that, no problems with it whatsoever. But I don't watch UFC to see amateurs fight. He's taking up a spot that could showcase a legitimately high-level fight.

I'm pretty sure this is the actual objection nearly every objector has to Punk, even if they say it's something else. So long as the UFC has no ranking system and no consistent logic to matchmaking as it pertains to title shots, I'm okay with random fighters coming in to fight, because we have no idea what ramification any fight will have anyway. It's all or nothing for me: in the absence of any strictly controlled matchmaking and rankings system, I don't care who fights who. The only condition I have is, give me skilled fighters on the main cards. For the most part, that isn't a problem, but now and then it comes up. I have absolutely zero interest in watching CM Punk fight, because he's a beginner.

The problem with any CM Punk discussion is, people start mixing various objections together and then lose track of what it is they really object to. And arguments like "He doesn't deserve it" are often left vague and take on random lives of their own. I think that's because the whole issue of who deserves what is so murderously convoluted by Zuffa's choices over the years that we can't possibly build a consistent scheme of justice anymore, based on things that were formerly somewhat reliable, like a fighter's recent fights. "Recent" isn't even a well-definable concept anymore, since fighters routinely take more than a year off between fights.

Anyway, not to go off on this soapbox again. But I'll say it for the 1000th time, there needs to be an automated system for rankings and matchups. In the absence of one, complaining about whether somebody deserves to be on a card based on things like how long they've been a fighter, whether they've fought in a while, and so on, is pretty amusing. I mean, you might as well argue over some newfangled midgets disrespecting old customs at a tent show in the Ozarks.