UFC The Future Of Sport

Mma and the organisation that is the ufc is the fastest growing sport in the world, its exciting, explosive and can either be a 15-25 min bout of skill and chess like moves and a well thought out game plan or can turn on a sixpence and be a devastating win out of nowhere be it by knockout technical knockout or submission.Mma has been around a while but it wasn't until Dana white and the fertitas brought the then struggling ufc brand and turned it around.They did this by deciding to create a show whereby 16 mixed martial artists would enter a house live together train together then fight for a contract to be a professional ufc fighter.At first no television company wanted to buy the rights and produce and air the show so Dana produced it and got the show made then managed to get it aired on a low rate tv channel.The show was a huge success and when the final was being fought Dana was outside selling the second series to some big producers as the final was attracting millions of viewers.what happened then was two light heavyweight fighters, Forrest Griffin and Stephen Bonner put on a display of fighting never seen before,no man would back down and the fight went back and forth for three hard fought rounds with Forrest just winning by decision.The contract went to both guys seeing as they had just put on a show that had put mma on the map.This was one of The best ufc fights ever

There are lots of mma fans who are ridiculing boxing and saying that it is a dying sport, This is just silly talk, these two sports are very different and there is space for each of them.I agree that within a couple of years mma and indeed the ufc brand in particular will be as big as boxing was in its hay day,even now top ufc events are attracting 15-20000 people attending which is as much as world title boxing matches back in the early nineties.But you are always going to have your boxing purists and the new breed that prefer the excitement and the constant struggle of lots of different styles that mma brings.Indeed i have a friend who was a huge boxing fan as well as being an active participant,he even attended boxing matches when i didn't know a single name on the card and he knew them all,I introduced him to the ufc and now all he wants to do is attend live events which we have done and train mma and especially bjj at the local gym.On the flip side i also know a couple of people that have and still are big boxing fans and when i start to mention the ufc and mma in general there eyes start to glaze over.In short there are room for both these sporting greats,in reflection one is new and exciting whereas one is old and perhaps needs updating,but they are both great.

The problem with mma and the ufc being excepted is that because in the eyes of sport it is relatively new.Not only this but to the casual viewer who has no understanding it can also seem quite vicious and violent,for people that are used to boxers being pulled apart at the slightest low blow or dirty boxing it is quite something else seeing kicks aimed at the head as well as knees, elbows and choking.This is the main point that is stalling mma breaking into the mainstream,the fact that too the unlearned it looks like two guys in a cage kicking hell out of each other,but despite all this it still is the fastest growing sport in the world.hopefully with the capture soon of the right to fight at Madison square garden in new york this will bring it further into the limelight.This is why you will also see on the ultimate fighter competitions that any fighter who steps out of line, IE partying to hard or trying to fight outside of the cage is severely punished by Dana White IE usually being kicked out of the competition.He is trying so hard to build a good reputation for the sport of mma and in my opinion is doing a pretty good job.

The faults of mma and the ufc in particular is the points system which is taken from boxing,how you can have a 10 point scoring system when there are take downs and transitions to keep in mind as well as reversals etc.A lot of the time there are really bad decisions made which you don't see a lot of in boxing.Another fault is that in the uk the ufc has not been picked up by a major television channel,it was broadcast on a cable channel called Bravo then snapped up by an Irish firm called Setanta sports who are currently looking for backing so they don't go into receivership.This sport need the backing of someone big IE Sky sports.