Benavidez breaks down the popular JOBE Awards – 2011 edition
Upon the ever changing tides of mixed martial arts, Joseph Benavidez has become the definition of re-definition.
The Team Alpha Male fighter’s unorthodox approach inside of the cage mirrors his approach in all things outside as Benavidez has paved a unique avenue of style and humor, as evidenced in the “Complete Complex Living Breathing Guide to Joe-Jitsu” that he penned for HeavyMMA.com one year ago.
Benavidez was among the first class of fighters to receive the UFC’s inaugural “Twitter Bonus.” Never being one to settle on past accomplishments, it didn’t take long for him to up the ante for the second round of voting, which ended last week.
Over the course of the past week, Benavidez rolled out the 1st Annual JOBE Awards to the Twitter-verse. All categories were created by the man himself and he allowed the “committee” of fans and followers to nominate the fighters they felt were most deserved of the award. The JOBE’s were a smash-hit.
“The thing about the JOBE awards is that it wasn’t just a total mockery like Joe-jitsu or other things of that nature,” Benavidez said. “These were actually kind of serious. I thought there should be awards for the ‘Nicest, Kindest, Happiest Fighter’ (that’s what I called it). I thought there should be awards for ‘Best Entrance Song’ or ‘Best Nickname’. Who cares about knockouts and submissions? We want to know other stuff. I gave an award for which fighter is the funniest on twitter. The most important, and the one I saved for last, was who is the best looking fighter.
“The ‘Nicest, Kindest, Happiest Fighter’ is an honorable award. It’s something people should know about. This goes to fighters who are happy to meet their fans. They have people saying ‘when I met this guy he was the nicest person’ or ‘when I met this guy he always had a smile on his face.’ The fighters who won this award were Mark Hominick, Brian Stann, Mark Munoz and Jonathan Brookins.
“These are things people want to know and every one of those fighters tweeted me back saying thanks. The fans voted those guys the nicest people and I feel that is something that should be out there. I feel it is something that should be recognized.”
Where other award shows focus on more conventional aspects, Benavidez felt the process had abandoned the categories fans truly cared about. Motivated to make the difference, he took to Twitter and let the people decide who needed to be recognized.
“I saw these award shows going on and didn’t think they captured the best categories,” Benavidez said. “They left out the important categories – the stuff that matters. There were also some snubs involved in the awards being handed out so I decided to make my own and it has been an amazing three days. The committee(my fans) have been awesome. I’ve had some of the fighters who won awards saying it was the greatest moment of their adult lives. It’s been quite a journey.”
While Benavidez addressed categories the MMA world needed to recognize, the JOBE Awards wouldn’t have been the same without his particular brand of humor.
“Of course I had some joking categories as well. I gave away ‘Best/worst hair.’ I also did ‘Best/worst tattoo.’ Another category was ‘Fighter Most Likely to be Mistaken for a Homeless Person’. That award went to Cody McKenzie. “
“The award for ‘Best Hair’ was a no brainer. It went to [Urijah] Faber, Ben Henderson and Clay Guida. It was a three-way tie. That is a solid award, no joking there. We also gave away ‘Worst Hair’ and that went to Josh Koscheck, the ‘green-haired guy from TUF and Dennis Hallman’s pubes also took home that award. [His pubes] did make an appearance so he was eligible for the award.
“I also gave away a few sub-categories in the hair department. I gave ‘Best Comb Over’ to Brian Bowles. I gave out ‘Best Facial Hair’ and this one kind of snuck in there to a dark horse. I awarded that to Phil Davis. People see beards and think they are automatic but that’s not the case. I also handed out ‘Most Manliest Chest Hair’ to Jacob Volkmann.
“I gave away a ‘Slashy Award’ for the best fighter/actor. A lot of people wanted to give the award to guys like Randy Couture, Rampage Jackson and other guys who have been in recent movies. But people tend to forget about Erik Koch’s role in the movie ‘Powder’. I thought it was a very powerful role and needed to be recognized. Now he’s faking and baking so it can never be repeated and that’s why I feel it’s important to recognize those roles people have forgotten about. Koch had that flash of brilliance and I felt it should be rewarded.”
As the world of mixed martial arts has become as much of a business as it is a sport, there is an increasing need for a fighter to keep his appearance razor-sharp. While Benavidez feels he is easily the stand-out in this regard, he wanted the spotlight to focus on a fighter he felt has been overlooked for his fashion sense.
“I was going to give away the ‘Most Stylish Award’ but in the process of doing so I realized it’s pretty much a fact that I am the most stylish. I changed the name to the ‘Second Most Stylish After Joe B Award’. I don’t want to give myself awards which I probably should have done. I should have changed the categories to ‘Second Best Entrance Song’, ‘Second Funniest Fighter’, ‘Second Best Looking.’ Actually probably not that one – that’s a bit of a stretch.
“Like I said, I did ‘Second Most Stylish’ because it’s a fact I’m number one and that award went to a bit of a dark horse. People might not realize it, but every time I see the guy he’s always looking fly. The award went to Sammy J. Stout. He’s always dressed sharp and stylish. It also helps he’s super good looking as a person because it makes his clothes look better. He had a big speech ready after he won where he thanked his tailor and the Korean guy who presses his shirts. It was a big award.”
Over its three day run, the JOBE awards picked up momentum. Saving what he considered to be the two most important categories for last, Benavidez asked his committee to nominate the funniest and best looking fighters in mixed martial arts.
“When it came to ‘Funniest Fighter’, that was a heated race. I would look at my phone and have hundreds upon hundreds of responses. I definitely got a lot of votes for Pat Barry. He’s a funny guy but these being my awards, I like my humor more subtle like Forrest or Kenny Florian. Pat Barry is more of the clown funny, ha-ha ‘look at me’ type where he gets kind of crazy. He got the award and based on votes I also gave it to Kenny and Forrest. Another fighter who is underrated in this category earned the award is Danny Downes. All four of them took home the JOBE for ‘Funniest Fighter’.
“I put out the category for ‘Best Looking Fighter’ and right away people started tweeting me girls. People were saying Meisha [Tate], Rhonda [Rousey] and Gina [Carano]. I shut that down but I did give out a female award to Rhonda because that day I saw her in person and was kind of impressed. For the men, the award went to Urijah Faber, Anthony Pettis and of course a no-brainer Yoshiro “Sexyama” Akiyama. He is professionally good looking so how could you not give that award to him?”
With the JOBE Awards behind him, he wanted to let his followers know the lines of communication are always open for creative ideas. Benavidez wants the suggestions to keep coming as he forges ahead, looking for the twitter bonus he feels he has coming to him.
“I’m 100% out to get another bonus,” Benavidez said. “People said it couldn’t be done but I’m going for it. I didn’t know if I could ever top my nickname contest which earned me the first twitter bonus, but then I came up with the JOBE awards. It feels pretty much like a shoe-in and now I’m just waiting for my $5,000 check.
“The awards are over but I let the committee know if they come up with any other JOBE awards they feel I left out or wanted to see added next time; go ahead and tweet them my way. My twitter is always open to engage with the fans. Some of the fans out there are geniuses and super-creative. If they come up with something awesome of course I’ll retweet them. In that aspect the JOBE awards will never end.”