Burwell goes on to call MMA “street brawling.” Really? You’ve seen someone use a gogoplata in a street fight? A kimura? You’ve seen someone use a sweep into a guillotine?

There is a visceral reaction to the violence in MMA, and sometimes that is enough to turn someone off. It’s certainly not for everyone.

There is the visceral reaction, and then there is the truth of what is actually occurring. There is just as much technique that goes into B.J. Penn’s ground game as there is in the Denver Broncos’ blocking schemes. It’s easy to discount the technique on display when you don’t know what you’re watching.

We fear what we do not understand.

Burwell calls MMA part of the "American Apocalypse," failing to understand that the same young demographic that is tuning into MMA is also the group that is largely responsible for making Barack Obama the first African-American presidential nominee, for countless innovations on the internet, for trying to save the planet. They are young, they are educated, and they are forward-thinking.

Then, there is the disrespect that goes the fighters’ way.

This weekend, both Kevin Iole and Dan Wetzel of Yahoo.com described Kimbo Slice’s opponent, James Thompson, as a “tomato can” in published columns.

Iole wrote, “Had Slice faced ex-WWE champion Brock Lesnar, the current UFC rookie hopeful, he’d have been beaten in less than two minutes. As it was, Slice struggled his way to a sloppy third-round knockout of a complete tomato can.”

And Wetzel wrote, “Any promotion that was going to use Kimbo Slice as its main event clearly cared nothing about the quality or growth of the sport. It was just grabbing cheap viewers. If that meant sending a mostly unskilled street fighting sensation against a guy who was such a tomato can he should have dressed in red, then so be it.”

Both men had a larger and more valid point to make, but what was the point of essentially demeaning Thompson?

While it’s true that Thompson has struggled lately and had lost six of his last eight fights prior to Saturday, he still had a winning 14-8 mark in his career. In addition, the six losses were to fighters with a combined record of 50-17-1. He wasn’t losing to low-level fighters; he was losing to guys like Kazuyuki Fujita, who has been in the ring with Mirko Cro Cop and Fedor Emelianenko; to Brett Rogers, who is unbeaten; and to Jon Olav Einemo, whose only loss is a decision to Fabricio Werdum, one of UFC’s top heavyweight contenders.

Mainstream media members often rail at blogs not having to be accountable for what they write, but the characterization of Thompson as a “tomato can” sounds like a shot they knew they’d never have to answer for. Why was there a need to resort to insulting a guy who has always tried hard but struggled at times? I don’t see baseball beat writers describing backups as “scrubs.”

Athletes with the courage it takes to perform should not be subjected to this kind of treatment. Whether they are knocking a sport or an individual, writers should think about what they are telling the world.

Like the fighters and the sport you have no problem bashing, you owe the public an honest effort.