Though they’re kind of late to the party, Sherdog has a good article on the Hoelzer Reich situation that elucidates several of the points that we made in our coverage:

In September, a producer from HBO’s “Real Sports” contacted me about the show doing a piece on MMA and skinheads.

Specifically, it was to be a kind of dual-part exploration on A) existing fighters with ties to skinhead/Nazi groups and B) the influence of MMA training on these fringe groups. My possible involvement was based solely on the fact that the producer and I had corresponded a while back on another story (one that didn’t come to fruition), and, given my background covering MMA, I am one of those people a reporter keeps in their contact file when you need a field guide to strange places.

For whatever reasons, the story didn’t pan out, and the show moved on to bigger and better topics. But it did get me to thinking about what might happen if a story like that really did get legs and the potential firestorm something like that could bring MMA if the sport’s decisionmakers failed to recognize the red flags.

As they say, the allegation is halfway around the world before the clarification gets it boots on.

Nice to see their realization of the potential for damage to the sport from a clueless mainstream media:

As the sport grows, MMA will have to work harder than ever to protect its brand and the perception of that brand. And in America, there’s nothing we enjoy more than tearing down a rising star (be it a celebrity, politician or corporation). It makes for a great story (Tiger Woods, anyone?). The bigger you get, the bigger the temptation is to find cracks in the armor, so to speak. Thus far, MMA has enjoyed incredible growth by offering a kind of widespread appeal. Its athletes are easily the most diverse of any sport in the world except soccer.

Thus far, its ascent has succeeded due to a number of reasons too complex and nuanced to elucidate upon here, but that rise is, in no small way, due to the fact that there haven’t been a lot of mainstream media outlets around to apply a critical eye to easily exploited issues. Remove the UFC and Strikeforce’s quick-as-can-be decisions to ban Hoelzer Reich, then plug in a major news organization with a JDL spokesperson and a couple offended people offering up man-on-the-street opinions. That’s the kind of damage it can take years to overcome.

We live in a quick-trigger world, powered by the viral possibilities of the Internet, where the smallest public relations problem becomes an explosive headline the next. It is no small irony that even Dana White — the enfant terrible of unscripted tirades — found himself in the rare position of apologizing after offending the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation with his rant on a Sherdog editor (luckily for White, the transgendered apparently had that week off, or he probably would’ve had to make nice with the GLBT crowd as well).

The sport’s promoters are under no obligation to provide a free speech platform to sponsors. In fact, the placement and management of that content — which provides a revenue stream for both fighters and promotions — is extremely important in how perception builds.

They conclude:

Consider it a bullet dodged. And, hopefully, a lesson learned in the coming months and years.

America is a free country, and I’d much rather live in one where everyone has the right to wear clothing with whatever they want on it. But that doesn’t mean you get to automatically hitch your wagon to where the rest of us want to go.

UFC made correct move with Hoelzer Reich ban @ Sherdog