I like MMA in general.
The UFC has been kind of scummy for a long time because of the way they have consistently underpaid the athletes while also cutting off their other sources of making money like their individual sponsorship deals.
Its gotten much worse since the Fertitta brothers sold it. Now there’s no one to curb Dana Whites worst impulses, no one stopping him from indulging in his petty grievances with the athletes and playing favorites, I’ll include a couple of examples.
He fired lots of fighters for hitting women, Jon Jones has has at least two incidents of domestic violence and is still in good standing with the UFC.
Tom Aspinall seems like a good dude. Somehow he’s the bad guy in the eyes of the UFC for not continuing a fight after taking multiple eye pokes in a recent fight.
I like the concept of MMA as a sport. Creating a loose ruleset and encouraging people of different backgrounds to experiment is a great way to see what works and what doesn’t.
That said, I personally don’t like full-contact striking. Not in boxing, not in MMA, not in other sports. If people consent to do that, sure, have fun. But I don’t see the appeal of getting TBI to prove a point, and I don’t enjoy watching it.
There are, IMHO, ways to compete in a “close enough” fashion while reducing the risks, whether by agreeing on going light to the head and have the ruleset emphasise points for effective hits or by using equipment.
Regarding the UFC… Big US evil media company just like all the others, I guess. I wouldn’t give them my money, even before all the political mess.
I enjoy the undercard
I side-eye vocal fans of UFC like I do owners of pit bulls. I see a strong correlation between UFC fans and assholes with warped machismo. Many are delightful, but there’s an overrepresentation of not-delightful and potentially dangerous with no regard for other people. My guard is up until I know which a person is.
The most annoying part about that is those shit heads are usually casual fans who cant name more than 3 or 4 fighters. I hear you though.
My friends and I used to watch the PPVs when we were actively doing Brazilian Jujutsu. But at some point it felt like it transitioned into WWE and less about watching a really good martial arts.
The UFC is in bed with inhuman American right-wing imperialists but MMA is cool af, and perhaps the only sport my hyperactive and inattentive brain can watch without getting bored 3 mins in, lol.
Yeah I’d agree with both parts of that haha. Unfortunately most organizations have had shitty ties in the past. Whether that be to corruption, organized crime or our current president.
I appreciate the skill/technicalities of the sport and that it’s not simply two people beating each other up. However, there’s a pretty large chunk of fans that are basically toxic masculinity and incels. And the UFC organization is shitty.
I agree.
The fighters are great athletes and it can be fun to watch.
But the fans are total knobs. I’d never go to a live event nor pay the insane prices for PPV
Honestly MMA events are usually pretty chill when it comes to actual violence I believe its because the percentage of people who can actually fight in the audience is way higher than at regular sports.
The dudebro assholes can never be 100% sure if that skinny dude is there because he likes to watch fights or because he trains with one of the competitors.
I’ve seen lots of people say how bad the fans are but I’m not sure why. Other sports have riots and hooliganism. I personally have never experienced an MMA fan engage in negative group behavior like that.
I don’t know, but ever MMA fan I’ve met in real life was a douche
Huh, well thats a bummer. Sorry to hear that, I promise many of us aren’t.
I do enjoy MMA, not actively watching or anything, but it’s one of the only sports that if it’s passing on the TV somewhere I actively pay attention and have watched some matches (I find especially interesting the first UFC championships when it still was Karate vs Sumo type of thing). I’ve also trained martial arts for a good chunk of my life, so I watch those matches for the technical side of the fight. All of that being said, I have to agree with him, a good chunk of people I know who actively watch MMA are douches, there are a few exceptions, one of my best friends watches every fight, and he’s only a douche to people who deserve it, but most of the people who watch the fights with him are very douchy.
Dana White is a pile of shit, with that said. MMA is awesome.
Pretty spot on my guy.
I don’t, personally
Nice
MMA’s had a great impact on traditional martial arts. It made people think about what to do if you come across a grappler, and specifically a ground-fighting specialist. Previously, among the major TMAs only judo really thought about it. The dishonest dojos will say something like: I just won’t let them get that close. Which is BS. The more honest dojos will say something like: that’s not really our focus, but we sometimes have a visitor do a seminar on that.
Plus, didn’t it reveal taichi to be a load of bollocks? Or was that some other martial art?
It unmasked a ton of charlatans in the martial arts space.
I think it made Traditional Martial Arts dojos modulate their claims. It provided a venue of “live” instead of scripted adversaries in a variety of styles, which made it difficult for unscrupulous TMA dojos to make claims about how powerful their arts are. (i.e. you can just say “why don’t you go use it in MMA?”) Of course there’s still value in TMAs: exercise, discipline, competitions, skills like punching and falling and kicking, etc. And MMA has its limitations too, it’s just another rule-based competition, see Rory Miller’s “Meditations on Violence” for one discussion on this.
Everything this side of a real life or death fight has rules, so I don’t think people could ever test stuff without limits.
Or rather, the number of people who agree on a no rules fight is self-regulating…
Yeah, exactly. Violence is contextual. Sometimes you just want to get the drunk out of the bar. Sometimes you want to hurt someone enough to leave you alone. Sometimes you want to defeat your opponent in a fair fight. Sometimes you want to get as many people as possible and catch your enemy by surprise – but even then you may not want to kill them bc you want to “win the peace as well as the war.” Obviously no single “style” is gonna cover all of these. (and one of MMA’s contributions was to emphasize how you could mix them together.)
Good point.
It took me a while to understand why a lot of self-defence-focussed jiu-jitsu reminded me of Aikido so much, instead of more “efficient” styles.
But it makes sense for the intended purpose: you don’t want to immediately punch someone into the next time zone for being loud and pushy at the bar, or for touching you in a way they see as bold and you see as creepy. But a twisted joint communicates “do this again and it hurts more” pretty well, yet doesn’t do long-term harm or cross the line into excessive violence
The original two or three were amazing with hoyce gracie. after that. meh.
Is that a typo? Do you mean MMOs? I love World of Warcraft personally.
Never got into MMOs I’m a single player rpg boy.
No worries! When I pay MMOs, it’s pretty much single player anyway.
Runescape is an idle game with multiplayer chat, change my mind
This is the way
Then you want star wars the old Republic. Assuming it’s still a thing.
I don’t see the appeal of watching two guys beat each other up. But if it keeps them from raping and pillaging then I guess knock yourselves out.
Honestly, more people should do martial arts. Fuck, I should go and do some martial arts. It is great to release steam by “beating up” a consenting partner.
I like the JiuJitsu but there’s plenty of competition for that without the repeated concussive trauma of striking. I don’t like seeing people getting concussion for sport.
I’d agree jujitsu can be fun to watch, but really only if you know what you’re looking at. You see a punch land you know damage just occurred, the untrained eye sees a wrist/arm in the wrong place has no idea how close a sub may be. I hear you on the concussion aspect and it is an unfortunate reality of the sport. I wish more money was being spent on research into CTE and treatments.
