History & Revival of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) in Today’s Sporting World

AN OCTAGON IS BORN

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)
The UFC’s first event was held in 1993 and offered viewers a no-holds-barred (NHB) style of fighting with very few rules. Unlike today’s UFC, the first few UFC fights had no weight classes, time limits, rounds, or even mandatory safety equipment. It was literally a free-for-all. The only rules were no eye gouging, biting or fish hooks in fights that could end only through a referee stepping in, a knockout, or a submission by tapping out.

The first UFC event sold 86,000 pay-per-view purchases. By the third UFC event, the figures were up to 300,000. By the fourth and fifth fights, a time limit was introduced, as well as judges.

It is also around this time that Senator McCain in the United States introduced UFC onto his own political platform and became adamant about banning it because of the way the UFC was being introduced to the country: as a no-holds-barred anything-can-happen fight … including death. This caused the UFC to jump from state to state as states began banning it. It was practically driven underground.

The UFC didn’t make a revival until the franchise was purchased by Zuffa, a Las Vegas based media and casino management company. The president of the company at the time? None other than UFC’s beloved Dana White.

Dana White wanted to return the UFC to its former popularity. He made it his mission to bring it into the mainstream sports arena by turning the UFC into a “good, clean sport with actual rules.” In 2001, UFC returned, breaking all their past live ticket sales and pay-per-view purchase records. This new and improved UFC included time limits, rounds, weight classes, 31 fouls and eight ways to win.

The highly successful re-vamped UFC went on to introduce a reality TV show called The Ultimate Fighter, where competitors of the first season were trained by Randy Couture or Chuck Liddell in MMA and fought one another to be crowned the Ultimate Fighter. The winner would also win a UFC contract, jumpstarting their professional MMA career.

Today, the UFC is the most highly recognized and popular MMA organization. There are smaller competitors, such as Affliction and Strike Force, that also organize MMA competitions and events, and are also responsible for the increasing fan base and practitioners of MMA. Strike Force was purchased by Zuffa on March 12, 2011.