Ariel Helwani: ‘It’s wild to see how some people don’t know how to talk to women athletes’

In case you’re completely unaware, there’s been a recent run on women’s sports discourse.

Some of it has been fun, but most of it has been grating and difficult to follow. If you didn’t shake your head in befuddlement over the last… week or so, that’s okay. It’s pretty natural right now. Most, if not all, of it hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Ariel Helwani, in particular, has paid attention.

Helwani hosts The MMA Hour and is no stranger to covering women’s sports, specifically women’s combat sports like the UFC, MMA at large, and WWE. Like many others around the country, Helwani plunged into the women’s sports discourse on this week’s episode of The MMA Hour. He offered some fascinating insight into the situation and pondered whether mainstream sports media is equipped to handle this.

“I find it very interesting to see how the mainstream sports media covers and talks about women’s sports,” Helwani said. “And all this hullaballoo over the last few months in particular because of Caitlin Clark as opposed to us, in the MMA world in particular, who, we have women’s athletes on the show all the time. They’re no different. I don’t care if there’s five on the show, there’s six on the show, there’s one on the show, there’s three on the show. I really feel like this sport, MMA, at times, is viewed as this neanderthal sport. And yes, we’ve grown up a lot. I really think everyone in the sport, from the promoters to the media to the fans, should be proud of the fact that we cover and talk about and treat the women exactly how we do the men.”

Ariel Helwani on how the mainstream sports media covers and talks about women’s sports recently as opposed to how the media in the MMA world does.#TheMMAHour pic.twitter.com/4yae3yogMD

— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) June 5, 2024

“It’s wild to see how some people don’t know how to talk about women athletes,” Helwani continued. “Like that story that came out with the columnist from the Indy Star. They have no idea how to do it. They are uncomfortable, they are awkward, they are weird. And they don’t know how to even talk about it now with all this other drama going on with the WNBA and Caitlin Clark.”

Helwani acknowledged those who don’t like women’s MMA or boxing but focused on the mainstream and big outlets that have covered the sport “for a long time.” He thinks there’s “a lot to be proud of” because he doesn’t feel the fighters are ever uncomfortable. “It’s not a story, it’s not a thing,” Helwani said.

“Wow, you guys have no idea how to do this correctly. You don’t know what the words are to be said. You don’t know what the descriptions should be; you don’t know what the characterizations should be. You don’t know what the debates should be. The talking points should be. It’s all very fascinating to watch unfold because I feel like it’s so not a thing here in this little corner of the sports world.”

[The MMA Hour/Jed I. Goodman]