Sheer terror, absolute regret and intense fear would encompass every emotion I would feel if, by some strange occurrence, I found myself inside a locked cage with Alistair Overeem standing on the other end. Granted, one would think you can inform him that all of this was just one incredible accident and the only thing you want by the end of the night is to be on your sofa, watching reruns of ‘The Deadliest Warrior.’ Asphyxiation due to a rear-naked-choke is a far lesser consequence than having your consciousness cut shot due to extreme trauma from an Uberknee The word ‘extreme,’ in this instance, is a gross understatement. It would be as if you accidentally stuck your head in a particle accelerator and felt the consequences for the rest of your life, sort of like this guy.
This whole blackzilian thing always felt sort of pseudo-racist from the start. I mean actually if they wanted to spell it grammatically correct, it would be ‘blackzillian’ — so that’s a flag that something very bizarre is at hand. However regarding the racist undertones of the name of the camp assembled by Glenn Robinson — it’s bizarre that a white guy would gather a bunch of minorities, put them all under one roof, and then label them a name that not only references their ethnicity, but also compares them to a friggin’ beast that terrorizes others. It’s almost as if he thought being black wasn’t ‘scary enough’ and he needed to show the world how far removed from humanity these minorities are.
I’m fairly certain during the times of slavery, some rich plantation owner went from state to state in order to find the most lucrative Mandingo fighter (think Django Unchained here), gathered a crew and called them like — ‘The Black King Kongs’ or something equally ignorant. Alright, King Kong wasn’t made until 1933, but you get the point.
It always bothered me why this wasn’t questioned by MMA media. There is no political connectedness slant with this — I sincerely want to know why Glenn Robinson chose the name ‘Blackzilian’ for his camp — and I hope the answer is not the obvious. Even in football the NFL is getting flack over the Washington Redskins, which depicts a Native American (or ‘redskin’ in this case) prominently on their logo. The media has urged Washington to consider changing the name of the team, a plea that has been heard on deaf ears thus far. Heck, even their own cornerback DeAngelo Hall has said the team should really get rid of their pseudo-racist name.
We would like to think that upon a moment of sheer social realization, Alistair Overeem realized he was being exploited by Glenn Robinson and he made the swift decision to leave the Blackzilians, but more than likely it was a stylistic dispute that forced The Reem out of the camp and over to Thailand, where he’s been smashing coconut trees and avoiding typhoid.
The point still remains, ‘blackzilian’ is a really horrible name for a camp.
