Lamentations of a common MMAn.

Following the vein of my last post, another sport I like that I often have to defend is MMA. I'm a pretty passionate MMA fan; I watch all of the UFC events, and when there's a good event from another organisation, I try really hard to find a way to watch that too. But, just like professional wrestling, uneducated detractors, with a lack of understanding, often call me out as to how I can like that cruel, unsanctioned, bloodbath.


"Mate, do you have bloodlust or something?" "Oh my god, CAGEFIGHTING? Isn't that, like, illegal?" "How can you like that? It's just violence!" This isn't a Jean Claude Van Damme film, everyone. Nobody dies (Well, there have been three fatalities that have been linked with sanctioned MMA fights, one of which has not been proven as linked to the fight in question. Read about those here.),and there are appropriate medical staff and facilities supplied, and there are specific rules and safeguards to make sure they're as safe as they can possibly be whilst trying to beat eachother unconscious or make them submit. By no means is cage fighting illegal, and there's only the New York State Athletic Commission left in the world with a market for MMA that refuses to sanction events there. So far, UFC events have been held in the US, Canada, Brazil, China, the Phillipines, Japan, South Africa, Australia, the UK, and plans are afoot to have shows all across Europe, Russia and in Indonesia and Malaysia. This is a huge, worldwide thing, general public consensus just hasn't caught up with it just yet.

I imagine images like these have something to do with it.

That is a big, big cut on the head of Diego Sanchez, and there's quite a lot of swelling too. This was caused by a huge high kick by then UFC lightweight champion BJ Penn, in the 5th and final round of their championship fight at UFC 107. The cut was deemed bad enough that the referee and doctors stopped the fight by technical knockout (TKO) because of it. That truly is a fairly brutal picture, sorry about that. The next one's no better.

This is now ultra-famous UFC Women's Bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey winning the Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight title from Meisha Tate, by way of dislocating Tate's elbow with an armbar submission (Ronda is an Olympic and World Championship medallist in Judo. She's made a career of destroying arms, sparring with men much larger than her, with them coming off worse than she does, and she looks like this. She's funny and charming and intelligent too. She's my princess.) Yes everyone, women do this sport too, so it can't be that bad, right? Fuck off. These women are tremendous athletes, and are respected as much as the male competitors in the sport are. This picture, as well as being a grotesque advert for the injuries that fighters can receive, also highlights that it's not just two gorilla-sized oafs knocking lumps out of eachother and bleeding everywhere, there is a technical side to the sport, requiring cunning and finesse to perform (and then, obviously the strength to pull someone's arm off once you get there, but you get my point).

Then there's the clothing. Goddamn that shit's awful. And yes, the last one in that sequence does feature the Death's Head symbol, front and centre. Apparently the guy who designed it just thought it was "a cool looking skull" and didn't, you know, click "visit page" on his google image search to ascertain where it came from. It's not all bad though, RVCA are a company heavily linked with MMA that produces some of the nicest clothing around (mostly designed by skaters, surfers, musicians and artists, though, so win some-lose some).

Another thing that doesn't help, is that there is a significant portion of the audience at MMA events, over the last 5-10 years, are a part of what's referred to as the "Just-Bleed Generation". These are terrible people. Moronic cavemen who boo and wail and gnash their teeth when fights aren't a constant, stand-up brawl. When there's a technical display of ground-based Judo, Jiu-Jitsu or Greco-Roman wrestling, these people lose interest, because there aren't enough snapped limbs or bloody noses in executing a half-guard pass to side control. These people are stupid and I shall talk about them no longer.

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at here, and largely coming sidetracked from, is that MMA is a perfectly safe, legitimate sport. There are rules, there are safeguards, it has a huge, worldwide following and is performed in huge arenas rather than crackden basements, and while, I suppose, it is just sanctioned violence, there's a lot more to it than that.

Again, I'm going to leave some videos at the end here to try and help people who wish to understand the things I am on about.

This is an absolutely fantastic fight for the UFC lightweight championship. On display here is wrestling, technical striking combinations, heart, passion, and both parties being right in it until the final bell. There's probably no greater advert for the sport than this.

This is kind of related to the above video, and needs to be seen to be believed. That's all I'm going to say about it.

This video has Forrest Griffin being humble and pragmatic about his loss to Anderson Silva. They call Silver 'The Spider' because when you try and crush him with your fists, his gone, and then when he attacks you, it's literally like he has 8 limbs. He made his UFC career out of making people look ridiculous when they fought him. He was too good, and too fast for everyone. Until current UFC Middleweight Champion, Chris Weidman, knocked Anderson out cold while he was clowning around, dancing and wobbling his knees. I've included this to show off the kind of ridiculous skills that exceptional fighters have, and to exhibit the humility and humanity that MMA fighters show on a regular basis.

And this is one for the Just-Bleed guys. An absolutely ridiculous brawl, nothing else really to say about it.

Hope you've all enjoyed that! Again, any comments and discussion on any avenue to contact me whatsoever is encouraged.