ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith recently spewed some controversial comments – his specialty, by the way – about women in combat sports. Unprovoked, he mentioned how he didn’t want to ever see women fighting men, but then added that he didn’t even want to see women fighting women.
This isn’t out of the realm of Smith’s usual stir-the-pot antics, but seems to fly in the face of ESPN’s broadcast partnerships with the UFC, PFL MMA, and boxing promotions that regularly feature women competing against women.
Former UFC welterweight contender and current commentator Dan Hardy chimed in on the Smith’s comments (some of which are included below) suggesting that perhaps Smith’s middle initial stands for Archaic.
What do you think of Stephen A. Smith’s comments and Dan Hardy’s reaction?
ESPN Stephen A. Smith doesn’t want to see women in combat sports
“Where I jump off the bandwagon is where they try to engage physically. For example, I don’t ever want to see a woman boxing a man. I don’t want to see that. I don’t want to see a woman in the UFC fighting a man, even though there are some women out there that will kick the dude’s butt.
“When I think about pugilistic sports, I don’t like to see women involved in that at all. I just don’t like it. I wouldn’t promote legislating laws to prohibit them from doing so, but I don’t want to see women punching each other in the face. I don’t want to see women fighting in the octagon and stuff like that, but that’s just me.
“What I adamantly would be against is them fighting men. I don’t think that’s cool. I’m not a proponent of that. Plus, you don’t ever want to give men a license to believe that it’s all right to be physical with a woman, to be quite honest with you. You don’t want to do that.”
(Video courtesy of Full Reptile)
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Dan Hardy rips on Stephen A. Smith’s archaic comments on women in the UFC
