I’ve heard the argument and I even know people that believe it. In MMA it is usually more a case of “If you don’t ‘nuthug’ then you ‘hate’”.

It seems almost every rant I’ve written at this point has gotten me labeled either a nuthugger or a hater. Some rants have actually gotten me labeled both. Obviously, this doesn’t only happen to me. These days it seems almost impossible to have an honest, *FACTUAL* discussion about a fighter without someone feeling the need to label every person involved as either a nuthugger or a hater. Let’s take a look at haters and huggers in a bit more detail and then test the waters a bit.

Haters First

I’d say haters first because if I didn’t put them first they’d hate on me more. The truth is I go with “haters” first because “h” comes before “n” in the alphabet. Silly me and my “bias” showing through again!

How to spot a hater

When I use the term hater (in this rant, and in most rants) I’m referring to someone who does not care about facts or logic or reason. This person has decided a certain fighter (or organization or training camp or whatever) is bad and will hate them regardless.

Hater Example

I know someone that is pretty much a textbook example of a Brock Lesnar “hater”. They ignore his wins, they ignore his background, they ignore his size and speed. This person hated Brock Lesnar before they got into MMA, hated them when they won their first fight, enjoyed hating them after they lost their second and continued hating them right through Brock’s next three wins.

This person doesn’t think Brock is top 10, doesn’t think he’s top 25, doesn’t think he’s top 1000. It is also important to note that nothing can happen that will change this person’s view of Brock. (more on this later) Brock could win his next 10 fights or win for the next 10 years. This person could hand pick Brock’s opponents and still it wouldn’t matter.

Nuthugger

I saved the best for last!!! Come on Evil Pooh nuthuggers!!! 8P

How to spot a nuthugger

When I use the term nuthugger (in this rant, and in most rants) I’m referring to someone who does not care about facts or logic or reason. This person has decided a certain fighter (or organization or training camp or whatever) is great and will love them regardless.

Nuthugger Example

Probably the best nuthugger example I know of comes from baseball. There is a person I know who is the biggest Yankee nuthugger…likely in the entire world. It’s very possible they are the biggest nuthugger anywhere of anything.

When the Yankees win it’s because they are awesome.

When they lose it’s because they didn’t think the game was worth winning.

When they lose really badly then they shouldn’t have had to play the game at all.

When the Yankees sign a player they are the best player at that position EVER EVER EVER~!!!

When the Yankees fail to sign a player the guy was a bum and didn’t deserve to wear the pinstripes.

If during the off season the Yankees lost their entire pitching staff in a freak boating accident, didn’t re-sign anyone, and had hot dog tossers in the starting rotation, it would be, “A bold and innovative decision that is sure to pay immediate dividends”.

This person believes the only thing better than the 2009 Yankees are the 2010 Yankees and the only thing close to either of them are the 2008 Yankees. Amazingly enough every year and every off season the Yankees manage to be better on the first day of the season. /boggle

Some parallels

In case you missed it, go skim back over how to spot a “hater” and “nuthugger”. Seems awfully similar, right? The reason for that is that haters and nuthuggers have more in common than they realize. They are both over the top fanatical (wonder where the term ‘fan’ comes from) and the only real difference is which side they happen to be on.

In fact, it’s quite often that one person is a “hater” in one regard and a “nuthugger” in another. What makes this even more interesting is sometimes someone is being a “hater” of Fighter A, but it gets misconstrued as “nuthugging” of Fighter B.

Nuthaters?

I’d like to think that most MMA fans fall somewhere between hating and nuthugging on most issues. If not most, then at least the majority of the people who frequent this site. What makes these fans special is that they are able to *LOGICALLY* and *FACTUALLY* discuss fighters and organizations and the like without standing steadfast on one side of the fence.

The only things these fans “nuthug” is facts and the only things they hate are “haters and nuthuggers”.

Phew, made it through the whole section without a lesbian joke.

Facthugger? examples

One of the surest ways to spot a hater/hugger is by their inability and unwillingness to focus on facts. If you mention one detail about Fighter A, they will ignore that fact entirely and just jump right back to their conclusion that Fighter A is awesome, or Fighter A sucks.

What follows are *FACTS* about various fighters. As you read the below points you should be able to look at them only in the context of the points themselves. They are not meant to “bash” any one fighter or “praise” any one fighter. Obviously some could use some of these are part of their reasoning for believing something, but let’s just focus on the facts in and of themselves. Here’s a quick test run…

Randy Couture loses a lot

Seems like a strong title, and I know some are jumping out of their chair raging about EP slamming the great Captain American. Relax, pop a few more Prozac, put down the razorblades and read on a bit more.

Here are some facts about Randy Couture in terms of wins/losses.

- Randy has a 64% win%. That means he hasn’t even win 2 out of 3 at this point in his career

- Randy has not won 3 fights in a row since February 2001 (he also lost that night)

- Almost half of Randy’s wins have come by Decision (7 out of 16, which is way above average)

Now, some would take the above as bashing Randy, but it is *NOT* intended that way. I’m not saying Randy is a can, I’m not talking about him as a trainer, a gameplanner, a human. I’m not even talking about his overall fight career. What I am talking about are three specific facts about his fight history.

At this point anyone that is looking to label me a hater, is simply wrong, and likely a nuthugger. What a “fan” of Randy’s needs to be able to say is,

“I know Randy only wins about 2/3rds of his fights, and hasn’t put together much of a win streak in a long time, but…”

See, the person is acknowledging the facts, and hopefully what follows “but…” is some additional information, perhaps specific to his current opponent or the focus of the discussion.

