BloodyElbow Writer Busted for Child Porn, Everyone Attacks BloodyElbow

On Friday, the news broke that a writer over at MMA news site BloodyElbow had been busted for child porn over the summer. Iain Kidd was the writer, he’s based out of Scotland, covered everything to do with performance-enhancing drug violations, and had been contributing to BloodyElbow for years.

He was, of course, promptly fired, and his digital footprint was scrubbed from the site.

Child porn is a pretty egregious thing, so his firing was certainly just. But because BloodyElbow has made a lot of enemies over the years, those enemies felt the time was right to attack BloodyElbow.

Here’s noted drug abuser Jon Jones piling on:

Oh, and here’s fighter manager Malki Kawa doing the same:

Here’s fighter manager Ali Abdel-Azziz:

Sorry, but all of this is total crap. Kidd deserves all the scorn in the world for his crimes. But BloodyElbow has for years been the watchdog the sport needs, and to paint them with the same brush Kidd is being painted with is wrong. No one knew about Kidd’s proclivities over there, and the minute it all came to light, immediate action was taken.

Deadspin hit the nail on the head with their take:

Iain Kidd, and only Iain Kidd, is to blame for what he did. That some of the most cynical gits on the internet—and some of the most powerful people in MMA—are beating down his colleagues over crimes they had no connection to and no reason to know about, for no better reason than that they don’t like being covered critically, is its own sort of disgrace.

I’ve contributed maybe two or three articles to BloodyElbow over the past decade – just for the hell of it. And I would gladly do so again. They’re good journalism.