The FF-Files: Say What Again
If you thought the multiple examples from our initial reintroduction piece titled “Say What?” was all we had to offer regarding absurd statements sent to Sherdog Fight Finder, you have another thing coming. Countless hours are spent poring over every single submission sent to the Fight Finder team, reviewing tape, making certain the right fighters are in the cage or ring, and so on. It is a never-ending task, but it is out of our love of the sport that we carry on. Not all that email us share that love, and some self-interested people can get chippy when they do not get their way.
Don’t forget, the Sherdog Fight Finder staff is made up of people, not machines. If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you send in comically bad emails, do we not laugh? If you poison us with your criticism, do we not feel bad? If you wrong us, shall we not revenge by mocking you openly on the FF-Files? We try not to put organizations or individuals on blast in this series out of the concern that they may not be directly responsible for the messages, but sometimes a submitter needs to take one on the chin.
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This sweet person sent in a signed, stamped document on seemingly legitimate letterhead, and it appeared that their request to update a fight from a few years ago would be an easy fix. Unfortunately, their “document” was not only factually wrong, but it omitted and altered some very key details about the fighters involved and the event itself. As it turned out, the team not only had reviewed the full footage of the fights in question, but already had spoken directly to the promoter about this card. We rested like rams at their bogus request.
“I will not prove anything to you. Your [sic] right not to
believe me. Then you will see who is lying and who is
not.”
Wait, what? Did you just admit that you lied about sending an image to us, after the staff called you on it, saying we were right not to believe you? This puzzling response comes at the end of an exchange where they claimed that someone from Sherdog sent them a message from one of our official accounts. No such message was ever sent, and it turned out they were trying to lash out at the team for refusing their transparently false fight request. They did not prove anything to us.
“In social networks, he indicated a specially [sic] incorrect date. He is now 27 years old…not who does not deceive you.”
A manager wrote in claiming that another fighter lost at a 2009 event instead of his client with a similar name. We get those requests on a regular basis, and they’re almost always hogwash. This manager, in his infinite wisdom, had the gall to state that this other fighter incorrectly marked his own date of birth on his social media profile. In the very next sentence, however, he authenticated the fighter’s date of birth by stating that fighter is now the age he should be. A birth year in the 90s, and an event that took place in early 2009, means the fall guy would have been well underage when he supposedly competed as a pro.
“So I am sending you another request. Consider it. And you will understand that you have created a game.”
Fight Finder interactions should be so easy. You send in the information to the staff; the team receives it and processes it. If a team member has any questions, they will contact you and ask for more information or verification. If you don’t send that in, we can’t help you even though we would very much like to do just that. The last thing anyone needs is for some manager, possibly due to a language barrier, to get mad and send in the same materials again and again and again. If we call you on fraudulent information – the team is especially effective at sniffing out nonsense – don’t make a bunch of new email accounts and spam the Fight Finder inbox with these same fake fights. It’s a one-way ticket to burning the fighter you are trying to unlawfully assist. It’s no game, it’s strictly business.
“The video of the fights was not filmed, I told you already. [Redacted] can be seen in the video.”
There was no video attached to this response, or any in this brief correspondence. If the fighter can be seen in the video, but no one filmed any video, how does one reconcile these two situations? We sometimes maintain lengthy communiques with individuals that can get a trifle messy when they reach the 25-message mark and beyond, but this is not one such case. Instead, someone is confused, and it is not the Fight Finder staff. There is no video, only Zuul.
You can send all of your Fight Finder-related requests to [email protected], but leave your attitude in your drafts folder.
