Lindland isn't in the UFC because he lacks muscles?
Word of the Matt Lindland documentary Fighting Politics is making the rounds. There is no official release date for the piece which tries to bring to light why Lindland, who was a top five fighter in the UFC's middleweight division as recent as 2005, was dumped by the organization.
By the looks of the trailer, Loretta Hunt from Sherdog suggests that it was based primarily on Lindland not having the right look and wearing a Sportsbook.com t-shirt into the cage. Josh Gross from SI.com goes onto say that the UFC isn't legitimate because it doesn't have Lindland on its roster.
There are also multiple voices heard saying that Lindland is the No. 1 middleweight in the world. That's a quite a leap since most MMA media types have Anderson Silva, in the same weight class, as the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world (Fedor Emelianenko is my No. 1).
It looks like the piece includes some interesting bombs hurled toward the UFC president Dana White. Although the voices featured are Hunt and Gross, both are no longer credentialed to cover UFC events and a former UFC employee Keith Evans. Yahoo! Sports' Kevin Iole also appears in the piece. Here's hoping in future pieces like this that more MMA media voices are heard. I'm sure Dave Meltzer, Mike Chiappetta, Joe Ferraro, Neil Davidson and former Sherdog employee, Brad McCray are all very familiar with Lindland's story as well.
I wonder if Josh Barnett, another fighter who is essentially banned from UFC, is covered in the piece. Was he blocking a more glamourous heavyweight or is his body displeasing to look at? There's no doubt, Lindland and Barnett should both be in the UFC but there has to be a lot more to these stories than is being suggested in this trailer.
