All Purpose UFC/MMA/That Kind Of Thing Thread

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

The UFC is a brand. Not the sport.

Mixed-Martial Arts is a new sport in the US. Well, it's now roughly 15 years old.

I could make an argument, as has been done, about it dating back to pankration and catch-wrestling. I don't think that is a completely disingenuous argument.

People tend to point the first UFC as the start of MMA. That isn't true. MMA dates back to the Vale tudos that were going on in Brazil decades ago. The first UFC was a vale-tudo event put on PPV in the US. That is exactly what it was. Vale-Tudo given an Americanised named, and put in a cage.

To quote from, “No Holds Barred: Ultimate Fighting and the Martial Arts Revolution” by Clyde Gentry.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

Mr 7134,

"To quote from, “No Holds Barred: Ultimate Fighting and the Martial Arts Revolution” by Clyde Gentry."

There's no way I can keep arguing if you're gonna start quoting the Bible on me.

YHS, etc

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

Even I got a laugh out of this. Oops, I wasn't going to post again on this thread. Oh well.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

All this thread needs now is an MMA fanboy looser to post "You think it's not a sport? Let's see you get in the cage and see how you like it!"

(Note to all MMA fanboy loosers: I think it's a sport, so don't challenge me. Plus, I'm a badass. You don't want none of this.)

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

I've covered a bunch of these events. I'm just offering observations here based on experience, so please hold off on the snarky comments if you dislike MMA:

I'm oversimplifying, but let me break it down like this: Remember 20 years ago, when it seemed like there was a karate studio in every neighborhood? With so many people across the country participating in martial arts, it was inevitable that sport martial arts competitions were going to spring up. UFC came along attempting to settle the question of which discipline was best, and in the early days, jiu-jitsu had a head start on everyone because, as documented on this thread, it already had a rich history behind it. Eventually former college wrestlers realized this was a good way to make a payday, and their participation upped the level of pure athleticism. Now it has evolved to the point the younger generation is cross-trained in everything. Along the way, the athletic commissions stepped in and set up rules and structure to try to ensure clean fights and fighter safety.

I'm not going to try to make a fan out of anyone here, but if you've been to even one major-league MMA event, you know these are top-notch athletes. They're not bar brawlers. They're former NCAA All-American wrestlers, Olympic medalist judokas, and world champion jiu-jitsu practictioners.

As for whether this is simply a fad for the young'uns or a real changing of the guard in combat sports, from my experience, a large percentage of my reader email comes from middle-aged men who were lifelong boxing fans who tell me UFC fills the big-fight void boxing used to provide but doesn't much, anymore.

Whether your publication should cover MMA depends on your market. I personally think if your newspaper still does regular boxing coverage, said coverage should be expanded to include MMA, since MMA is poaching boxing's audience. The sport is far bigger on the West Coast than the East, and I saw most of the major papers in California and the Southwest at the last big UFC show in Sacramento, including the LA Times, and most of them gave the show straight event coverage. The major events start too late to get main event results into a lot of East Coast Sunday papers. And as Inky points out, AP still doesn't provide results, despite the fact Ortiz-Liddell is expected to be the biggest-selling PPV event of any sort in 2006.

If you don't have a big event in your area, there's probably at least a feature waiting to be written on your local gym, or your local fighter.

Just my $.02.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

Before I snark just a little, that was a reasonable post, Dave. You are absolutley correct that in some markets, UFC is replacing boxing. Of course, I'd contend that it won't be long until it has all the same problems as boxing, but hey, that's another discussion.

Now, my question is this: How many other "world-class athletes" snort a gram of crank before competing?

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

How do we know athletes in other sports aren't doing the same?

And your point about falling into boxing's traps is one that journalists who follow MMA are watching closely.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

The Clyde Gentry book is by no means the bible.

I could offer a critique on it if you like. It is a good book though. It's the best book, in my opinion, available on the evolution of MMA in North America.

I quoted an extract because that extract did a good job of summarizing what I, and others, consider to to be the true birth place of MMA.

Yes, the book has a long winded title. It really does. However, that doesn't negate the point. It doesn't mean that Clyde Gentry didn't produce a very well researched book. The fact that you haven't heard of the book doesn't make it a ridiculous and easily dismissable text.

You said...

My point was that the UFC is brand and that you can trace MMA history back more than forty years.

The Clyde Gentry book isn't the only source. The history of the vale tudos is a historically fact.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

Hi. I´m the inevitable MMA fanboy, and I admit that I am guilty as charged of being totally biased. So there.

