It’s been a trying few months to be an MMA fan.  The UFC has continued their decent into a ‘you’ll take what you get and like it’ policy for matchmaking, which has given us awful fights like Matt Serra v. Frank Trigg.  They’ve served up one awful main event after another, reaching its nadir at UFC 109 with the old timers battle between Randy Couture and Mark Coleman.  Further underscoring that this fight should have never been made, Coleman was released immediately after his loss.    At this point, the UFC hasn’t booked a fight between Matt Hughes and a wet mop–yet.

As the PPV buyrates have plunged, the entire thing has gotten more and more ridiculous.  Dana White is becoming more and more unhinged and swearing a lot more, acting as paranoid as Hunter S. Thompson’s ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ proxy Raoul Duke–only without the drugs to blame.  Joe Rogan has started to YELL ALL THE TIME, perhaps in an effort to convince us that what we’re seeing is exciting despite all evidence to the contrary.  The UFC is now vaguely reminiscent of WCW and WWE pro wrestling before the Monday Night Wars and its subsequent revival–you watch the whole wretched spectacle hoping to see a decent match or two amid all of the bilge.

There had been at least some minor signs of an improvement–UFC 110 offered a very compelling main event between Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira that ended up being a rout but definitely looked intriguing beforehand.  There’s some good fights on the horizon–Shane Carwin vs. Frank Mir and supposedly the long awaited Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson vs. Rashad Evans battle.  All of that provided some false hope, however, as the MMA fan’s misery hit a new low late last week with the news of the bizarre ‘Chuck Liddell naked workout video’.

I was first made aware of this abomination in a post by Sports Untapped’s intrepid reporter Sooze, and as much as I dreaded it I knew that as a respected member of the MMA sporting press I had to watch it.  The result was worse than I could have imagined–a pasty white Liddell halfheartedly hitting some weight machines while his overly tan and siliconed girlfriend works the StairMaster.  At least the video had the mercy to blur all of the offending parts of Liddell’s anatomy–actually, that’s not quite true as his head was clearly visible.

The video looked staged and, besides, ‘who works out naked?’–it wasn’t long after that Dave Meltzer at The Wrestling Observer provided this definitive statement:

Regarding the video of Chuck Liddell and his girlfriend Heidi Northcott working out naked, it was, as many people figured, part of a viral ad campaign for Reebok and not something weird(er). Northcott, who needs to work out naked more often, was number 12 most searched this morning and Chuck was number 19. So at least the viral campaign effectively promoted them.

As that statement suggests, the only thing that ‘The Iceman’ is wearing in the video is a pair of Reebok’s and presumably the idea of having him and his main squeeze naked was so people would notice the shoes.  Surprisingly, that didn’t work and its probably a good thing for Reebok that it didn’t.  I don’t see a lot of people needing to get some new kicks and rushing to  buy the ‘cool shoes that Liddell wore when he worked out naked’.

A lot of sports writer types have been worked up about the relatively large number of high profile athletes taking naked pictures of themselves and having them ‘exposed’ to the public either wittingly (Lindsey Vonn) or unwittingly (Grady Sizemore, Greg Oden).  Personally, I could care less about this–Sizemore and Oden thought they were taking pictures for a girlfriend and they fell into the wrong hands.  Lindsey Vonn is a hot chick that did an artsy pose for a major magazine.  There really hasn’t been a problem since the Liddell video and ‘The Iceman’ has outed himself as one of ‘those dudes’ that think everyone wants to see them naked.

Here’s a tip for all men–the general public, be it male or female, gay or straight, young or old, doesn’t want to see you naked.  This isn’t to say that you may have a girlfriend or wife (or both) or whatever that enjoys the sight of you starkers, but there isn’t a male on the planet so attractive or in such good shape that the mainstream masses are clamoring to see them naked.  Unfortunately, there are always dudes that don’t get this.  The late Teddy Kennedy was apparently a victim of this phenomenon, as he famously liked to ‘party’ wearing an Oxford shirt and no pants.  There are countless douchebags on MySpace that think everyone in the world wants to see them in their boxers, usually in a selfshot picture taken in front of a mirror in their parent’s basement or trailer.  And if you’ve ever been to a nightclub that had pretenses of being trendier than the local Dave and Buster’s, you’ve no doubt seen ‘that guy’ who can’t wait to strip down and get down.

Obviously, I don’t have a problem with dudes who want to undress for people who *want* to see them.  If you want to lay down for a skin rag or work in porn, that’s your business.  The big difference is that by definition people who buy these products *want* to see male full frontal nudity.  If you want to send naked pictures to your wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, teacher or whatever that’s cool too.  The intended audience may not want to see your anatomy as much as you *think* they do, but once again you’re not being ‘exposed’ to the general public.

With these exceptions, just commit this concept to memory if you’re a guy:  the public at large doesn’t want to see you naked. Chuck Liddell was already on the downside of his career as a fighter, and now his legacy is further tarnished with the revelation that he’s a dude that thinks random people want to see him bare ass naked.  There’s always the possibility of redemption in his fighting career, but he’ll never be able to regain his lost dignity.