Cesar Gracie shared his thoughts regarding the much publicized melee between his stable of fighters and Jason “Mayhem” Miller at the end of the Strikeforce broadcast on CBS last Saturday.

“My biggest problem with what happened is that it distracted from the fights. (We) just saw two of my very best guys (Jake Shields and Gibert Melendez) have masterful performances – tactically, physically and everything – and people are talking about the post-fight fight that should have never happened. I told them that this distracts from the real fights. It doesn’t help anybody. Nobody’s getting paid for fighting after the fight. It makes crybabies come out there and talk about it more, and then we have to do interviews talking about crybabies.”

Gracie thinks that there is a double standard when it comes to MMA. With the sport still in its early years compared to more established leagues, Gracie feels that people are simply looking for a reason to criticize something that they don’t completely understand.

“I went to a hockey game, a (San Jose) Sharks game last week; there were three fights where the teams were fighting each other. That was at a hockey game where there are supposed to be no fights. So a fight broke out at a fight. That’s not a good thing, and I’m not condoning it … but a lot of people are jumping on this because they’re babies. The same night, they had an NBA fight. They want to talk about a fight at an MMA fight between MMA fighters.”

With some in the media using the skirmish as a reason to bash MMA as a whole, Gracie thinks that the entire situation has been blown out of proportion.

“If you’re a sports fan, you’re used to seeing fights all the time. It’s really, seriously, a bunch of pussies latching on to this and trying to make it a bigger deal than it is. Is it a good thing? It’s not a good thing. We’re sorry. Everybody involved has apologized. But you’ve got a lot of crybabies that are going to latch on to this to the bitter end, but they’re not going to say anything when a hockey game has fights every night. Young sport, old sport – people are making a much bigger deal than this. It’s hype; it’s all hype.”

On Sunday, Gracie apologized to the Tennessee Athletic Commission and Strikeforce. He said that none of his fighters should expect hefty punishments.

(source: MMA Junkie)