Contributor: Josh Hall
The past weekend combat sports fans were treated to a number of cards with significant fights. This is about exactly none of those. This is the story of James Thompson/Eric Prindle: The Promo.
MMA has an unfortunate history of terrible promos, from the biggest stage of them all down to small organizations that 99% of fans have never heard of. UFC fans still cringe at the “YOU AND MEEEEE” that was heard nonstop in the ads for the Anderson Silva/Chris Weidman rematch for the UFC MW title. It was an epic fight, but fans wanted nothing to do with that ad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFrvVpVm6HY
You can go to the other end of the spectrum, and look at Jeff Monson’s infamous “Fucked for free” promo for his Vengeance MMA bout against Mark Kerr. This is the tip of the iceberg for awful fight promotion, but at least it is memorable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKzh18yGKo0 (NSFW)
For last Friday’s bout between James Thompson and Eric Prindle, someone at Bellator decided not to put together a standard promo where both fighters are hyped up as great athletes, but instead fully embrace the insanity of this objectively bad matchup. Somewhere in the creative process, we wandered into the movie world envisioned by Mike Judge in his satirical 2006 film Idiocracy, and the end result was quite possibly the best promo ever seen in the sport.
For anyone who has not seen the movie, Idiocracy takes place in a dystopian society 500 years in the future when everyone is a moron. Not garden variety stupid, I’m talking about “Holy fuck how did this person not get hit by a bus yet?” levels of stupid. The movie is not one of the funniest comedies ever, but instead it is more of a “beat you over the head” approach to the downsides of Judge’s perceived gradual dumbing down of society. For perspective, the US President is Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, played by Terry Crews and the first person the audience meets is named Frito Pendejo (Dax Shepard). Frito is watching the popular TV show “Ow, my balls” (while eating a tub of butter) where the entire show is people getting hit (spoiler alert) in the balls.
THINGS THAT ARE AWESOME: THE T-REX (complete with a bad animated dinosaur), DYNAMITE (complete with explosion), HOT CHICKS (cut to the Bellator ring girls), BUT MOST OF ALL ITS TWO BIG MEN STANDING IN THE CENTER OF A CAGE THROWING HEAVY LEATHER (complete with a montage of random Bellator HW knockouts)
No thirty seconds could better tap into the Idiocracy mentality than this (or so I thought at the time). The things being compared have absolutely nothing in common and half of them have literally nothing to do with fighting. There is not a mention at all of the people actually fighting but it doesn’t matter. BIG DUDES THROWING BOMBS!! JUST BLEEEEEEED!!
As I continued to watch the promo, the clip of the aforementioned “Ow, My Balls” was all that I could think of when I heard the deep voiced announcer say while describing Prindle taking “THE NUT SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD”. I was stunned as I watched replays of the infamous Thiago Santos taint kick on Prindle, but from multiple angles and added sound effects. It only got better as they hyped up the crowd by showing Prindle’s axe kick of justice coming down on the defenseless balls of Santos in their rematch, along with announcer Jimmy Smith’s perfect “WHAM” as his heel cracked the Brazilian HW in the cup.
I have never seen an MMA organization promote a groin strike, let alone multiple ones. It seems like the worst idea ever, and yet for this fight it was somehow absolutely perfect. That is the single memorable thing about Prindle’s Bellator tenure, and everyone watching knew it. Sometimes karma comes down in the form of a blow to the testicles, and all you can do is cringe and watch it more than once.
(Pictured: testicular justice)
In regards to James Thompson, Bellator lacked a signature groin strike or actual good fighting performance to draw from for the promo, so they did the next best thing. They had the giant Brit shout unintelligibly at the camera and make menacing faces. While this might sound less then interesting, looking and sounding intimidating to a camera is a far stronger suit for “Colossus” than his actual in cage product. Staying true to the Idiocracy mentality, he struggles to say anything that makes any sense while being demonstrative and aggressive in an attempt to scare his opponent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugFVpiM5tTQ&feature=kp
If all of this sounds like an appeal to the base instincts of humanity, it absolutely is. The great thing about this promo is the brutal honesty of it.
“It’s basic. It’s primal. And it’s 100% pure, unadulterated awesome”
For most fans, that is where the love of the sport started. Seeing nasty knockouts that got the blood pumping and the adrenaline rushing used to be so much fun, even when the fighters weren’t that good. This promo was a reminder of the silly fun that can be found in MMA, and it showed how some outside the box thinking, an honest approach to selling a fight, and inadvertently tapping into the mentality of Idiocracy can actually resonate, with even some jaded MMA fans. There can be a very fine line between funny and stupidity, and both the movie and this promo do an amazing job of walking it with ease. While probably staring at ass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugFVpiM5tTQ&feature=kp
(Pictured: ass)
-Josh can be reached @jhall282 or at [email protected]
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