In this week’s Trading Shots, MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes and retired UFC/WEC fighter Danny Downes discuss UFC flyweight champ Demetrious Johnson, the media’s role in balancing education and entertainment, and the ways in which being a fight fan is nothing like being a football fan.

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Fowlkes: Well, Danny, I know a Demetrious Johnson title fight must be near, because already the wind is whispering questions (and very few answers) about why fans don’t care for the guy who so many people regard as one of the best fighters in the sport. He says it’s only “uneducated fools” who don’t like watching him work, which made me think of this recent conversation between two “Fight Network” analysts up in Canada.

Here we see Robin Black, the rare media member who’s also a fighter, making the case that fan indifference toward technique is a failure of the MMA media, which focuses too much on personal beefs and link bait “gotcha” stories. He even blamed the media for the fan reaction to Neil Magny’s win at UFC Fight Night 74.

“Neil Magny went behind his jab for the last 30 seconds and people booed,” Black said. “Why? It’s the media’s fault.”

As another member of the MMA media (admit it, you are) who also knows a thing or two about getting in the cage and doing the damn thing, what do you make of this argument? Would a technical master like “Mighty Mouse” be more popular if the media made it a priority to educate people on his brilliance? Is that what the media should be doing, just in general?

Downes: We can blame MMA media for a host of things, but lack of fan support for Johnson or Magny’s jab shouldn’t be on the list. All the media coverage I’ve seen has been overwhelmingly positive about Johnson. Most writers and media people wind up echoing something to the effect of, “If you don’t like Johnson, you’re not a real fight fan,” which is a flawed statement in and of itself.

Appreciating a “Mighty Mouse” fight (which I do) doesn’t make you a real fight fan any more than knowing some obscure punk band makes you a real music fan. Just because you like something that the masses may not appreciate, that doesn’t make you better.

In the video you linked to, I think they actually killed their own argument. With football season coming up, do you think most fans really want to see a 3-0 game? With the college football season beginning, does anyone really want to see teams run the “Power I” offense of old?

Whether it’s mixed martial arts, American football, soccer or any other sport, there’s an element of entertainment. We often talk about fighters who fail to seize the opportunity to set themselves apart in interviews, the ones who trot out the same cliches pre or post-fight. Are we hurting the sport by calling them boring?

I do agree that there are often headlines that make me wonder, “Why the hell is this news?” I especially remember this one from UFC 168. In the so-called media’s defense, do we have a chicken or the egg situation? Do stories about personal disagreements get written because that’s what the people want? Or do people read stories about personal disagreements because that’s what they’re given?

Fowlkes: One thing about media in the digital age is that we no longer have to guess what readers are looking at. It’s not like when newspapers where king, and you could count sales and subscriptions without ever knowing exactly how many eyeballs landed on any particular story.

Now we get precise numbers, and we get them instantly. So when you go to a serious news website and end up ignoring the story about Syrian refugees while clicking that guilty pleasure link about a Kardashian sister, the unblinking eye of the machine sees you. It records your behavior. It suggests to its masters that they make more of this, and less of the other stuff. This is how, to some extent, you tell the Internet what to give you.

I also think the football comparison is flawed, but for different reasons. People follow football teams out of a sense of loyalty, whether it’s geographically motivated, or because of some link to their childhood or whatever. What they want in exchange is success, the feeling that they won when their team won. Winning an exciting game is preferable to winning a boring one, but it’s not essential. As long as you don’t lose, you’ll be fine.

But people don’t watch MMA for the same reasons. They might have their favorite fighters, but there’s more conscious choice involved. Being from Seattle won’t make you significantly more likely to root for Johnson, at least not the same way it will make you more likely to root for the Seahawks.

MMA is about performance. It’s about entertainment. It’s more like a bullfight than a football game, in that sense. Some fans might know more about the art than others, and that may color which fighters they gravitate toward, but simply not getting gored isn’t enough.

In a lot of ways, that’s why it’s so important to show a little personality. That’s often how people become your fan in the first place, and once they like you they’re less inclined to be bothered by a boring victory. Just look at guys like Randy Couture or even Georges St-Pierre.

As for the idea of “hurting the sport,” that’s where I think you get into tricky territory. Is it the media’s job to help or spread the sport? If the sport is about entertainment, and if that is what fans value the most, is it any surprise that the media covering it would trend in the same direction?

