By Kalsang Rinchen
Dharamsala, March 25 – One may wonder what a Tibetan mantra has got to do with the UFC 111 fight? Well, an English welterweight Dan (The Outlaw) Hardy has been in the news lately for his stomach tattoo of six syllabled Buddhist mantra ‘OM Mani Padme Hum’, a prayer of praise for the Buddha of compassion Avalokiteshwara (Sanskrit) or Chenrezig (Tibetan) being removed from promotional materials of the bout.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is a mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in the United States.
UFC president Dana White, who had the tattoo airbrushed out of the UFC 111 fight poster because it is “anti-Chinese government stuff,” needs to do some more fact checking or just google it.
“I’m trying to get into China,” he told fans at a question-and-answer session Tuesday. “I don’t need anti-Chinese government stuff on my fighters.”
Hardy, however, says the tattoo – his favourite — is a Tibetan Buddhist prayer written in Sanskrit.
“It’s basically just like a prayer for focus,” Hardy said. “It keeps me walking the path that I should be walking without veering off and distracting myself.”
“This thing popped up and I heard that it was anti-Chinese government, so I ripped that thing off it. I’m not going to put him on a poster with anti-Chinese government writing on it when we’re trying to get into China”.
Hardy will face Canadian Georges St-Pierre for his UFC welterweight title on Saturday at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
The tattoo is the well known Buddhist mantra which has no political significance in relation to China.
A Facebook group “Boycott the UFC – Dan Hardy’s ‘Tibetan tattoo’ wiped out to please China” has sprung up following the incident.
“If the promotion needs to photoshop harmless Buddhist mantras from it’s fighters skin just to “get into China” is it really an area that needs to be expanded into? I’m sure many MMA fans will say that it’s “just a tattoo” and downplay the significance. But the real story is about much more than that. It’s either the UFC falling into knee-jerk reactions to hearsay or it’s a much more complex story of political maneuvering to appease an oppressive government and establish a new market,” Brent Brookhouse, a MMA fan writes on bloodyelbow.com.
Tibetans Buddhists believe the Dalai Lamas to be manifestation of Avalokiteshwara.
