Mma: The Misunderstood Sport

When people think of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), they think of great big hulking skinheads going at each other, trying to beat the crap out of one another. In fact, I would not be surprised if these people thought that UFC was the sports name. I’m not writing this to try and convert people into becoming MMA lovers or even change their opinions, I’m just trying to educate (OK, maybe trying to convert a bit).

MMA has been around for centuries, with the earliest known MMA type competitions happening in Ancient Greek times in the form of pankration. Even in modern times, MMA have been occurring all around the world; it was just not well known and had not gained international attention. This all changed with the introduction of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

Conceived in the 90s, UFC was originally meant to be a one-off competition to find the best fighting style. However, it proved to be very popular and so the UFC grew into what it has become today. Now MMA organizations can be seen all over the world and the sport itself has evolved with its popularity. Gone are the days of “no rules”. Nowadays, MMA sanctioning organizations put in place rules to ensure the safety of the fighters, yet also allows enough freedom for different martial arts to be expressed during the fight. Head butting, eye gouging, fish hooking are just some of the illegal moves that are prohibited during a fight.

So what makes MMA so good? Why should you watch it instead of other full contact sports? In fact, why watch these “bloodsports” at all?

For men, it stems from a primeval urge to display male dominance. Simply put, guys generally like to watch guys beat other guys up. For women, it is simply a display of who is the more suitable male. However, nowadays it is deemed uncultured, an activity for the uneducated. OK, so maybe many of the fans are crazy, violence loving hooligans, but there are many who are not. Using state of the art training methods and advanced kinesiology, these athletes are aiming to become the perfect specimen for unarmed combat. It is the evolution of combat sports. I found that after watching MMA, watching other single discipline combat sports seemed boring and uneventful. I find that in MMA, you can truly appreciate what a certain discipline can bring to unarmed combat.

Many people complain about the excessive violence that MMA encourages; with moves such at head kicks, ground and pound and different submissions, I’m not surprised people complain. However, these are all valid martial arts techniques. When you’re taking you 5 year old kid to taekwondo, karate or wrestling class this is kind of things that they will learn… and you know that. MMA is just taking these lessons learnt as a child, and using them in a sport. It uses the same principles as any single discipline combat sport, but because it combines them all, it seems to be more violent because so many different forms of attack can be used. I prefer to see it as more real.

I, myself, have only just started watching UFC for about a week and I can say that I am getting hooked. I have always been a sports fan but to be honest, combat sports never appealed to me. Particularly being from the UK, I never really had the chance to get easy access to any sort of MMA on TV.

Then I started watching The Ultimate Fighter season 10. I had heard that this program was an elimination program in a similar vein to that X Factor (or American Idol, if you’re from the US), but instead of singers, they’re fighters. What I found was that this program was extremely entertaining and informative. It aims to educate the viewer about the MMA (in particular, promote the UFC, who make the program), but it does not just overwhelm you with fights, stats and training. What really makes it fun is the banter between the two rival coaches, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and “Sugar” Rashad Evans. With hilarious comments coming from both parties, it’s not hard to see why Rampage was chosen to be the new B. A. Baracus on the A Team remake.

Using The Ultimate Fighter as a platform to get into MMA, it was easy to get hooked and want to see fights between the more established fighters in the UFC, Pride and other MMA organizations. And thus began my addiction with MMA.

I just hope that people don’t just dismiss MMA as a bloodsport for the uneducated people. Give it a chance and who knows, you may find yourself enjoying it too.