I signed up for the sole purpose of posting in this thread, which has been linked to at several MMA message boards including this one, which I frequent: http://www.sherdog.net/forums/showthread.php?t=476014&highlight=Sports+Journalists

One thing about MMA, being a sport that has risen to prominence only in the last few years, is that almost all of the information channels about it are through the internet. The internet kept the sport alive during what is commonly referred as the "dark ages" of MMA(the McCain cable ban), people would sit up late at night reading text play-by-plays written by fans watching TV broadcasts in Japan of the big shows there (where MMA has been an accepted mainstream sport/entertainment phenomenon for 15-20 years).
Oftentimes fans would not get to actually SEE the fights until months after the fact, on bootleg videos ordered through bulletin boards. That didn´t stop them following the sport. In fact I think nothing could possibly kill this sport off, short of punishment of death for watching or participating. MMA fans are both some of the most fickle(in terms of what fighters they support) and the most rabidly die-hard supporters(of the sport in general) that I have ever seen, not only in the world of sports, but life in general.

That´s one thing that really fascinates me about MMA, how polarizing it is. People either "get it" or they don´t. I suspect that will not change anytime soon. And that´s cool. Different strokes and all that.

Another thing that I think you, as sports journalists should consider is this: MMA's success or failure is wholly independent of whether you support, ignore or vilify it. You are, by and large, irrelenvant in this respect. You may be able to accelerate, or slow down it´s ascendancy, but nothing more. MMA has created it´s own channels of communication and discussion via the internet community where the exact kind of healthy, heated, and opinionated discussion that takes place through more traditional channels in other sports. And outfits like www.mmaweekly and www.sherdog.com do a FAR better job of providing up-to-date information and inside scoops on the sport than you could ever do. So the impact of the non-participation of those with negative views of MMA, which judging from this thread is the majority in your community is minimal at best. Your participation is simply not needed. It would be appreciated, but let´s face it: You are irrelevant.

MMA is a grass-roots sport, although it´s roots DO run deep into human history or even prehistory. And fitting a grass-roots sport it is backed by a grass-roots movement of fans that really do not care what the rest of the world thinks. As long as the sport stays sanctioned and not exiled from television, we will manage to convert ever-increasing numbers of fans. Will we replace boxing as the United States #1 combat sport? I don´t know. Maybe. As long as boxing keeps repeatedly shooting itself in the foot, probably yeah...but that´s not the important thing. Boxing is a part of MMA, all MMA fighters worth their salt employ boxing coaches alongside conditioning, grappling and wrestling coaches. Many also do amateur or low-level pro boxing on the side to improve their hands. Boxing is not MMA´s enemy at all. It´s MMA´s little brother in my eyes.

The more important question in my mind is this: is MMA a fad sport? Will the bubble burst and be over with in a matter of years? I think, judging from my experience as a longtime fan that has watched the struggle for mainstream acceptance of the sport since before the aforementioned cable ban is simple: No. MMA is here to stay. Why? There are a number of reasons for that, which I will attempt to explain, although all of this is anecdotal rather than empirical evidence.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

1. In this sport, passion overrides greed Even the top-level fighters are not doing this for the money. Like Chuck Liddell, current UFC light-heavyweight champion, who is a accounting graduate from Cal Poly said: "If I wasn´t getting paid I´d still be doing this on the weekends". One of the most talented MMA fighters in the world who is now finally making the millions he deserves spent the lion´s share of his career supplementing his income by doing the books for local gyms, even after he became a UFC contender. He could have easily dropped MMA for a lucrative white-collar profession. He didn´t. Without any guarantee that the time, blood and sweat he was investing in the sport would ever pay off, EVEN if he became a champion. Most of the time the "it´s not about the money" line sounds corny, but when it comes to MMA, it´s true. The athletes are drawn to this sport for far more primal reasons. Some, when asked to articulate why they do this - they can´t. It´s just something that they have to do. It´s a personal challenge that the most popular team sports of today, which occupy the lion´s share of sports coverage in the media simply cannot provide. If you have a bad day on the football field, your team may still win. You can score 40 points in a basketball game and your team will still lose. If the team isn´t doing so good, you can massage a bruised ego by blaming the ref, the defense, the coache´s play.....endless, endless excuses.

In an individual sport like MMA, and this is broadly applicaple to all combat sports, if you lose YOU failed. And if you lose in MMA, chances are you get beat down pretty bad, or forced to literally SUBMIT to your opponent´s superior technique. YOU give up or you go to sleep or break a limb. That´s a pretty intense, primal experience. One that society at large does not offer people today, be that in the workplace or the educational system, in an age where schools are banning games of tag for fear kids might get a bruise of suffer from "low self-esteem" from losing.

And it´s an experience most MMA fighters describe as absolutely exhilarating, even addictive. Doesn´t matter if you are white-collar, blue-collar, black, white, hispanic, asian or whatever. Get on the mat, or in the cage once and chances are you want to do it again, win or lose. Even if you don´t get one single dime for it. That means there will always be a diverse and passionate talent pool for MMA to draw from, even if the sport is excommunicated by the media again.

