Prospectus Canibalis

I saw the best fighters of the next generation destroyed by madness, starving underskilled naked, dragging themselves through lopsided fights at dusk, looking for a well-matched fight.

Affliction’s sophomore effort, “Day of Reckoning,” put something both incredibly pressing and incredibly depressing on display Saturday at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif. It’s a disturbing trend, if not a destructive plague, and one that should arrest and alarm you. If it doesn’t, it’s time to examine your priorities as a prizefighting fan.

You should be aggravated by watching a 20-year-old Kirill Sidelnikov beat into bloody, black-eyed despondence. You should be vexed by 24-year-old Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou slipping one fight away from a .500 record. In these cases, indifference is ignorant, if not downright unconscionable.

Sidelnikov, despite the “Baby Fedor” moniker, is not any incarnation of this sport’s heavyweight king. Yet, with two years and five fights experience, he was placed into the ring against Paul Buentello’s 37 fights and 12 years of experience. Afterward, his face looked like he’d been mugged by a tractor.

In all honesty, the numbers can’t tell the full story. We’re well aware that for some preternatural talents two years and seven fights is more than enough time to become world beaters. However, Sidelnikov, an overweight light heavyweight, has faced dreadful opposition on the whole, showing natural power and toughness but massively deficient technique. He had his hands full in a slop-fest with completely unknown muscle freak Martin Soltisyk and was soundly outwrestled and controlled by Finnish muay Thai stylist Jarno Nurminen.

Buentello’s only losses in the last five and a half years were to top 10 heavyweights in Andrei Arlovski and Alistair Overeem. I have a question for you, Vadim Finkelchtein. If and inevitably when your young charge didn’t land a haymaker knockout in the first three minutes, what was he going to fall back on -- the experience he does not have or the skills he never learned?

Sokoudjou was matched in a less ostensibly retching manner. Having already fought four fighters who were, at one recent time or another, top 10 light heavyweights, you couldn’t say he was overmatched. Hell, I picked MMA’s top Cameroonian to win the fight. He even took the first round. Then he was put on his back and looked completely lost. In the scramble, he was overmatched against a vastly superior technical grappler and was submitted, dropping to 5-4 in his brief career.

Why my indignation? After all, Sokoudjou smashed Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and Ricardo Arona, so it would be asinine to act as though he was completely out of his league. However, following his bouts with Nogueira and Arona -- bouts he won purely on natural power punching -- he was expected to consistently fight elite light heavyweights. He had the power to beat them, if only he could hit them in the face. However, MMA is a cruel lottery, and if your victory is contingent on a fortuitous strike, you’re likely about to lose.

Sidelnikov should be fighting unknown guys in M-1, learning how to sprawl and punch straight. Sokoudjou, after plunking Nogueira and Arona, should have been fighting a steady diet of mid-level 205ers in bouts where he could test out his new and developing skills without fear of being destroyed, and where, should he experience adversity -- a positive happening in the process of grooming a fighter -- he would have the physical assets to rebound. Time and pressure make diamonds, not reckless promotional force.

In MMA, this baptism by fire is almost a rite of passage. It was possible in the days of proto-MMA, when being a gifted striker or a world-class wrestler was enough to win. It was accepted during the Japanese kakutogi boom because the premature spoiling of talented judokas and wrestlers gave K-1 and Pride Fighting Championships the television revenues necessary to put on sensational products. It is tolerated now because MMA maintains an absurd “otherness” with boxing, as its fans whinge and moan about boxers being “protected” and the fact that prized prospects may have two or three dozen fights before they face elite-level opponents.

MMA has some outstandingly inclined fighters who, with little training, can win consistently at the elite level. However, they’re a rarity, especially in a sport in which the talent level is consistently growing. The boxing world has precocious prospects, too, but it also has precaution. The days of Pete Rademachers are long gone, as boxing handlers and promoters have learned it’s in the best interest of everyone involved -- athletes and their associated leeches -- to develop well-groomed, well-trained, well-versed fighters rather than attempting to hastily hurl them toward the stars.

Unlike boxers such as Marvis Frazier and David Reid, brutal products of the too-much- too-soon mistake, Sidelnikov and Sokoudjou are not permanently damaged goods, having escaped their trials relatively unscathed; they’re young enough to rectify their careers, but they shouldn’t have that onus. They should be mastering combinations, transitions, submissions, sweeps and escapes and dutifully smashing incrementally better competition under the watchful eyes of savvy handlers. Then, when their day comes, their eye won’t explode because they can’t evade a jab, and they won’t be strangled with a basic brabo choke setup.

This sport is still young, and there’s hope for more prudent practices regarding prospects. Muhammed Lawal, who was seven seconds away from being a freestyle wrestling medal favorite in Beijing, made it through his cruel baptism by knocking out one of the sport's most experienced fighters, Travis Wiuff, in his debut. However, Lawal was quick to step out of that baptismal pool before he found the drop-off and drowned. A true student of the prizefighting game, he’s acutely aware of what’s become of rushed boxers and knows his skills need developing. As such, his next two bouts were stylistic matchups that allowed him to test out his blossoming skills in real action.

In March, in his fourth pro bout in just six months, he’ll take on light heavyweight King of Pancrase Ryo Kawamura in an appropriately tough fight -- a fight where he can further work on his striking. Should the heavy-handed Kawamura prove troubling, Lawal can easily take him down and physically overwhelm him on the floor, giving him ample time to further his guard passing, ground-and-pound and submission skills. Lawal wants to fight on every Sengoku card this year against well-chosen opponents that will help him develop into a true MMA fighter.

Unfortunately, few fighters have Lawal’s promotional street smarts. Even fewer managers have been in this game long enough to know how to successfully develop an elite fighter and his or her value, despite the fact that it seems pretty obvious and intuitive. The well-architected ascent of “King Mo” seems more like a freakish aberration than an evolutionary step.

This is the wrong sport to be eating its young. We’re amidst a generational flux for MMA in which the inevitability of age is grabbing Randy Couture, three lifetimes of punishment in 32 years has besieged Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and a toe-to-toe brand of brutality has caught up with Wanderlei Silva. Leave it to lions and tigers, butterflies and baboons. The youth should be the future, not fodder.

With every stacked card and every time two elite fighters meet expectedly rather than thankfully, the MMA world thinks it’s learned from boxing.

Not enough, apparently.

E-mail comments to Jordan Breen at [email protected].