MMA

[jlaw]

You can't mention Martial Arts these days without it ending up about MMA and The UFC. Is it here to stay or will it eventually burn itself out?

[mikeym]

In fairness to Dana White he has done a fantastic job. The UFC has gone from being banned and ridiculed by the majority of athletic commissions to an internationally recognized sport. It is huge! Also bare in mind that they still have to get into Madison Square Garden. That will be a huge coup once they do. They have a very aggressive campaign to target most of europe this year as well.

I can see it being around for a very long time. Which imo is a good thing because I think it raises the profile of Martial Arts in general. You could even argue that the surge of interest in MMA has rejuvenated people interest in boxing.

[louise devane]

ufc is kool , a really good show and yes it is huge , everyone wants to do it !! but there is always a but !!! i dont think it will stay i do think it will fizzle out ! defo ! lots of people enquire but never stick to it .

[Deleted]

I think it has a lot of potential to grow a fair bit more, especially in Europe, but at the end of the day it's another fad and its popularity will die out. I reckon the UFC will always be around, but in 5-10 years time it'll be just like the NFL is now- Huge in America, but only to it's own group of people.
The sport itself is a good idea, but if you listen to the main UFC guys talking, most of them agree that striking is what the crowd is after. I can see either a rule change, or a change of focus to another type of fighting-perhaps the World Combat League- coming up.

[louiseod]

i reckon it will stay mainstream fo a while as its only really hitting europe now. just can't see it becoming an olympic sport just yet !!

[Donal Ryan]

It'll continue to grow as it expands in other countries, but in my opinion they need mainstream stars like Tyson or Ali were for boxing to get really huge. That means that they'll have to attract the best athletes in the world, not just in Martial Arts. What I mean is, the best athletes coming out of High schools are going into American football, basketball etc because that's where the real money is. If MMA paid the same, you'd get some of these incredibly physically gifted guys training in MMA rather than another sport, and perhaps because of their gifts becoming MMArtists like we've never seen. With the money comes the flash houses and cars and the Hollywood lifestyle, raising the profile of the stars and therefore the sport.

[philliptwyford]

I love UFC but I do think that it is slowly but surely becoming more and more regulated and watered down. I was brought up in UFC 1 onwards and there was something very real about a fighter that could be kicked in the head while down on the ground.

Use of elbows is now limited etc and I loved watching the superfights that went on for 10 mins of brutality. One to try and watch on youtube is Marco Ruas v Paul the polar bear varlens. The size difference was immense but Ruas use foot stomps and brusing leg kicks. I was always intrigued looking at the size miss matches.

What do people think of a tag team MMA event where you could tag a team mate if you were getting butchered?

[Deleted]

I wouldn't really like to see a tag team event. It'd get very complicated, it's ok for WWF(or WWE now?) where it's scripted, but to have rules on an actual full contact fight like that would be difficult. A team event would be good though, something along the same lines as WCL, where members of opposite teams are paired off to fight, that might make it interesting.

[petey]

They already do that in the US called IFL(International Fight League) and its pretty successful i think. It was all televised when i was in the states during the summer anyway. They have 5 weight divisions from 155 to 265. I thought it was more fun to watch than UFC because of the team thing but it didn't have any of the big names yet.

Peter Bryant