2. MMA is a sport for every-body Unlike boxing and other more specialized combat sports, which due to the restrictive nature of their rules emphasize certain physical characteristics and therefore tend to push certain people to the forefront(wrestlers are short for their weight and stocky with low centers of gravity, reach and chin are premium abilities in boxing, thai boxers tend to be wiry and tall with sharp elbows, and savate fighters generally have long legs compared to their overall height) , no matter what kind of body God gave you, if you take good care of it and come in top shape, you can find a strategy that suits you. MMA is one of the most ethnically diverse sport out there, which is kind of appropriate since it´s modern incarnation originated in Brazil, the world´s most ethnically diverse nation. The Gracie clan traces it´s roots to Scotland, although you wouldn´t know it looking at today´s family portraits.

And seeing as how competitive participation in MMA cuts across income groups(see point number 1) too, this means that at the top of the sport, the top ten rankings are not dominated by any one ethnicity or subculture. This translates into a potential public appeal that dwarfs boxing's almost exclusively black/latin participation demographics. No matter who you are, where you come from, or how much you make a year, chances are that you´ll find someone to empathize with in the cage. Someone that comes from a similar background as you do.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA


3. Ritual combat is an integral part of human behaviour Although I don´t want to get all anthropological on you, ritual combat, which all sports are really spin-offs of, is old as dirt and served an important role in most ancient societies. It´s older than christianity(which ironically outlawed the original Greek Pankration in it´s early centuries of dominance), and served to both settle disputes between individuals and as a part of mystic and spiritual traditions. Duelling to the death wasn´t outlawed in Prussia until the early 20th century. Were they not civilized? It is important that we make a clear distinction between naked violence and abuse(assaulting an unwilling opponent for whatever reason)to get what you want and a structured duel with pre-agreed upon rules. The degree of violence in not what is important(which is why I find the whole boxing vs MMA debate both sad and ridiculous), but the NATURE of it. Ritual combat fascinates us for a reason. It´s in our blood, in our DNA. And that sure doesn´t sound like a fad to me.

That MMA is taking off today is no coincidence. People in the western world are by and large increasingly disconnected from anything and everything which is real. We rarely go hungry, our work mostly has no direct bearing on our survival as we push papers and move zeroes and ones around inside a computer in exchange for money(which is basically an abstract idea too) so we can go get the things we need, or think we need. We are so pampered and protected that our major concerns revolve around not keeling over from overconsumption of luxuries before our time, and the vaguest of notions that somewhere out there terrorists want to kill us. And I think that we don´t like it.

In fact I think the majority of us KNOWS at a subconcious level that our current lifestyle is not the one human beings evolved(to all the christians that might be reading this: just ignore this paragraph) to handle. Is MMA primitive and visceral, perhaps even "barbaric"? Probably. But why is that neccesarily a bad thing? I think it´s a good thing. I think our civilization sure could use a little more barbarity and a little less decadence. Like Renzo put it so eloquently in the 60 minutes piece "A fight is the best thing a man can have in his soul".

How anyone can think something this basic, this simple and emotionally loaded phenomenon that is as old as humanity can be a fad is beyond me. I don´t know where the critics see humanity going in the next fifty years or so, but seeing how combat athletics have been around since 3.100 BCE at minimum, judging from the Beni Hassan murals, I´m willing to bet it´s not going to go THAT far.

4. MMA has appeal beyond the demographics of traditional "sports" fans Many, if not most people that I know and talk to on-line that follow MMA are by and large not interested in other sports, league tables, statistical analysis, histories of teams etc. They simply don´t care for anything other than combat sports. Sure, many do but just as many don´t. I personally never cared for or participated in any sports unless forced to by the school system until I took my first Judo lesson(inspired by watching the UFC no less). Being an intensely individual,ego-bruising 1 vs 1 sport MMA appeals to people who don´t dig the mob mentality of team sports. The rabid, illogical allegiance to "your" club or team most of my contemporaries bought into in their youths, mostly concerning soccer always seemed foolish to me as a teen. How can you support an abstract organization when all the component parts are replaceable?

I did everything humanly possible to skip gym class because all we ever did was team sports. And make no mistake, this is a readership that usually skips the sports section altogether when reading a newspaper(I know I did). How much is it worth for your employers if you put something in there that makes them not do that?

I´ve seen total geeks, kids that were put off sports for life by the jock mentality of team sports go from being shy and introverted newbies to confident, talented and absolute killers on the mat in combat sports in a way no other type of sport could possibly do. And believe me, they are flocking into the gyms. MMA is not just one of the fastest growing professional sport in the US, but it´s also one of the fastest-growing trend in the world of martial arts. People are training MMA at a lower-intensity level who have no intention of ever going pro.

MMA is slowly but surely becoming a mass participation sport, something you go and train as a much more fun and "real" alternative to hitting the treadmill or the weights for people who cannot stand the idea of doing a game of hoops or touch football. And those people will want to watch the masters of the sport, AND read about them.

Whether they do that in the mainstream papers or off their favourite MMA websites RSS feed is totally up to you. But they WILL read.

 

Re: "60 Minutes" piece on UFC/MMA

The '86 Mets say that's kids stuff.