Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Godfathers of MMA: The Birth of An American Sport


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete and redirect to Bill Viola Jr. Bishonen &#124; talk 00:03, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Godfathers of MMA: The Birth of An American Sport

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Previously deleted (under a different title, AfD here), brought back as a draft through WP:AfC, speedy deleted, and brought to deletion review where the result was to bring back to AfD. I am acting in a strictly administrative role here, and offer no opinion on the outcome of this AfD discussion. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:21, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete again, for exactly the same reasons as last time, since this is exactly the same content. New "references" to the likes of amazon, goodreads, and the book's own page on google books don't change that a whit. —Cryptic 22:05, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete again. Non-notable book per Wikipedia's books notability guidelines. All of the reliable non-trivial sources in the article mention the book a single time in passing, usually in relation to the author (as in "Mr. Bill Viola Jr, who wrote Godfathers of MMA ..."). These references don't prove notability b/c per guidelines the book itself must be the subject of "non-trivial published works appearing in sources that are independent of the book itself." This isn't the case for all of the article's reliable, non-trivial citations. In fact, only two citations in the article are actually about the book itself, one from an obscure local lifestyle magazine and the other on the MMA Latest website. However, both of these citations are trivial, as opposed to book reviews in Publisher's Weekly, larger newspapers or magazines. Delete the article and simply mention the book in passing in Bill Viola Jr.--SouthernNights (talk) 22:24, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep I respected the consensus when this article was deleted last year and when I found more references and felt notability had increased, I recreated it and then requested publishing on AFC in good faith. These additions are the new changes I made that are improvement on last time it was discussed for notability. Last time consensus was barely there 2 persons voting and deleting article so more clear consensus should be used now with this article which is with more references. The random editor SwisterTwister who published this article clearly also thought it was notable which is why he published so that should be used in consensus. Please evaluate all references I have inserted and also all the references that were present last time. All this combined can make this notable. Identifying reliable sources noted when an established expert in the field writes something that is reliable. This book is reliable resource for wikipedia written by notable expert in the field. It is not only reliable for other articles as reference but it is also notable itself as it has received other sources on itself. Whatever wikipedia community decides, I will respect that again too but I felt notability is increased and this book article can be a useful encyclopedia entry which was accepted at AFC. If AFC and AFD will suppress each other, it will not be a very easy task to create good faith articles. MMA is a historical American sport and I think this is a major part of the wikipedia's existing categorization on MMA. Thank you. --Mietusr (talk) 06:24, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
 * More:  -Mietusr (talk) 19:54, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It should be pointed out that Mietusr is a SPA focused on Bill Viola Jr and related articles including the one under discussion here.--SouthernNights (talk) 18:51, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Selective merge/redirect to Bill Viola Jr in lieu of deletion. I agree with the "delete" participants that there is not significant coverage of the book in reliable sources. But I recommend merging material to Bill Viola Jr instead of deletion. The redirect should be retained for attribution purposes and because the book's title is a plausible search term. Cunard (talk) 07:18, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Kurykh (talk) 00:56, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * What would you merge? Bill Viola Jr already contains a more-than-adequate summary to my eye, and Special:Search/Godfathers of MMA already shows that article as the second hit after this one. —Cryptic 15:46, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

I would support merging more material from this paragraph in the article: "The book chronicles mixed martial arts a decade before the term became popular or the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was created.  It details the Toughman (boxing) vs Tough Guy (MMA) controversy and the Tough Guy Law which outlawed mixed martial arts in 1983. Godfathers of MMA: The Birth of An American Sport documents the sports early history, and legal issues with the Pennsylvania State Legislature and Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission." I support a redirect (with the history preserved under the redirect) so that the material is available for merging and the redirect can be easily undone if significant coverage in reliable sources surface in the future. Cunard (talk) 06:47, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:47, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Martial arts-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:47, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:47, 28 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete As per the original AfD.Peter Rehse (talk) 16:52, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete or Redirect There's nothing to show this merits its own article. It's a self-published book with only local coverage (and much of that is also not independent).  It's already mentioned in the Bill Viola Jr. article so a redirect doesn't seem unreasonable, although I see no reason to expand that section of the Viola Jr. article beyond what already exists. Papaursa (talk) 03:22, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete and Redirect book title to author's page Bill Viola Jr.. Despite the overstuffed sourcing, almost all of which leads to mere mentions, I can find no sources indicating or supporting the idea that this is a notable book.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:39, 30 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.