Jackson, Couture nominated for ESPY award

details here

I have thoughts on this behind the cut:



They were both nominated for fighter of the year, but honestly even though I love both guys neither is real deserving. Sure, Couture won the title at 43 and sure Rampage beat Liddell...but in the time frame covered by the award, neither was what I would call the most impressive fighter. The Couture win was a great moment but that was his only fight in the span of time the award is for and Rampage's other fight, the victory over Eastman at UFC 67 wasn't what I'd call overly impressive. Really it would be hard for me to pick someone from UFC that would fith the category, Hughes, GSP, Liddell...all were beaten and so was Ortiz. I doubt anyone at UFC has even heard of Anderson Silva (not that he'd be my pick but he's not lost) and Matt Serra's story is probably as compelling as Couture's but he has like 1/5 of the name.

I guess how deserving you feel a person is for this depends on your criteria. If you look just at quality of fights and opponents then you'll have a different criteria than I. When I think of fighter of the year, I think of who did the most good or had the greatest impact on their sport. That person is probably Tito Ortiz because of the feud with Shamrock and the Liddell fight, but then you are stuck because it isn't as though Shamrock was a quality opponent and he did lose to Liddell.

If I were to nominate someone for fighter of the year, it would probably not even be someone from UFC.

But, I'm not going to because in reality, it is the ESPY's and I care the same for those awards as I do for any given out in movies or music which is to say ... 0.