UFC Austin reminds us that sports don't matter

The UFC's efforts to raise cancer awareness aren't bad, but they do make MMA feel awfully frivolous.

Elias Theodorou | Illustration by BE Art Director Chris Rini

I guess I’ll start out saying that sports, at all levels, aren’t without their positive qualities. I’m not here to make an anti-sports rant. Beyond the potential healthy lifestyle habits they can instill and the discipline they can bring, sports also help create community. If 100 people have nothing in common but their love of their team, they’ll still all stand and cheer together for a common cause.

That said, we can’t ever lose sight of the idea that sporting events, no matter how much money and prestige they attract, are only games and pastimes. Nothing brings that kind of reality into sharper relief than an event like the UFC put on this Saturday in Austin, TX.

As a celebration of ‘V Week’ (in memory of former ESPN broadcaster Jim Valvano), the UFC took some time during their latest fight card to highlight battles with cancer in the MMA industry. To do that, the promotion put together a pair of fabulous video packages highlighting Factory X coach Marc Montoya’s ongoing battle with kidney cancer and Elias Theodorou’s recent passing due to colon cancer in September of last year.

Both pieces were excellently delivered, giving somber and hopeful narratives in turn—about what it means to battle against cancer, as a celebration of the resilience of the human spirit and a remembrance of those we lose to the disease. It also came with some less nuanced packages, including fighters reading what seemed to be stock uplifting cue card statements, as well as a lot of the same pieces ESPN has been highlighting for the last decade or more.

The Theodorou piece hit especially hard during the event…