Things are getting down and dirty in the race for Oregon's 52nd House District, where former Olympic wrestler and current professional mixed martial arts fighter Matt Lindland is running to unseat incumbent Suzanne VanOrman. The latest plot twist comes from this video clip of Lindland in the 2000 Olympic trials, when he was accused of biting his opponent's ear, Mike Tyson style:
Lindland, who didn't deny that he bit his opponent, ended up losing that match, and then winning a lawsuit against USA Wrestling, forcing a rematch, which he won. That got him on the Olympic team, where he won the silver medal. He's now a successful MMA fighter.
But now that he's running for office, that ear bite may come back to haunt him. Democrats in Oregon are attacking him over it, and coming on the heels of the attack ad his opponent ran to trash him for being an MMA fighter in the first place, this only reinforces the false notion floated by VanOrman that participating in mixed martial arts somehow makes someone a brute or a thug.
Lindland's top issue in this race seems to be keeping taxes low, and he seems to want to focus on the issues while his opponent seems to want to focus on his career as a fighter. But Lindland has only himself to blame for the fact that an eight-year-old ear bite is now in the news again.
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