By Joshua Molina

When is it OK to be an awful MMA fighter?

When do you want to be told that you are unathletic, can’t throw a punch and have no skill?

When do you want someone to say that you measure a 1.5 out 10 in fighting ferocity?

When you are accused of killing an unarmed teenager by shooting him in the chest.

When your name is George Zimmerman.

The accused killer of Trayvon Martin has a better chance of avoiding prison if his defense team can convince the jury that Zimmerman was a defenseless wimp who couldn’t fight and whose only choice was to shoot the teenager who was raining down blows on him.

Yes, even though Zimmerman trained in MMA, he apparently was horrible at it when the fight went to the ground.

Unfortunately, MMA is too often miscast in the public. Here it is as a factor to determine someone’s innocence or guilt in a murder trial.

What does his MMA skills have to do with this trial? There’s a perception that MMA or “ultimate fighters” are barbarians who walk around eating raw meat, ready to choke out anyone who looks at them wrong.

Thank goodness Zimmerman wasn’t good at MMA. He’d have a hard time convincing the jury that he shot Martin even though he is a MMA badass. All he would have needed to do was slap on a triangle choke from his back, right?

Of course, all MMA fighters are supposed to be feared on the street, right?

As long as MMA training is viewed as some indicator of a man’s savageness, killer instinct and overall animalistic tendencies, the sport will never get the respect it deserves.

It’s called mixed martial ARTS. Being a practioner of it, regardless of ability, should have nothing to do with the trial of a man shot an unarmed teenager in the chest during a scuffle.

MMA is much better than that.