Downes: It’s a false dichotomy to an extent, but I think MMA Fighting’s Marc Raimondi makes a good point. You’re either shills touting the corporate line, or your negativity is hurting the sport.

Media’s role isn’t to be a branch of the marketing department. If there’s a “bad” event (by whatever metric you deem fit to make that judgment), it should be described as such. Failing to point those things out compromises the trust that readers put into media outlets. At the same time, it should avoid negativity for negativity’s sake. It’s not unique to MMA media, but cynicism and snark should not be confused for actual intelligence.

Every fighter has a family. Some have children, some don’t. Some of them even put their careers on hold to help the Pygmy people in the Congo. It’s important for us to see fighters beyond people who punch and kick other people for a living. We shouldn’t ignore poor conduct outside the cage because we like what they do inside it. We also shouldn’t ignore poor performances inside the cage because we like what they do in their personal life.

“Glass jaw” is one of the most overused phrases in all of combat sports. I often question people that trot it out because it’s uncreative and usually false. Not because, “The man has a family!”

In your example of the news site having stories about Syrian refugees and the Kardashians, which one would you guess gets better traffic? Obviously this is a hypothetical, but I would assume that the Kardashian story receives much more attention. Is that a failure of global media? Is it a failure of the education system?

People want it both ways. They complain about all the coverage the Kardashians get as opposed to more serious issues, but news sites wouldn’t put it up there if they weren’t making money from it. Promoters and media deserve criticism, but when do fans take responsibility? You ever meet someone who likes Nickelback? Me either, but somehow they’ve sold over 50 million records. How did that happen?

Fowlkes: I get what you’re saying about fan responsibility, but I still think the fans should bear the lightest burden possible in that department. They’re here for fun, for entertainment, for distraction and inspiration. And the fact that they are here at all is why this – for both fighters and media – is even a job instead of just a weird hobby.

Trying to tell fans what they ought to like is pointless. Trying to “educate” them on aspects of the sport that they may not fully understand is a noble undertaking, but it’s not for everyone. Go tailgate with a bunch of football fans some Sunday and see how many people you can find who can adequately explain their team’s use of different blitz packages. It’s not essential to their understanding of the sport, and anyway this is something they do for fun on the weekends, man, so pass the Bud Light and stop hassling them.

Not too long ago I was talking to Frank Shamrock about reports that his brother Ken was planning to engage in a bare-knuckle boxing event. One thing Frank said that stuck with me was that he regards MMA as a kind of “performance art.” When he said it I thought, a) that is such a Frank Shamrock thing to say, but also b) he’s kind of right.

What people want out of an MMA fight is very different from what they want out of seeing the football team from their area play the football team from a rival area. For some people, the performance is about blood and knockouts and the spectacle of human destruction. For other people it’s about finesse and technical artistry. For still others, it is a proving ground for the larger-than-life characters they’ve come to like and hate, a sort of living morality play where the blood is real.

I don’t think it’s our place as the media to tell people what they should be getting out of this. At the same time, I hope they realize the extent to which, with every click and pay-per-view purchase, they’re telling us.

Downes: That’s a noble sentiment Ben. I just hope you remember those words the next time you rail against some guy in an Affliction shirt with a “JUST BLEED” tattoo.

I’m a bit torn here. I agree that it’s not media’s place to tell fans what’s superior, or what makes you a “real” fan. That type of attitude comes off as preachy, arrogant and annoying. At the same time, to say that all fighting styles or all performances are equal is a level of MMA relativism I can’t support. There are technical, brilliant fights and there are sloppy brawls. Some find the latter far more entertaining than the former. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but we have to admit that we can draw some conclusions about you by your preferences.

You’re a literature buff. Whether it’s “Twilight” or the “Naked Came the Stranger” hoax, a lot of “bad” books hit the best seller list. Would you say that there’s nothing wrong with that because people read for “fun, for entertainment, for distraction and inspiration?” Probably not, but then you would be accused of being a pompous jerk (again).

Being in the media presents a number of difficulties. Most times you’re dammed if you do, and dammed if you don’t. That may seem “unfair,” but it goes with the territory. There will always be criticism. Some of it deserved and thought-provoking. Some of it will be undue and trivial. With no shortage of fights and controversies, the hits will be coming more than ever, and I’m looking forward to it. But ask me again next week and my answer may be different.

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.