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

THE 411 ON MIXED MARTIAL ARTS

Evolution of MMA over the last decade

Flickr by superwebdeveloper

MMA may have started out its UFC debut as a no-holds-barred, bare-knuckled fist fight, much like what we saw in the movie Fight Club; but today’s MMA has come a long way from its primitive ancestors. Today’s MMA includes rules and regulations in tournament-style events. Even the athletes are much different from those seen a decade or two ago as they continue to increase their repertoire of skills and techniques.

Since the very definition of MMA came from an all-inclusive range of martial arts, the athletes who compete in MMA today use styles that include boxing, wrestling, taekwondo, muay thai, judo, jiu-jitsu, and much more. In the beginning, Brazilian jiu-jitsu emerged as the premier style because it allowed smaller fighters to get an upper hand on their larger competitors, but it soon became a necessity in training for MMA.

Later on, MMA athletes began to cross-train with ground work, submissions and submission defence, allowing them to use this combination of techniques to win matches against those fighters that were great at submitting their opponents. Next was the introduction of ground-and-pound by MMA fighters who had wrestling backgrounds, and were great at taking their opponents down and controlling them there.

All in all, MMA has managed to continuously evolve and force its participants to enhance their skill set every time they step into the arena and face off against a new opponent.

The Political Aspect of MMA
Now that we understand the sport of MMA, the way it’s fought, its origins, and how it evolved, let’s look at what’s been going on in the news about MMA.

First, negative media has continued to plague MMA and its organizations, such as the UFC. Critics have called MMA ‘human cockfighting.’ It is often featured on the news with pictures of bloodied fighters and cages without the proper context accompanying the images.

[pullquote]The UFC itself has jumped from a $2 million valuation a decade ago to some $1.5 billion today, with pay-per-view revenues increasing from $170,000 to $200 million.[/pullquote]

Given Senator McCain’s dedication to banning MMA events from the US, today the sport is only legal in 46 of the 50 states. In Canada, it was recently legalized in Ontario, making Ontario the sixth province where MMA events can be held. Even so, the allowance of MMA events in Ontario—most notably UFC 129, which took place April 30th at the Rogers Centre in Toronto—led to an emergence of debates over the sport’s safety and the moral ramifications of allowing MMA events.