A quick NBA example would be,

“I know Dwight Howard can’t hit 60% of his Free Throwns, but he’s still dominant inside and hella fun to watch”.

Again, we acknowledge a “negative” fact, and build from there. This is the grammar of discussion (wow, that should be a rant lol). Notice we didn’t say.

“Fuck you Dwight wore a cape and slammed a ball and jumped 18 feet on a slam and and Fuck you!!!”.

That probably crosses the line into nuthugging…maybe…it’s close…sorta…

Tons of other examples

Here are just a few other examples that I’ve seen mentioned that often get someone labeled a hater or a hugger.

A 2-1 fighter should *NOT* get a title shot
Lots of people immediately claim this is “hating” on Brock Lesnar, but his name isn’t even on it. Unless the person has another thread going where they are claiming Lashley (ok 4-0, but go with me on this) or King Mo (yeah, I know, but go with me on this) deserve a title shot, then the person isn’t hating on Brock.

They have a position that Brock is a part of, but it is not specific to Brock. Let’s look at the NBA free throw example and think about if someone said,

“I think it’s horrible these guys do this for a living, know they’ll wind up at the line 10+ times a night and barely make half of them. There are some games that get won and lost at the free throw line”.

No mention of Dwight Howard. As long as this person is willing to further discuss the early hack-a-shaq days and other players it is *NOT* hating on Dwight.

Rashad Evans
Rashad has had an interesting history since coming off the ultimate fighter show. On the show he showed a willingness (desire? lol) to go late…late into fights. His first few offical UFC fights ended via: Split Decision…Split Decision…Majority Decision.

Now, at this point some people “hated” on Rashad’s style. Mind you, most of them did not “hate” on Rashad specifically. They hated on the decision fests and how they came about. It could have been Rashad, it could have been O’Brien or anyone else. Again, notice how we aren’t talking about a specific fighter, but rather an aspect of fighting.

Here is where it gets interesting. Following those three decisions Rashad then finish Lambert from mount, and highlight reeled Salmon with a headkick. Ok, that’s showing some potential to finish a fight. At this point, some of the “hating” should adjust or ween just a bit. If someone was still slamming Rashad for not being able or willing to finish a fight, then they were definitely headed towards the “hater” side.

Following a Draw and split Decision, Rashad KO’d Chuck and “subbed” Forrest via strikes.

At this point people need to recognize that Rashad is capable of finishing fights. If someone still clings to Rashad’s early decisions when talking about how he couldn’t possibly finish Rampage or how he’ll never regain the title, then they are “hating”. At the same time, anyone claiming Rashad finishes everyone, is unbeatable, or anything too extreme in the other direction is just “hugging”.

Bonus Round

I know this might sound crazy to some, but I’ve actually gotten complaints that rants weren’t long enough. /boggle

I’d consider the rant officially over, so go walk your dog, sleep with your other half or start spewing Evil Pooh hate. For those that want a bit more evil in their day though…here we go:

I have a friend who is a Matt Hughes fan. Period, no doubt, *FAN*. EF-EH-EN Fan. They get close to nuthugging and sometimes when backed into a corner they do, but most of the time they are very rational.

At one point a while back this friend of mine was having an overall reasonable conversation with some other people and Hughes’ name came up. There was some more reasonable conversation and then one of the other people just latched onto and clung to Hughes’ nuts like it was the chopper out of Vietnam.

Having heard this my friend (the admitted Hughes fan), pointed out a few *FACTS* about Hughes’ career. These were hardly inflammatory things and really points everyone already knew. His goal wasn’t to bash Hughes, but rather to try to bring the discussion back to a more reasonable perspective.

What happened next?

“You fucking Hughes hater. Get GSP’s nuts out of your mouth!” (it’s a simple quote, so I have no trouble recalling it quite well)

Now, my friend doesn’t “hate” GSP, but I couldn’t even call them a “fan”. They are certainly a Hughes fan (almost nuthugger themselves) and somehow this other person (after only maybe 20 minutes) of discussion had deduced that my friend not only hated Hughes, but was pro-GSP.

This is the real liability of hating/hugging. Some people take it so far that even people on the same side of the argument have to try to real them back some. When your position is so far to one side that even people that overall agree with you still disagree on some things, you might want to take a step or two back towards the middle. I’m not saying switch sides, I’m talking vacation in logicville for a little bit.

Obviously not just MMA
Ever have that friend that loves one food place just a bit too much? “Fugging best food anywhere!!!”…uhhh no, at 3am with blood in your alcohol stream and no one to go home to it’s mildly comforting. If you ever eat that slop with the sun out people will think very poorly of you.

What about the guy who thinks every girl is a 10?

Idiot – “She’s a 10, holy shit, hottest girl I’ve ever seen~!!” (in the last 4 seconds usually)

Voice of reason – “Dude she’s an 8, at best given the hump and the clear violation of rule #1″.

Idiot – “Fucking Homo!!”

Yeah, clearly the voice of reason is homosexual because they have more tiers for woman other than:

1) Fugging 10
2) A dude

Please think

I really need to start printing T-shirts, but in all honesty, please think people. No one is perfect. Fighters lose, fighters mess up, organizations make mistakes, etc. Acknowledging that a fighter is human doesn’t take away from them, it makes them human and that makes the good even more impressive.

When someone says something “negative” about a fighter you like, stop and think if it’s even directed at them. Maybe this person just doesn’t like subs or whatever. There’s no doubt some people hate, and some people hug, but there are lots of people that fall in the middle. As you read rants in the future I urge you to remember…

I’m Evil Pooh…and I’m a facthugger.