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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
On Thursday - the same day the Las Vegas Culinary Union and women's advocacy groups in the Chicago area sent a letter to the UFC demanding they remove Quinton "Rampage" Jackson from Saturday's Fox event - the UFC themselves took their first steps towards actually addressing fighter misconduct out of the cage.
One of the major things the Culinary Union has used to attack the UFC in the past is the many irresponsible and inappropriate comments uttered by fighters, not to mention UFC President Dana White. It's at times seemed to foster an ugly environment, and there has seemingly been no repercussions for fighters crossing a line.
But on Thursday, the UFC announced that they're implementing a written code of conduct, one that lays out fines and other punishment for fighters acting outside the bounds of decency.
"This stuff's already frankly been in place for many, many years and we've always sort of had an unwritten code of conduct that we expected our athletes to live up to," said Lawrence Epstein, the UFC's chief counsel in an interview with BleacherReport.com. "Now we put it in writing, that's really the only change. There are some teeth in the program, penalties associated with violations, but as far as we're concerned this policy is going into effect immediately."
One negative that has really been focused on over the years is the history of homophobic comments or slurs let out by fighters, and the fact that seemingly nothing seemed to be done about the comments when they were made. That's hopefully going to change, and in addition to fines, there will be other forms of punishment handed out for violations.
"For example, if you make a discriminatory comment about a certain community, you would be required to provide some community service to that community," Epstein said. "In our view that's going to turn into a benefit. It's easy to criticize people you don't know, but once you get to know somebody, once you get to experience what they're all about it sort of changes you as a person in a way that money or fines could never do."
Penick's Analysis: This is certainly a positive step, but they also put Matt Hughes in the role overseeing this code of conduct. It remains to be seen how well it's implemented, or whether it can even be effectively implemented with what they've got in place. But if they can lay out clear, written rules that they expect fighters to abide by, and they can follow through with punishments for violations, perhaps they can bring about some change in the overall mindset of certain fighters.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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