This past Saturday, as Ulric and I took a walk after his nearly 2-hour training session, already knowing from his technique that he learned boxing from those who had learned it in an MMA context, I inquired about his hometown training prospects. Finding out that he had been paying for sub-par coaching, I was not surprised to discover that his first coach in the New Jersey town—that he somehow manages to drive a Tesla through without showing up on a Colin Flaherty video—had injured him and placed him in a grossly unsafe situation. He was now in better hands, though they lacked boxing expertise, but, being a pondering sort, wanted to know what my instincts were concerning this abusiveness, if it was common, why, etc. After being at Mister Clark’s school, he was aware that he had been in an unusual situation and wondered about my perspective.

As it turns out, I saw a blatant hurting of a member of the school I coached at, at the hands of an MMA lifestyle goon. I informed him that I asked the injured party if they wanted me to avenge them on the goon. The person said no, and I had Oliver beat the goon’s face in anyway. Below, is essentially what I said to him as we toured Wyman Park.

The popularity of MMA has grown to the extent that you have the same level of assholes populating MMA gyms as you do football locker rooms. To a large degree MMA has been a place where young men go to cultivate a menacing, macho image. You will see vast quantities of ink on these people, which is a clear sign of a searching identity. Because of the fact that one can get really effective at MMA via BJJ, much ego can be elevated without the humbling experience of being punched in the face a lot!

An MMA gym is where one goes to be a badass, to attract women—who are attracted to MMA as a sport infinitely more than to boxing—and also for the reasons a boxer goes to a boxing gym. But as the MMA population increases the character slackens, as more assholes infiltrate. Part of the problem is you can buy your way into an MMA club and stay there on little merit, as with a karate school. However, the MMA club has the high school ball sport mentality—the locker room aspect. John Rollo, of Team Ground Control, once heard from a venue host that a bunch of his adult, male students, wearing TGC shirts, acted like jerks at a ball game. He had to sort them out. A karate teacher would have not had to do this.

In a boxing gym, you only have the cream of what you have in the MMA school, because boxing is the nastiest part of MMA and because there is less money and less life-style mystique associated with it, a boxing gym is a place where young men go for solace, like to a monastery to contemplate their direction and hone their character, to get out of the trouble they get into in the urban environment, not to get better at street fighting, but to avoid being shot. A brain-heavy guy, like Ulric, in a boxing gym, is like a national treasure. Nobody wants that big brain damaged. They want to be able to tell people that they have a friend who actually graduated. They might need advice from a white collar boxer. At Loch Raven we had a skinny little pharmacist train there. He acted as the medic during sparring and all of the guys he cared for made sure he didn’t get hurt while he was in the gym. In MMA, the respect for the non-combative participant is not there, because the trainers are usually still actively fighting. Once the sport has been around and mature, you will have old men in the MMA gym enforcing honorable behavior like in a boxing gym. Until then, avoid heavily tattooed MMA coaches who have sex with female students and staff.

I was fortunately able to contact a man I coached once who has a gym near Ulric, and it seems the young man is in good hands. The guy I referred him to is so conscientious that he called me up for a briefing on what Ulric needed.