YOU CAN be a big fan of a sport or a specific league, but they still need to be "put on blast" when they act like immature idiots.
The big news coming out of the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC) show last Sunday afternoon NZ time should have been about the extraordinary TKO victory by rugged British journeyman Michael Bisping, who as an injury replacement stepped in at short notice to defeat middleweight champion Luke Rockhold.
Instead, mainstream sports writers around the United States jumped to the defence of colleague and well-regarded Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) journalist Ariel Helwani, one of the few fulltime MMA reporters with legitimate credentials who covers the sport.
Helwani found himself blacklisted by UFC simply by doing what either myself or any other reputable journalist would do.
Backstage at the show he received information, which he got confirmed by several sources, that former UFC heavyweight champion and well-known professional wrestling star Brock Lesnar would be making a comeback to fight on the UFC 200 show in July, with his opponent later revealed to be New Zealand-born Mark Hunt.
Helwani released his "scoop" on his Twitter account, roughly around two to three hours before UFC intended to drop their big surprise during the show.
Approached by PR officials, Helwani was basically ordered to leave the media room and eventually met with a fuming UFC president Dana White, who informed him, allegedly in a very abusive manner, that he and his fellow MMAFighting.com staff were banned from ever receiving media credentials again and they were to be escorted from the building immediately.
Helwani alleges White told him he was hated by the UFC owners Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta and was "too negative" with his coverage of the sport, which anyone who has watched Helwani online in his interviews with White and his fighters in the past would know is a gross exaggeration.
White kept up the rhetoric later in the week, informing gossip website TMZ that Helwani would never get credentials again "as long as I'm around".
But after a massive uproar from mainstream organisations like ESPN, who White had lied too on Friday when asked point blank if Lesnar would ever fight in the UFC again, along with Helwani speaking openly and passionately about his unfair treatment, the ban was begrudgingly lifted by Wednesday NZ time.
Yet even here, UFC could not resist a dig, likely still trying to keep a hold over Helwani when it became clear they would not get away with receiving popular public support over their decision.
"We respect the role the media plays in our sport and beyond, including MMAFighting's ability to report news," said the press release.
"However, in our opinion, we believe the recurring tactics used by its lead reporter extended beyond the purpose of journalism.
"We feel confident our position has now been adequately communicated to the SB Nation editorial team."
UFC and White in particular need a reality check on what journalism actually is.
Among the farcical justifications offered during the Helwani and White argument came from an unnamed PR official who told the beleaguered reporter he should have come to them before releasing his information.
Helwani, who as a part-time gig previously worked for the UFC on Fox television show until being released under murky circumstances a few months ago, knew what that meant.
Although at the time Helwani was officially employed by Fox Sports, the UFC on Fox show was funded by the UFC through licensing contracts, so many times the uncomfortable scribe was advised by production people to "toe the company line" and sit on pertinent information before official announcements, or worse, could not openly discuss contentious issues like fighter salaries or drug concerns.
In other words, bury the truth.
For his part, Helwani was just relieved to hopefully put the matter behind him and get back to reporting the news rather than being the news, although it remains to be seen how his relationship with White & co will be going forward.
"I hoped that cooler heads would prevail because I believe that I did nothing wrong and I would do the same thing again," he said, and so he should.
I have praised the UFC for the good work they have done in the past to legitimise their sport and bring it to the forefront - such as recently getting MMA licensed in New York City after years of advocating and lobbying.
Their efforts to always put on high quality bouts have been a welcome tonic to the political spats in boxing where different fighters are represented by different bodies and it often takes years and a few lawsuits before the top contenders finally face each other.
However, being the big fish in a small pond, it seems they have to expand some small minds.
Freedom of the press is a vital component on any society, and standover tactics to try and micro-manage or control a story will long term do more harm than good.
Why to you think media praise of your events is so worthwhile? Because they come from a objective and unbiased source, one that news consumers rely on to be accurate. It's the same with criticism, although in the Helwani case there was none.
Back home at the start of the month, when it was announced our own multi-sport superstar Sonny Bill Williams would be holding a press conference in Auckland, multiple media organisations reported beforehand that Williams was likely to be re-signing with the NZRFU and joining the Blues in Super Rugby - hours before those words actually left his mouth.
To my knowledge, no rugby writer with NZME, Fairfax, Mediaworks or TVNZ has been banned from getting passes to the coming Wales test matches for doing so.
UFC, which desperately wants to be higher profile on sports telecasts in the United States - craving similar wall-to-wall coverage received by the NBA, NFL and Major League baseball - should be aware those organisations are accepting of the cut-and-thrust which comes with journalists as they will cover those sports "warts and all".
Those bigger sports also have writers' guilds where journalists can collectively air any grievances they have with officials or members of the leagues who may be trying to intimidate, micro-manage, or stop the flow of free information.
UFC, which has aspirations of MMA being included in the Olympics one day, needs to quickly come to the understanding that physical intimidation should be kept inside their octagon amongst their fighters, instead of being used outside of it by officials trying to stamp out independent thought.
They can never become universally accepted until they do.