Trading Shots: Is Gabi Garcia seriously going to fight a 52-year-old woman?

In this week’s Trading Shots, we all know Japanese MMA often plays by its own set of rules, but is a fight between an enormous jiu-jitsu expert and a 52-year-old woman stretching it, even by New Year’s Eve in Tokyo standards? MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes and retired UFC and WEC fighter Danny Downes discuss.

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Fowlkes: Hey Danny, remember last week when we were debating Fedor Emelianenko’s return to the MMA big time and you asked if age really made a difference in the risk involved with an MMA fight? I’d like to ask you to revisit that statement now that Rizin FF has announced plans to pit the terrifying Gabi Garcia against 52-year-old Shinobu Kandori at its year-end event.

Not only is Garcia (3-0) about 20 years younger than Kandori (4-1), she has roughly 6 inches and 40 pounds on her (via Twitter):

At the same time, Kandori is apparently a popular figure in Japan, so odds are that the locals will gladly watch her in a fight that would be un-sanctionable just about anywhere else.

Does that alone justify this nonsense? Or is this too insanely ridiculous to be redeemed even by the sacred metric of TV ratings?

Downes: Week after week I feel like I work for the MMA equivalent of the ACLU. As you come up with new reasons to be outraged over your morning kombucha, I have to talk you off the edge. I bet the first time you saw the movie “Demolition Man,” you thought to yourself, “Hey, that San Angeles seems like a great place to live!”

It’s a freak-show fight, I’ll give you that much. But it’s not like Kandori is going out there and fighting “Cyborg” Justino. Garcia is an accomplished grappler and an imposing physical presence, but she’s not exactly a great fighter. No one watches her fight and thinks, “Too bad there isn’t a deeper division for her to compete in!”

She’s Bizarro Bob Sapp. Sapp was a giant physical force with minimal skills who was set up to lose. Garcia is a giant physical force who’s set up to win. I imagine this fight will go to the ground quickly and Garcia will win with an even faster submission. Minimal damage will be sustained on both sides.

Does that diminish the fact that this fight should not happen? No, but it’s hard for me to take it seriously. I’m not saying the fix is in; I’m just saying that MMA fights in Japan can be suspicious. While abhorrent, I can understand why a promoter would make this fight. I can understand why people will watch it.Tell me you can’t think of a single congressman you wouldn’t want to see in the ring.

What I can’t understand is why Garcia would take the fight. Money talks, but what about self-respect as a martial artist? If you have to portion out blame (and I know you love doing that), doesn’t she deserve the most?

Fowlkes: Once again you manage to come up with a viewpoint that is utterly baffling to me. You want to blame Garcia for all this? How can you not see that she’s the most sympathetic figure here? She can’t help being big, Danny. It’s not her fault that she doesn’t fit in the more established women’s divisions. She just wants to fight and get paid, which puts her at the mercy of zany Japanese promoters. And, unlike Sapp, she at least seems to be trying her best.

You want to blame someone, blame Rizin FF. I know there aren’t a ton of available female fighters who’d be willing to fight Garcia, but it’s not as if a 52-year-old politician and former pro wrestler was the only choice out there. Maybe you’re right that, because of Garcia’s reliance on jiu-jitsu, she probably won’t unnecessarily hurt Kandori. But if that’s the best thing you can say about a particular matchup, what have you just admitted to yourself?

Not so long ago I heard a wild rumor. Actually, it’s probably more than a rumor, considering the source I heard it from, but for now let’s treat it as an interesting thought experiment. Say that, at a loss for what to do with Garcia, Rizin FF executives toyed with the idea of matching her up against a man. Say the male candidates were known, albeit somewhat aged figures in MMA (though not as aged as Kandori), and say at least one of them was down for the idea.

My question is, would that be better or worse? It’d have the same freak-show element to it. It’d still be the kind of thing we’d want to watch in spite of ourselves. It would also be the kind of nonsense that you just can’t do anywhere else, but which becomes somehow not unthinkable on the weirdly magical Japanese New Year’s Eve show.

What would we say then, Danny? Because a part of me feels like at least that would break some new ground. And at least it wouldn’t constitute such a blatant case of elder abuse.

Downes: Make a totally unsubstantiated claim like “Garcia is the most sympathetic figure,” and then follow it up with a rumor from an anonymous source to change the subject. That’s what I like to call “The Ben Fowlkes Shuffle.”

I’ll get to your gossip in a second (can’t wait to see your next article on McGregor vs. Mayweather), but I want to double back on Garcia’s culpability.

I’m sure it’s very difficult for her to find opponents. As a result, it makes it difficult for her to make money. That’s still no excuse to agreeing to fight a 52-year-old woman who hasn’t competed in 16 years. If it’s wrong for a promoter to make money by any means necessary, then the same principle applies to fighters.

If Kandori lived the U.S., she’d be getting AARP pamphlets in the mail. I know that all fighters have to pad their records, but we aren’t talking about Garcia fighting some journey(wo)man or 0-0 newcomer. We’re talking about 20 years and 40 pounds. You can have all the “intense staredowns” you want, and it will not change those numbers.

As for your alleged man vs. woman fight, there are a lot of complex things to unpack there. I understand the aversion to it, but if it were matched evenly, I suppose it would seem more fair. I played rugby in high school. In my freshman or sophomore year, we played a team with a girl on it. When she had the ball I did what you would do to anyone with the ball – I tackled her. At first it seemed a bit odd, but as the game wore on she became just another competitor on the field. That’s equality.

It’s much more difficult to find that evenness in MMA, but I suppose it’s possible. And if Garcia ever goes that route, I’ll give her credit. What I won’t do, though, is absolve her of any responsibility in her fight against Kandori. I hope I’m right and the fight will be a boring exchange with minimal consequences. but what if I’m wrong?

Fowlkes: I wouldn’t worry about that too much. If Danny Downes is wrong, well, it’ll be just another normal day in MMA as far as I’m concerned.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Danny Downes, a retired UFC and WEC fighter, is an MMAjunkie contributor who also writes for UFC.com and UFC 360. Follow them on twitter at @benfowlkesMMA and @dannyboydownes.

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