“The print newspaper is in trouble,” began the mission statement of The Faster Times (which I give the italic treatment here because it was, at heart, an online newspaper). When I saw this proclamation back in early 2009, I just nodded solemnly. I’d just been laid off by a magazine, not a newspaper, but I could see what was happening to my old buddies at the Boston Globe. The editorial staff there was about half the size it had been when I’d left less than five years earlier. So it was clear times were changing. Fast.
My Wondertime friend Kathy Whittemore was the first person I knew who joined The Faster Times, which was created by Sam Apple, a Wondertime contributor. After a bunch more ex-colleagues hopped on board, I reached out to the new venture as well — not to a parenting editor but to Mason Lerner, the sports editor. I told him he needed someone to write about the growing sport of mixed martial arts and I was his man for the job, even though most sports fans of my generation were turning up their noses at cage fighting.
Why MMA? I wanted to get back into sports and do so as a writer, and I recognized that major sports such as football and basketball already had tons of experienced writers covering them. MMA, not so much. With my Boston Globe background, I knew I could get to the top of the business fast. And I did. I wrote about MMA for The Faster Times for about a year and a half, until Sports Illustrated invited me to be its online MMA columnist. The Faster Times lasted only a few years, but it made an impact.
Jeff Wagenheim 
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