LAS VEGAS — The sports agency and management business is often a glamorous game, but it comes with its challenges.
Professional athletes have gotten themselves into hot water with their words and actions since, well, about as long as there has been professional athletics. That’s only been magnified in the social media age, particularly in an industry as rambunctious as the fight game.
And a manager’s role is to guide his/her client back on the right path.
Such an example came up recently when outspoken UFC welterweight Mike Perry caught flak on social media because of his Twitter spat with African-American actor Michael Jai White.
In the course of the argument, Perry used a slang version of the N-word slur, which in many circles is considered acceptable for African-Americans among each other, but not for non-blacks us in any instance.
Perry has defended his use of the word, saying online DNA tests have shown him to be 2 percent black. But he got pushback for his comments, most notably from UFC strawweight Angela Hill, an African-American woman who noted she got along with Perry when they met before but said “this isn’t cool” in response to his use of the N-word.
This is where Perry’s management would come in to clean up the mess. As agent Abe Kawa of First Round Management explained to MMA Junkie during UFC 246 fight week, his fighters run their own social media accounts, and his job is to try to guide his clients in the right direction.
“One thing I can’t do, and I’ve been been blamed many times in the past for, I don’t run their social media,” Kawa said. “I can’t tell people what to do and not do; I can only give them advice. I can show them, ‘Hey, this is where you’re going to lose out on things.’ In this case, Mike, if we would take the time to actually listen to Mike, you would understand where he was coming from.”
Kawa knows that Perry comes from a complicated, working-class upbringing, which included scrapes with the law. And while he doesn’t personally use the language Perry did, he understands how Perry’s life experiences have influenced his outlook.
“I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do,” Kawa said. “So I don’t want to put myself out there and say what he’s doing is the right thing to do. But for him and the way he grew up and the way his beginning was, it’s right. So, I get it. For the person who is not used to that and for the person who doesn’t get it, for me, I don’t go around doing that just the same way. I may have in the past and whatnot. But for him, for what he feels is right, it’s hard for me to change that in one shot.
“He would have to go to jail for that. It would have to be a law that says you’re doing something wrong. That’s the way he sees it. He feels that everybody else is being closed-minded, where he’s the one trying to educate everybody. And it just doesn’t come out that way. So I understand the hurt.”
Kawa also believes that while many spoke out against Perry’s choice of words, there are just as many out there who get where his fighter is coming from.
“I think the stigma of what he’s doing is probably way more blown up in the media than actually to the common folks,” Kawa said. “If you look at the comments, once one person says something, everyone kind of goes in there. But then you have the other side of it, where everyone is like, ‘Why are you guys messing with him? He came from where I came from. I get it, Mike.’ So he’s getting a 50-50 split of people saying to him don’t do it, and then the other 50 percent saying, ‘We understand you, it’s OK.’ So Mike is gonna be Mike; we all have to love Mike.”
To hear Kawa on Perry, watch the video above. And for our full interview, check out the video below.
Manager doesn't condone Mike Perry's slang use of the N-word but understands where it comes from